Creative South: Alice and Pearl

This Creative South article on Savannah maker of retro kitchen accessories for children and parents Alice and Pearl originally appeared in the Summer 2018 issue of Paprika Southern. To see more from this issue including sustainable road trip tips, Palm Springs-inspired summer fashion, a studio visit with artist Lisa D. Watson, and much more, order a copy of the back issue. You can also become a Paprika Southern subscriber so you don’t miss a thing.

Alice and Pearl

Retro Kitchen Accessories for Children and Parents

Written by Bevin Valentine Jalbert / Photographed by Siobhan Egan

Becky Prescott’s handmade business is infused with a vintage aesthetic that also reverberates throughout her appealingly curated home and personal style. The business is Alice and Pearl and Becky, the Savannah, GA-based sole proprietor, makes retro-inspired kitchen accessories for adults and children.

The aprons, oven mitts, potholders, and, the newest addition to her line, baby bibs ("baprons," as she calls them) are all completely handmade by Becky, using retro-inspired and vintage reproduction fabrics she sources far and wide. The printed patterns are lively, featuring motifs ranging from lemons to rotary phones to astronauts.

When Becky started Alice and Pearl, named after her grandmother and her husband’s grandmother, in 2013, after ten years spent in the food television world, kitchen accessories seemed a natural place to begin. As a child, she had imagined having her own store, and she always wanted to hand-make goods. Owning her own handmade business offers her the best of both those worlds.

When she first started the business, Becky tried a variety of things before focusing in on a retro aesthetic.

“Once I started to narrow it down and realized that was where I should be headed, everything really opened up, and now my whole thing is retro,” she says.

Becky even has a retro camper she takes to craft fairs and pop-up shops that she uses as a backdrop to sell her wares. She credits the evolution of her business to the realization that her brand needed to be authentically her own, gaining a wider following via social media, and the “help and support of small businesses here locally.” Alice and Pearl’s first retailer was a now-closed kitchen shop in downtown Savannah, where Becky also had her first pop-up shops, and she makes all the aprons for the employees at Savannah’s popular Back in the Day Bakery.

A challenge presented by the retro prints has been representation. While selling at an event, she was approached by an African-American girl wanting an apron, and realized her inventory did not include any prints that featured people of color.

“That really spoke to me that I need to think about that and search for more options. So recently my newest search has been trying to find any kind of fabric that felt retro and had people of color.”

Part of the philosophy behind the goods is the idea of parent-child bonding. Her young daughter inspired her to begin making children’s aprons and play oven mitts, an idea that evolved into matching parent-child sets. The sets encourage children to get excited about being included in the kitchen, and the children’s items have grown into a best-seller.

“I love the idea of a kid cooking with their parent…It’s a teaching thing, but when they’re having so much fun, they don’t even realize they’re being taught in the moment,” she says.