This spring I stumbled across Kadia’s Bows on Instagram and fell in love with their wonderful and beautifully made accessories. This year more than ever, we have had the time to not only enjoy our style and self-care but invest in those pieces that transform an outfit or brighten one’s day. This brand is independent and female-owned with such a passion for quality, skill and beauty that this shines through in the handicraft of the accessories.
So when I won a competition on Instagram to have a handcrafted bow made for me by Kate, the owner of Kadia’s Bows, I knew I had to share not only the depth and care that goes into this process but also the quality of the materials used.
Kadia Bow’s & CO. was started by lovely Katie Komar. She grew up with the ladies of her family all using their hands to make beautiful things, from knitting to sewing. With this creativity surrounding her childhood, it is no wonder that she grew up to appreciate their skills. Now after wearing their designs, she creates and wears her very own.
The idea to create Kadia Bows & Co. came to Kate while attending the Dior exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. After seeing the garments painstakingly created by the Dior atelier, Kate started to ruminate on her own brand that would bring the quality of couture at an accessible price. After all, the glow of happiness that comes from buying something so luxurious and just for you shouldn’t just be for those who can afford it!
And since November 2020 that’s what Kadia Bows & Co has done. Using her years of experience working in retail management Kate has created a line of accessories, using quality materials to create bows as hair accessories to chokers and broaches.
My very own bow was handcrafted in the founder’s studio in Newcastle Upon Tyne. To make my bespoke bow, I communicated with Kate about everything from the length of my accessory to the colour of the English Berisfords fabric, the monogram letters, French barrettes, pearls were sewn on and the Swarovski crystals. By the end of the day, I had worked with Kate to design a bow exclusively for me with no other in the world like it. A bespoke bow indeed!
You can find a version of my bow here!
As we get closer to the Christmas season, Kadia Bow’s and Co always springs to mind for a gift that is like no other. Made with the finest Berisfords fabrics and French barrettes, any of the accessories are gifts that will last you many a special occasion. My bow came on my birthday in a beautiful box filled with tissue paper, already ready for gifting. So as you can see, companies like these are ventures close to my heart, as well as supporting a small British business you are taking home a bespoke piece to last you for life!
If you’d like a custom piece made for you or a gift for a loved one, click here!
A little History of Bows and Hair Accessories
The bows and hair accessories we like to adorn ourselves with have been part of human civilisation since we lived in caves. Cave paintings and Pre-historic man’s artefacts show that both men and women wore hair accessories. This could have been for keeping the hair back, but also aesthetic and perhaps hierarchal reasons. While they would have not been the silks and satins of today, but rather natural materials, we can see a shadow of our bows within our ancestors’ daily lives.
These accessories were continued on into different cultures, from the Roman’s and Greeks whose noblewomen wrapped their hair in gold threads and expensive fabrics to the Byzantine empresses who must have made noise wherever they walked from the ropes of pearls swinging in their hair, we have always used these items as mementoes of how fashionable we are and how noble, according to history.
The Georgian’s and Rocco period in France was where women and men used both their hair and fashion to cement their places in court and within courtly gossip. Bows of rich satin and gleaming silk were all the range and placed anywhere from on the head to on every inch of an outfit possible. The style of jewellery also changed as ropes of pearls were wrapped around the neck and fixed with bows.
The Victorians and Edwardians also had a flair for their accessories. The Victorian’s style varied throughout the nearly seven decades of Queen Victoria’s reign, from simple middle partings with a spray of curls on the side, to elaborate piles of waves full of baubles. Their accessories were bejewelled combs, hats, bonnets with bows and bows twisted in their curls.
The pompadour (named after Madame de Pompadour the chief mistress of Louis XV in the mid-1700s) was the key style of the Edwardians, where the hair was sculptured into a feathery and luxurious wave above the forehead. On the top often rested a large and colourful hat, with bows of course! bows in the hair were more often worn by teenagers, but Black was the most common colour, while Velvet was a popular material for ribbon, as was taffeta and tulle.
After the roaring twenties, fashions changed and changed again with bows, bonnets, and curls all circulating throughout fashion, until now where we can choose what we wear to symbolise us and our own unique sense of styles.
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