The Story of Reframes

Way back in 2002, Niki’s mom, Christy, rented a beach house at Christmas so the entire family could gather under one roof for the holidays. The day before everyone’s arrival, Christy went into the house and used holiday wrapping paper to cover framed photos of the homeowner’s family, including the large family portrait hanging over the fireplace. She stuck large bows to the frames to make them look like Christmas presents. Christy’s thinking was that she didn’t want strangers peering down on her kids and grandkids while gathered together, opening gifts and feasting on holiday goodies. It also just gave the place a more festive look. When Niki saw how her mom had used those large frames as a sort of canvas for holiday décor, she thought it was a super cool idea and determined that when she eventually had a home of her own, she’d buy re-usable fabric frame covers for her holiday decorating. At the time, she didn't mention that plan out loud to her mom — she just assumed they existed and that she could buy one when the time came.

Fast-forward fourteen years later to 2016. Niki and her family had just moved into their new home, which had a lovely walk-around fireplace where they’d hung framed art above the mantle on each side. As the holiday season drew near, she hopped online one evening to order a covering, or a wrap, or a something — she didn’t even know what to call it in her internet search — only to discover that no such thing existed. She called her mom, an interior decorator, to ask if she’d ever seen such a thing. Christy responded: “Nope, but what a great idea — someone should make and sell that!” 

Right around the same time, Niki had met and was really inspired by a young woman entrepreneur who was employing local migrant and refugee women to make designer handbags. The business emphasized people over profit, a living wage for workers, and flexible work hours for women, who do the majority of caregiving for children and aging parents and relatives. Those values aligned perfectly with Niki’s work as a teacher in the field of peace and justice studies. 

It was the perfect melding of a cool product and the inspiration for a just business model to produce it. And that, as they say, is history.

Except it wasn’t. As it turned out, designing a large fabric covering that hangs vertically on a frame or flatscreen without sagging was really hard! Talented and creative seamstresses tried to help with the prototyping, but to little avail. When Kim Hall came aboard in December 2019, things really started moving forward. Even a global pandemic couldn’t stop her. She persevered in trying new designs and mechanisms to make the Reframe work. In the summer of 2021, she was able to tweak the design, bringing the Reframe to functional and beautiful perfection.