Buy PDX: Finding Inspiration with Laurs Kemp

Portland designer Laurs Kemp has no shortage of inspiration for the one-of-a-kind vintage pieces she creates in the West End's new Backtalk store, where she took up residency in June. At her production space—just a table in the back of the store that's completely open to the browsing public—she makes pieces influenced by silhouettes of New York fashion in the '80s, the movie Girlfriends and self-taught landscape painter Joseph E. Yoakum.

She's open to just about anything. "I still feel like I'm just figuring things out all the time," Kemp says. "like an eternal novice.”  

WWeek 2015

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