Hidden Holiday Gem: Savorii is About Savoring Local Resources

The Swampscott company Savorii stitches the overlooked to the under-appreciated to create usefulness — even hope.

It draws on ideas and people found nearby, people who breathe life into repurposed materials including leather, canvas and burlap.

In the end, Savorii makes practical and stylish products including waterproof hats and leather satchels, cases, covers and bags. It creates fashion and jewelry and art.

Savorii is the brainchild of teacher and resident Pat Gorham.

You won’t find a physical store called Savorii but the company’s products are available online and in two area shops.

Gorham designs prototypes in her Swampscott basement, which, for her, is a natural place to design and create.

She grew up tinkering with products and ideas in her grandfather’s basement in Buffalo, New York.

He was an inventor and used discarded materials from nearby factories to make products in his spare time, she said.

“We were green back before green was in style,” she said.

She remembers making Persian rugs and table runners.

Today, Savorii makes nautical bags, clutches, purses and satchels such as the Boston Symphony leather satchel.

Swampscott High School drama teacher James Pearse designed the slung bag.

It’s supple, stylish and heavy duty, and good for carrying notebooks or a 14-inch laptop.

The product is handmade by one of the last Lynn leather-goods makers, Frank O’Donnell.

O’Donnell, 77, learned the business in his father’s Lynn slipper factory, which he eventually took over after his father retired in the early 1960s.

Today he employs several of the last leather workers in a city that once employed thousand of leather workers.

He says Gorham comes into his basement leather shop with a design and asks if he can stitch the product together.

Her products combine ingenuity with simplicity and are useful.

“Not real fancy,” he said.

And he and the workers are grateful for the work.

Other native Savorii craftsmen include a Swampscott glass blower and jewelry maker.

Gorham and Fred Smith of Swampscott are working on a plan to provide work opportunities for homeless people.

Smith is the program director at St. Francis House in Boston, a shelter and rehabilitation center for homeless people.

Many of his clients have great potential, he says, but because of addiction, mental illness or prison time, many of them face rough prospects finding work.

Savorii and opportunities like it offer a chance for some of these people to strike out on their own and become as productive as they see fit, Smith said.

“It’s seems a natural fit for what she is doing and we are doing,” he said of the Savorii/St. Francis connection.

Gorham and Smith met through his children. He adopted two children with diverse learning styles, he said.

One of his sons had Pat for his life skills class, he said.

Pat Gorham sees a connection between inventing and teaching students who have different learning styles, potential and needs.

“It's about having a vision and seeing the potential - in products and in people,” she said. 

Savorii offers a chance to draw on local resources and satisfy local needs.

“I’ve always (wanted) to have this chance to savor our local resources,” she said.

Savorii's products are available at www.savorii.com