I started Libertine as a school project. It was an avenue to explore freely and creatively while in design school working on projects that had more stress attached to them. Libertine became a creative refuge, an open garden to grow and explore. I really didn’t expect it would take over and become my driving passion.

In the beginning I did some searching for the legal availability of the name but not internationally. I still fully intended on finding a job as a designer somewhere and Libertine was just meant to be an exploration.

Flash forward a number of years and a retailer receives a cease and desist that the Libertine name was in violation of their trademark and I woke up abruptly to realities of legal protection. I was frightened and jolted into securing the name.

The first step was to find out that we would be almost certainly unable to trademark our beloved Libertine name . I was crushed and felt totally adrift. I then began to work on renaming the whole business and after some time I filed with a new name I really loved. A name that felt like a true evolution of the business and myself and after 16 months of waiting that name too was totally shot down ( We are still appealing). The whole process had caused me to freeze up. It felt like I couldn’t do anything, invest myself into anything before getting past this fear.

But then I began working on and imaging the new branding while waiting for the trademark. Feeling the lightness of creation helped remind me that I why Libertine (For now?) exists. The ability to tell stories and build worlds in a soft, carefree why is why this brand still exists and I am so excited to be doing this.

So here we are… letting the work that saved me from creative gridlock sit for another year or more while filing again didn’t feel right. Legally we are still very much adrift and changes may come in the future but the new look, the feeling of the brand is here to stay and feels so perfect. What I feel the past few years have shown me is that there is no way to be perfectly secure before getting to the work that fulfills you. Creativity grows in the space you give it. Sometimes that space changes, time, money, health, legal constraints may change the look of the garden plot but that doesn’t mean your ideas should not be planted. So I have planted these seeds. After working on this for so long I am growing a strange garden in the plot I have available to me now. These new bottles are the fruits and I invite you to come sit in the sun and enjoy it all.