As a designer, Jennifer Paganelli finds inspiration in everything. Sis Boom™, her one-of-a-kind vintage products company, is the inspiration distilled from several lives: her youth in the Great Lakes region of the US, her adolescence spent in the vibrant Caribbean, her college years in traditional New England, followed by career-building in the clamor of New York City. Today, she and her company are located in leafy rolling countryside of the Northeast. It’s here where she takes a breath and gets to work everyday.
“I try to design gifts and items that help us share memories with those we love. My designs are rooted in the things I handled as a child,” says Jennifer. “The materials I choose, whether a vintage ornament or a simple cutout, elicit a memory from everyone who sees them,” she continues. “I love it when people call it ‘eye candy’ because that’s how I feel about it –it fills you right up.” Sis Boom’s fans include all kinds of people, from celebrities to traditional “crafty types” to Folk Art collectors. In fact, for several years running, Paganelli’s designs have been placed in the American Folk Art Museum lobby glass cases.
The Sis Boom Collection, its name adopted from her childhood nickname given to her by her twin brother, defies easy categorization. With unusual artistry and a love of texture and a blend of vivid colors, Jennifer uses tag sales, flea markets and European sources as a starting point to create her art.
Jennifer’s connection to all things vintage, including fabrics, forms the basis of her textile work. She clearly identifies with their strong, saturated and lively color and seeks to incorporate these elements into her “Girlfriends” line, her first for Free Spirit.
Sis Boom has been seen all over the world and featured in magazines such as Country Living, Ladies Home Journal, Real Simple, Better Homes and Gardens and many others. Jennifer can always be reached through her website and welcomes you to step into her world of shared memories at http://jenniferpaganelli.typepad.com/
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Sis Boom Philosophy
If someone asked Jennifer Paganelli if she was more inclined to tear down and destruct or restore and modernize, she’d say the latter. She’s applied that grand rule to everything she touches, including the caretakers cottage she and her husband bought two decades ago and converted into a rambling farmhouse for their two children. When the work was completed, the highest compliment they received was in the kind words of one grateful Connecticut neighbor. He said the rehabilitated and expanded house “looked new and at the same time, like it’s always been there.”
Now apply that to everything she has done in her career as Sis Boom’s chief designer and you’ll understand the aesthetic completely. Jennifer’s never been into softly shifting color coordination. There’s plenty of that everywhere you look in the world. She wanted something different. More of a mash up that makes you think, dream and take risks! She’s looking for color warping, shape shifting experiences for her customers that have been described as offbeat and eclectic combinations that are like an over-caffeinated and charged up version of real life.
This has permitted her to take vintage fabrics from around the US and Europe and use color influences from the Caribbean and other southern hemispheres to infuse the patterns of more northern climes. She abides by no rules in her design exploration but when the workshop goes quiet, and the design desk light is turned off what she’s left is characteristically her look created consciously. And not. She invites all of her friends and fans with a creative bent to do the same. “Always honor your sense of design and don’t ever be afraid to mix pattern and color. Then invite friends over and spread the love!”
