Leslie Roeder
RISD MID ’02 [Industrial Design]
After running Flights o’ Fancy, her own fashion design company, for over a decade, Leslie Roeder transitioned into product design in the late 1990s. The New York-based designer now creates everything from home furnishings to jewelry display modules, working for companies such as Jansport, Me & Ro and NorthFace. Her work for Vy & Elle, an environmentally conscious company in Menasha, WI, has inspired a new interest in sustainable design as she explores viable uses for the company’s billboard vinyl, bought by the ton from distributors who strip it off old signs. “Vinyl is not biodegradable and will sit in a landfill forever,“ she laments. But that’s all the more reason the style-conscious designer likes the idea of recycling it into such functional fashion as DJ and yoga bags.