Women in Weed

It seems to me that many of the most creative cannabis ventures in my home town of Portland are run by women. I was pleased, then, to be asked by an editor at Conde Nast Traveler, UK to write this story on the female entrepreneurs who are rebranding cannabis businesses. (Think chic lifestyle boutiques rather than the bro culture that's so often been associated with this intoxicating plant.)  

 

This article was first published in the June 2019 issue of Traveller magazine

 

Walk into Ladies of Paradise on Portland’s Division Street, and you’ll first be struck by the vintage fashion, the mid-century-modern, gold-chrome shelving and all the pink – from the walls to the cat-eye sunglasses. It might take you a few beats to realise that the hanging black sweatshirt is emblazoned with ‘Keep Blazing, Stay Amazing’; that the green, ceramic objets d’art are actually smoking pipes; that the facial serum is made with CBD oil; or that the gold triangle necklace doubles as a roach clip. As it turns out, this expression of fierce, retro femininity is cannabis-themed. 

Ladies of Paradise is a creative agency and shop, founded by stylist Jade Daniels and photographer Harlee Case (both pictured above) around the tenets of ‘women, weed, fashion’. Its Instagram – all candy colours and punky thrift-store glamour – has more than 40,000 followers, and its party-hard events, with themes such as Moroccan Nights or Cowboys vs Aliens, are big draws, taking place in Portland, Denver and Los Angeles. As well as helping to market mostly female-made cannabis products for other brands, the company has now launched its own, including Lady Jays, a line of strain-specific pre-rolled joints that come in Miami Vice-style pink-and-green boxes.

 ‘We wanted to bring some fun and creativity to the smoking lifestyle,’ says Case, who right now has purple-streaked blonde hair. ‘Everything we do is very extra; we want people to dress up and be themselves, and to mix cannabis with art, fashion and pop culture.’

She and Daniels met in Southern Oregon, when Case was running an online vintage shop and shot Daniels’s jewellery for its website. They bonded over their love of weed and eclectic, era-bending fashion, and soon found themselves photographing female cannabis growers in ball gowns. Things have developed quickly since they moved to Portland a few years ago, with Ladies of Paradise hiring a graphic designer, social-media editor and project manager. In 2018 the female-focused, smoker-themed store opened, and many of the items for sale are made by locals. ‘Our aim is to uplift people who are doing awesome things, and to get rid of stigmas,’ says Case.

Ladies of Paradise isn’t alone in what Case calls ‘this wild weed culture that’s driven by women who all really support each other’. As Portland becomes the USA's progressive cannabis-lifestyle capital, a diverse set of ladies have created everything from Aesop-like dispensaries to a Kinfolk-style magazine and a business course for female CEOs. They meet up in loft spaces and yoga classes, as high on get-up-and-go as they are on locavore marionberry gummies.

One of the scene’s pioneers is Cambria Benson Noecker, brand director at cannabis company Groundworks Industries. Noecker, who has a pomeranian-chihuahua mix called Gucci, was the driving force behind two of the state’s coolest dispensaries, Serra and Electric Lettuce. When designing Serra in 2014, she was adamant that she ‘didn’t want that tie-dyed Bob Marley vibe.’

Instead, her team created two airy, apothecary-inspired concept stores, one of which has a plant wall and a neon-blue sign that reads ‘Quality Drugs’. Little buds from high-grade Oregon growers such as East Fork Cultivars are presented worshipfully in glass cabinets, which also house an obsessively curated selection of paraphernalia, including Stonedware’s geometric porcelain pipes, designed by local artist Ariel Zimman, and Leif Goods organic CBD chocolate bars. The next outpost will open in LA.

 

Another figure who has defined Portland’s new feminine-cannabis aesthetic is Anja Charbonneau, the former Kinfolk creative director who launched female-staffed, visually lush Broccoli magazine in 2017 (broccoli is slang for weed). ‘Most of the existing publications were male and news-oriented,’ says Charbonneau. ‘We wanted something deeper that stimulates the senses.’ The first issue’s beautifully spare cover story was on Japanese ikebana flower arranging, but with cannabis plants; stories since have touched on everything from smoking etiquette to reproductive health for users. Next, it will hold a three-day festival called In Bloom at Portland’s sceney Jupiter Next Hotel.

 

 

 

Meanwhile, in the city’s Chinatown, The Commune is a brick-walled, Brooklyn-ish office and gathering space devoted to weed culture. Founder Amy Margolis, a high-flying lawyer, is also behind The Initiative, a business boot camp for women who want to launch cannabis-related businesses. Graduates include Yvonne Perez Emerson of Make & Mary, which produces CBD skincare and aromatherapy inhalers, and Meryl Montgomery and Valarie Sakota, founders of chic Barbari, a lifestyle brand and shop (Montgomery is also the partnerships manager at Broccoli).

Events are a big part of the scene. Everyone goes to bars such as Rontoms, with its fire pit and stage, and the Escape Bar and Grill, a queer, female-owned joint with karaoke and games. But the real fun is DIY, largely because pre-legalisation smokers got good at putting on house parties. Take Make & Mary’s Emerson, who hosts yoga sessions and workshops in her hangar-like Tillamook Station studio. There is a BYOW (bring-your-own-weed) policy, and meet-ups have included hemp-flower arranging, pipe decorating and abstract-art classes. Tokeativity is even more ambitious: the global ladies’ cannabis club, which started in Portland, now has chapters in Seattle and South Africa. Founders Lisa Snyder, a women’s rights activist, and artist Samantha Montanaro, also came through The Initiative, and facilitate regular functions, from Alice in Wonderland-themed parties to meetings for mothers. The early get-togethers often took place at Montanaro’s home: for the Witchy Woman social in 2017, rooms hosted tarot readings, mala-bracelet crafts and a spooky photobooth, where Case took the photographs.

What none of them are doing is lying on the sofa watching Cheech and Chong videos. ‘People used to say to me: how do you get anything done?’ says Case. ‘But that’s changing. No one would look at this bunch of women doing amazing things in Portland and call us lazy.