METRO visits Currie Lee's Sanlitun boutique, home to timeless accessories with an eco-conscious business model

A customer tries on various items in Dim Sum of All Things Asian in Sanlitun. Zou Hong / China Daily

For Currie Lee and her brand, Dim Sum of All Things Asian (D-SATA), which opened a shop in Sanlitun last July, handmade means literally hands-on.

"I work with cottage industries," said Lee, a 32-year-old Beijing lawyer-turned-fashionista. "With factories where the workers are usually underpaid and are children, the quality of workmanship is also not very good. And because usually I'll just need a few pieces made at a time, my orders at a factory would be way too small.

"There are a lot of great cottage industries run by women," she added. "There's one in the Philippines that is really good. For one piece they dyed something 13 times to figure out the right color."

A varied and colorful selection of handbags are available at Dim Sum of All Things Asian. Zou Hong / China Daily

Following a move to Beijing, subsequent trips around Asia with her husband exposed Lee to the possibility of being able to use the skins of animals, including snakes and frogs that were consumed locally.

Lee struck deals with snake farms in Thailand and frog farms in Vietnam and makes regular trips to buy the skins herself.

Lee calls the philosophy behind what she does "slow fashion," which she explains as promoting well-made pieces that are of good quality, and more importantly, seasonless.

"You know, I don't go by seasons. Things shouldn't be bought and then thrown away after one season's use," she said.

"Everything's recycled in its own way," is how Lee describes her pieces, which incorporate everything from pen shells (her answer to using tortoise shell, which comes from an endangered species) to discarded zippers.

Lee's advice for both the fashionable as well as the fashionably lost is simple-wear neutral tones and black. Let the accessories do the talking, she said.

"It's probably from years of being a lawyer," she said. "I just can't wear uncomfortable clothes, so I usually dress simply, like in jeans and a black turtleneck. But that's why my accessories are loud."

As a thoughtful added touch, the jewelry comes packaged not in a box, but in a dim sum basket.

Lee believes her affinity for high-style accessories began when she wore recycled Chanel as a little girl.

"My mom and my grandma would take their old Chanel suits and make them into jumpers for me," Lee recalled.

"So it wasn't real Chanel exactly, but the quality was there. I know that it affected my perspective. From a very early age I learned to appreciate well-crafted pieces."

While working in New York City as a lawyer, she began making her own purses and jewelry because more often than not pieces she wanted to buy were either branded with enormous logos or were too expensive.

"Then my girlfriends began placing orders for pieces and it all sort of went from there," she said.