Pat Areias has presented fashionable belts and adornments to Carmel for decades.

Learning another language can open up all kinds of doors for the future. For Pat Areias, other languages were fascinating to her from a young age.

She took Spanish all through high school. A classmate handed her a brochure to study abroad in Guadalajara during her senior year. She showed her father, and the two boarded a plane for the first time in their lives, and that’s where she fell in love. But not just with Mexico – with sterling silver.

Her time in Mexico would eventually unlock a lifelong passion in a fashion industry niche. After studying Portuguese and Spanish cultures, arts and languages at UC Santa Barbara, a stint in the Peace Corps and eventually meeting her husband from Mexico City, Federico Sanchez, she became a designer with a signature and a business owner with a concept centered around customization, now based in Carmel.

Areias has been creating belts with handmade buckles fashioned out of sterling silver for decades, all of her design.

Weekly: What drew you to working with sterling silver?

Areias: I had married a man from Mexico City and we were living in Cuernavaca, which is not too far from Tasco – a main silver-producing area in Mexico. There are even silver mines there. There are silversmiths in Cuernavaca. I started working with a silversmith and I was also buying some merchandise in Tasco, but I quickly realized that doing something more unique like belt buckles was going to be more successful.

So why belts and buckles?

I used to get Bazaar and Vogue magazines and you were seeing a lot of sterling buckles. There was a well-known designer in New York in department stores like Bergdorf Goodman who used to sell his buckles and bags for like $2,000.

There was a very famous photo of Raquel Welch in a leotard using one of his designs with this big black alligator strap and a big alligator buckle, and it was like $2,500. This was 40 years ago. I said, “If she can sell belt buckles for $2,500, I bet I can sell them for like $400-$500.” So I just started designing.

Are all these buckles your own designs?

Yes, of course influenced by different eras and different ideas. Hearts, for example – I didn’t invent the heart, but I did a lot with the design.

You can see a lot of our designs use balls and half-balls too. We’re kind of famous for that because they’re not that easy to make. You have to cut the half ball and then solder it to the other half.

Most jewelry in the U.S. is said to be handmade, but it’s not handmade. It’s cast. [Shows a design with 1-inch half-balls.] These are handmade. So you have your half-ball and then you solder bezels – and we work with a lapidary who sets stones in it. It’s a very laborious process. Nobody ever did this design before me.

How did you get started selling your designs?

We were in Mexico and I started developing a line of buckles and jewelry. I realized that where I needed to sell them was in the United States. So I started coming home – my mother was living in Carmel – and I started going around to retailers and selling my things.

One of the first shows that we did was the Los Angeles Gift Show in the 1980s. And then we started going to the trade shows in New York, and one lady from a store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills came to our booth and we sold to her. And then we started becoming successful selling to different specialty stores all across the United States.

After doing the trade shows, we decided to rent a storefront at 966 Madison Ave. in New York City. We were there for 22 years. We left during Covid when the city closed down.

Do belts ever go out of style?

Not really. There was a period where Kate Moss would model a slip dress in that waif kind of way. And buyers in New York would say, “Pat, we’re just not doing that many belts.”

But people would come to Carmel and stay in hotels and realize that I lived here and look for a retail outfit.

Have you sold your belts to any celebrities?

Oh yes, over the years. Ringo Starr and Elle Macpherson. Particularly in New York and [in Carmel].

PAT AREIAS is located at the corner San Carlos Street and 7th Avenue in Carmel. 626-8668, patareias.com.