Today we’re really excited to introduce one of the fabulous new stores Smock is working with in Hong Kong in our new Smock Store Spotlight feature. Julie Sung is the proprietor of Six Chancery Lane, the exclusive location of Smock’s letterpress wedding invitations in Hong Kong, and she happily shared some incredible insight and a look into her fabulous shop. Six Chancery Lane is a unique shop devoted to Julie’s handmade soaps and her love for letterpress, a combination we find especially fun.

Julie grew up in Taiwan, but spent many years in the U.S. when she was younger, having just recently moved to Hong Kong about five years ago. Her background includes experience in the media industry, in both television and movies, but her passion has always been design and creating things that are handmade. Julie shares, “I think I have found my calling with Six Chancery Lane – wonderful, thoughtful, handmade products and great designs just make me happy. I get so much satisfaction out of creating beautiful stationery for my clients or seeing them appreciate a beautifully packaged bar of our handmade soap.”

We were so intrigued by the concept of Six Chancery Lane as a soap and letterpress boutique that we just had to know more about Julie’s inspiration behind her lovely store…

Six Chancery Lane really is a reflection of who I am and what I love, bringing together my two passions – handmade soaps and letterpress – and combining it with a desire to share products that are unique, handcrafted, not mass-produced, environmentally-friendly, and beautiful, with people who care about the same things. Originally, I started making soaps myself when I couldn’t find anything suitable for my sensitive skin in retail stores. I immediately fell in love with the craft of soapmaking, ultimately spending countless hours in my kitchen researching, testing new recipes and improving upon existing ones, until I finally had to find more space! Our soaps are all made in-house at Six Chancery Lane from the very best ingredients and then individually wrapped in beautiful paper I have personally sourced from around the world. I fell in love with letterpress when I was planning my own wedding and discovered, to my dismay, that I could not find letterpress in Hong Kong. I decided to learn all I could about letterpress, through research and taking classes in the U.S. Through Six Chancery Lane, I have finally have a venue to bring beautiful letterpress cards and stationery to discerning brides and customers in Hong Kong.

And we just had to know…
If you could describe your personality in letterpress, which Smock invitation would you be and why?
I would have to choose “Haddington” in black and raspberry ink with a raspberry Champlain liner. It is simple, clean, and subtle; classic yet contemporary at the same time. The splash of bright color on a black and white background stands out without trying too hard.

What are some fun traditions typical of Hong Kong weddings that you enjoy?
An interesting tradition for Hong Kong weddings is something known as “Door Games”. On the day of the wedding, the groom accompanied by his groomsmen, must go pick up the bride at her home. But before he can get in the door to see his bride for the first time, he must pass a series of test and tasks presented to them by the bridesmaids who are guarding the door. The “games” include quizzing the groom on facts about his future wife and other physical and embarrassing deeds. The bridesmaids can be pretty creative with what they demand the guys to do. It’s always a lot of fun and laughs. Of course, I enjoy this tradition, because I’m on the serving end and not the receiving!

What’s your top pick destination for first time travelers to Hong Kong?
Hong Kong is such a dynamic city. It really is a blend of East and West. There is so much to do, but if you could only do one thing, I would recommend taking in the breathtaking view of the city on Victoria Peak. Hong Kong has some of the best architecture in the world, and when the city is lit up at night, there really isn’t anything else in the world that really compares.

Where are your favorite places to shop?
I love to browse small, distinctive, local shops in SoHo, Hong Kong. There are a lot of great boutiques selling everything from trendy clothes to antique jewelry. I also love night markets in Taipei. You can find all sorts of wonderful things for amazingly low prices.  Not to mention there is a lot of delicious street food for you to sample. Oh, and I can spend hours on Etsy.

Why did you feel compelled to bring Smock’s signature bamboo letterpress to the people of Hong Kong?
Well, first of all, the designs are amazing. So clean and classy, yet very modern. Also, I love the fact that Smock is so eco-friendly. A lot of times people think things that are environmental means you have to sacrifice on quality or looks, but Smock proves that that’s not the case. And basically because letterpress from Smock is about the most beautiful I’ve seen and I just want to share that with people in Hong Kong.

Thank you so much, Julie, for sharing a glimpse into what Six Chancery Lane is all about! We love knowing more about the great places where Smock is featured and hope you’ll make Six Chancery Lane one of your stops if you’re ever in Hong Kong. This is just the first of several Smock Store Spotlight features to come and we can’t wait to share more of the great shops where you can find Smock across the globe!

We’re all for color this season, but we absolutely fell in love with this letterpress wedding invitation design that celebrates all that is good and beautiful about neutrals. This invitation is based on our Haddington design — the invitation is letterpressed in espresso ink with an elegant blind deboss palm tree at the top. All of our pocket folios are custom, so we can add whatever patterns & ink colors you’d like to the folio exterior and interior. With this invitation, we left the the folio exterior unprinted, which means the focus is all about the warmth of the bamboo paper. The interior of the folio features the champlain pattern in a gentle sand ink. Pair that with a lined envelope that mirrors the interior of the folio (champlain pattern, sand ink) — and you have an invitation that is pure sophisticated pleasure and harmony. Sent to us by our ever creative friends at JAM/Mindy Weiss in Los Angeles.

The Rhon has been such a fun letterpress wedding invitation design to customize – we’ve printed it in blues, hot pinks, grays, and greens, and it’s made an awesome letterpress Bat Mitzvah invitation too (see all the Rhon customizations here). But we loved this idea of printing the Rhon design as a 1 color invitation (and horizontal too – cool!). All of our 2 color designs can be printed as 1 color to help keep costs down and keep the look elegantly streamlined. And our reply cards, or any of our pieces, are fully customizable to fit as much text as you need. This letterpress invitation was sent to us by our friends at Write For You in Washington DC.

Smock is in the news! In the Washington Post: Laura Weatherly, founder of Engaging Affairs, a Washington D.C. wedding planning company, named Smock as one of her favorite eco-friendly invitation lines. The Washington Post calls Smock a way to “save the date (and the planet)”. Read the full article here.
The Ladies Home Journal featured Smock’s 100% post-consumer recycled gift wrap (the Veranda design) as a way to organize your life. You can use our gift wrap to wrap gifts of course, or cover wooden magazine holders with our gift wrap patterns. Cool idea!

Also, Daily Candy describes Smock as “adorable letterpress greeting cards and invites printed on sustainable bamboo paper” in the Weekend Guide of Daily Candy.

Here’s a great customization of our Rhon letterpress wedding invitation (check out the original Rhon here). The inks are a cool pewter and sky blue (pewter is such a great color to letterpress in!), and the san serif font really gives the invitation a modern elegance.

What a great idea to print the letterpress invitation in two terrific colors, and then letterpress the reply card in a single color. This keeps costs down and keep the invitation very, very special. This invitation was sent to us by our friends at the Write Image in Rockville, Maryland.

Want to see other Rhon customizations? Check out the Rhon save the date letterpressed in pewter (a perfect color!) and raspberry; a Rhon letterpress Bat Mitzvah invitation; the Rhon wedding invitation in pewter and grass; and the Rhon letterpress invitation in a custom neutral ink + eggplant. Rhon continues to be one of our best selling letterpress invitation designs this year!

We had to hold ourselves back from posting hundreds of photographs of this Vettore letterpress wedding invitation. Since we custom make each of our pocket folios, clients can choose whatever patterns and ink colors they want on the interior and exterior. So check out this awesome, drop-dead gorgeous folio in spring and pearl inks (interior pattern is clairveaux, the exterior pattern is a custom pattern inspired by the Vettore illustrations). Oh we are totally in love! Sent to us by our friends at Salutations in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Our Rhon letterpress wedding invitations have a beautiful full-page spread in the February/March 2009 issue of Modern Bride!

In a story about wedding favors inspired by nature, the Spring/Summer 2009 issue of Town & Country features our Kurai cherry blossom letterpress donation tags — an elegant and eco idea for a wedding favor. You make a donation to a cause you care about, then put this sweet little card at each guest’s place setting explaining a donation has been made in their honor to this charity. See a larger pic of the donation card here.

We love the sophisticated play of patterning going on in this letterpress wedding invitation for a cool December wedding. This was a custom design based on several of Smock’s wedding patterns. The folio interior is the Rowe pattern in taupe, and the folio exterior is the Virielles pattern in sea mist (with our custom folios, you can choose any of our inks and any of our patterns for the interior and exterior). The invitation is letterpressed in taupe and sea mist, two hard-core classic and elegant inks. Sent to us by our friends at Real Card Company.

This Vettore letterpress wedding invitation came to us from RSVP Today in NYC. Pearl + espresso letterpress inks make for such a sophisticated color palette — perfect for a spring wedding! The Vettore is such a romantic design in these colors…

We have a feeling gold is going to be the big color in the world of 2009 letterpress wedding invitations. Not a gaudy old-fashioned over the top gold of course, but an elegant, pretty, sophisticated, modern gold. We love our Lashar design letterpressed in gold + black (with the invitations, reply cards, and place cards backed in a cool flood of raspberry). Both the invitation envelopes and the reply card envelopes are lined with our Marev pattern in gold. Wow.