Cyberoptix Tie Lab

February 27, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Work of Local Detroit Designer to Appear on The Martha Stewart Show: Highlights of Etsy.com

Local Detroit designer Bethany Shorb (aka Toybreaker) is to be featured on The Martha Stewart Show on Friday, February 29th on WXYZ Channel 7. The segment can also be seen at primetime on Fine Living Network Monday, March 3 at 8pm and midnight Eastern Time. The show features movers and shakers as well as everyday people who've accomplished extraordinary things. This entire segment of The Martha Stewart Show highlights the best of Etsy.com, touted as "Your place to buy and sell all things handmade." Shorb's men's accessory line, "The Cyberoptix TieLab" is featured along with the work of fifteen other successful independent designers also part of Etsy.com.

Conceived in early 2005, Etsy is an online marketplace for buying and selling all things handmade. It was built for consumers conscious of the true value of handmade goods and their creators, as well as to give all independent artists the technology and information they need to make a living, making things. Etsy's intention is to offer viable alternatives to mass-produced objects in the world marketplace, and to encourage consumers to be aware of the social and environmental implications of their purchases.

Formally trained in sculpture and photography but now focusing on product-based work full-time, Shorb received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2001 and BFA from Boston University in 1998. She founded the TieLab in 2006 after noticing a void in creative yet sophisticated neckwear. Based in the Eastern Market area of Detroit, Shorb designs and hand-screnprints each necktie, selling both to individual clients and filling wholesale accounts to shops across Metro Detroit and nearly 100 boutiques and museum stores across five continents. Her studio currently occupies a portion of the top-floor of an old furniture factory and will soon be expanding to an over 3000 square foot space on a neighboring floor.

Shorb runs her stand-alone web store, The Cyberoptix TieLab (http://cyberoptix.com) in tandem with her Etsy shop (toybreaker.etsy.com). "The Etsy shop has been a great boon to my business," says Shorb, "it has introduced a much broader customer base than I was unable to reach before. Etsy also supports a strong sense of community among both buyers and sellers - we are all able to collectively learn more about our art and good business practices." Brooklyn-based Etsy now has 48 full-time employees, approximately 650,000 registered users, 60,000 of whom are individual artists selling more than 950,000 of their handmade creations.

Echoing the core environmental and socially conscious values of Etsy, Cyberoptix strongly believes that a designer's ethics need not inform nor limit the look of the object. "There is always a more reasonable alternative to the historically toxic trade of screen printing - these alternative processes can also perform better on fine fabrics. It may not be as financially viable in the short run, but the long-term effects on workers' health and our surroundings are invaluable," says Shorb. Cyberoptix is committed to being a solvent-free shop and only use nontoxic, water-based ink, a practice uncommon especially in high-volume workshops.

Selections from the Cyberoptix TieLab can be found locally at Naka in Ferndale; The Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit; Design 99 in Hamtramck, and The Store at Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills.