How designer Megan Campagnolo turns food, emojis and Leonardo DiCaprio’s face into bratty lapel pins

Ryerson fashion grad Megan Campagnolo (left, with assistant creative director Alexandra Auger) has been stitching clothes in her Chinatown studio for three years, but it wasn’t until she designed two nickel-plated enamel pins in 2014—a cup of coffee and matching slice of pie—that her brand blew up. She started a whole line of cute, kitschy lapel pins ($8) and felt patches (from $8), drawing inspiration from cult movies, 1970s Girl Scout memorabilia and emoji:

Campagnolo always has a character in mind when she’s dreaming up ideas. “My customer is a mischievous 1970s brat,” she says. Recent designs include a baby-faced Leonardo DiCaprio, a pack of Rizzo-worthy pink cigarettes and a bottle of Chanel No. 5:

Campagnolo uses this Brother PR655 embroidery machine to craft most of her patches. She creates an original design in Illustrator, transfers it to a USB and opens it on the machine:

After she selects the thread colours, the machine stitches the design onto a piece of felt. Rosehound Apparel’s stuff is sold in Tokyo, London and Los Angeles, as well as Toronto boutiques like Philistine.

rosehoundapparel.com