Personalized gifts are so well-received and special because they celebrate a connection. Buying your own personalized gift allows you to get exactly what you want and share a bit of who you are with everyone you meet. They can be excellent conversation starters when they are as unique as the sweaters from Le Lion.

Recently I met the lovely Laura Gelfand, founder of Le Lion, at The Poole Shop in Charlotte. Laura graduated from The Parsons School of Design, worked for Ralph Lauren and became the Director of Sales for Figue (another favorite designer of mine). About 6 months ago, she decided to use her talent and fashion experience to begin designing her own brand of beautiful sweaters.   The sweaters come in gorgeous colors, in classic silhouettes and are made from soft, fine merino wool. Then comes the fun part. Using carefully selected yarns, finer that human hair, that are washed, combed, dyed and spun, Le Lion sweaters become uniquely yours with hand-designed and hand-embroidered monograms. These are not your standard 3-letter, choose-your-font monograms. They are custom designed and embellished.

Laura takes it to another level by allowing you to honor your pet in a tasteful, personalized, fun way. So you can guess what I wanted on MY sweater. I celebrated my beloved Miu, who went heaven at age 18.

Laura asked me to email a photo of Miu, a fluffy Maine Coon. Le Lion artists did a stylized rendering, hand-embroidered it, and added Miu’s name in a way that looked like Miu would sign, if her paws could have held a pen. It makes me smile every time I wear it…sometimes with jeans, other times with a skirt. I can even take this casual sweater up a notch by wearing it with my Libertine jacket.

Do something for yourself that is uniquely yours. Celebrate YOU and the things you love. Le Lion lets us do that.

Tell Me: Do you have an item of clothing that you wear to honor a loved one?