Designer Lisa Fortin has been creating jewelry and accessories from within New York City's most progressive neighborhoods for nearly 10 years. She recently relocated from the burgeoning art community of Bushwick to Williamsburg, Brooklyn's well-established heart of music, art, and fashion.

Steel Couture is what happens when rigid metals are manipulated to create soft and feminine shapes. Each piece reflects Lisa's innovative styling, intricate attention to detail, and rock-n-roll aesthetic. Distinctive findings keep her work fresh and unique.

Lisa got her start in 1997 designing costumes made from chainmail, the intricately woven armor traditionally used on medieval battlefields. Shakespearean actors, fire dancers, and aspiring rock stars have all donned Lisa's custom costumes.

A dedicated artisan and entrepreneur, Lisa began exploring other mediums that are similar to chainmail in their construction, such as knitting, crocheting, and braiding with wire and chain. Her first jewelry was designed with the intention of making her work more accessible. The premier Steel Couture collection developed an immediate following and was carried in fashionable boutiques around New York.

In subsequent years, Steel Couture was featured in Daily Candy, Lucky, and Nylon, and the line is now distributed at boutiques nationwide. Brooklyn's creative fashion scene and industrial surroundings serve as constant inspiration. The current Steel Couture collection expands on what Lisa does best: hand assembled repetitions of rings and chain with an edgy, trendsetting vision.

In the summer of 2007, Lisa and her husband, a watchmaker, opened a storefront in the heart of Williamsburg, where watches are serviced and emerging designers are debuted. They live behind the shop in a garden apartment with their toddling daughter, Clara Fae.