Back in Vermont, Bernie’s mittens good for business
Jayne Webb, owner of Encore Designer Consignment, sews a mitten with a style similar to the pair U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, wore at the presidential inauguration last week. (Gareth Henderson Photo)
Bernie mittens. Those two words took the internet by storm when U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders was seen at the presidential inauguration donning his Vermont-made mittens crafted from recycled sweaters.
Jen Ellis, the school teacher in Essex, Vermont, who made Sanders’ mittens, got a series of media interviews, and people have churned out hilarious memes right through the weekend. But it hasn’t only been good for a laugh; it’s also been good for business, and Jayne Webb knows that all too well.
Webb, the owner and curator of Encore Designer Consignment, runs the downtown Woodstock shop with her husband, Dan. She sews mittens using recycled wool and cashmere sweaters and a pattern similar to the one the famous Vermont senator wore, and customers have noticed. Starting on Thursday, orders for mittens flooded her website, even causing her site’s purchasing software to crash at one point (it was back up in 10 minutes).
That was a first. Here’s another one Webb shared on Saturday.
“I woke up this morning and sold all the pairs I had just made yesterday,” Webb said. “That’s never happened.”
She’s thrilled that it did, too. Before last week, Webb was in the midst of a tough January, following a holiday season that brought fewer out-of-state shoppers into the store. A number of the people who have come in are second-home owners who have been living here since March due to the pandemic. Overall, Webb found a lot of people were just browsing to get out of the house, not necessarily to shop. After New Year’s weekend, visitor traffic disappeared within days — more quickly than usual. With all that, the sudden surge of sales for her Tweed River Farm Mittens brand has been a life-saver.
“It couldn’t have come at a better time,” Webb said.
On Saturday, Webb had a bunch of mitten palms pre-cut for sewing and some brand-new fleece ready for the inside liners. She sometimes sews in the store when traffic is slow, using a Singer Featherweight made in 1949.
“The original Singer Featherweight my grandmother had in 1937 is what I use at home, day in and day out,” she said.
Webb said “the older the better” when it comes to sewing machines, adding older models are more durable and more convenient.
“I can take it apart and clean it and put it back together,” she said. “There’s no computer, like some of the new ones today.”
Webb, who lives in Pittsfield, Vermont, has owned the Encore shop since 2012, and started making mittens a couple of years ago. Making mittens was the plan for Sunday, as the orders have just kept coming. At this point, the Bernie mittens craze is showing no sign of stopping.
— Gareth Henderson
Encore Designer Consignment is open Sunday and Monday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Tuesday and Thursday, 1 to 5 p.m.; and Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Wednesday. For more information, visit encoredesignerconsignment.com or email info@encoredesignerconsignment.com .
Jayne Webb displays one of the mitten pairs in her shop, Encore Designer Consignment, in Woodstock, Vermont. (Gareth Henderson Photo)
