In just a few years in Los Angeles, Celine Benz has become something of a Malibu institution. From a studio along the Pacific Coast Highway and a coveted spot inside Fred Segal’s ivy-draped Malibu Country Mart outpost, she has quietly turned witty phrases and the faces of beloved pets into must-have adornments on luxury sweatsuits and designer handbags.
Her big break came after she started embroidering bags for an American fashion label. From there, word spread fast, and a roster of Hollywood names embraced her work under the name C.Bonz. Her timing was uncanny: her playful, personalized embroidery took off right as 2020 sparked a nationwide surge in both sweatpants and pet adoration.
From illustration to embroidery
Benz grew up with an entrepreneur father, so the pull toward running her own business was there early. After finishing school, she bounced through illustration work and a string of business ideas, hunting for the one that would stick. C.Bonz, founded in 2017, turned out to be it.
It was not an overnight win. She was working relentlessly in those early years, she says, but “a lot of people didn’t give me the time of day in the beginning.” Custom embroidery took a while to catch on. The turning point came when she opened with Fred Segal in Malibu and could feel the interest building. Then 2020 hit. Suddenly everyone was home in cozy sweats, craving something uplifting and personal. A sweatshirt stitched with your pet’s face was exactly that. “It was a comfort to have your pet so close,” she says.
Pets on Goyard, mushrooms, and Ukrainian flags
Armed with a state-of-the-art embroidery machine, Benz began offering a whimsical range of custom work: rainbow lettering, curvy mushrooms, Ukrainian flags developed in collaboration with an actress, and, of course, dead-ringer pet portraits.
The luxury handbag commissions started with a now-famous request. Her first bag client asked her to embroider a portrait of two pet chickens onto a designer tote. After one of the chickens passed away, the bag came back so Benz could add a small, touching “RIP” tribute. From there, the celebrity clientele grew largely through Malibu word of mouth. “It’s a small community,” she says.
A two-month collaboration with a fashion brand became a breakout moment. The CEO had first wandered into Fred Segal for a custom T-shirt, then called a year later to talk about working together. “Their whole company is obsessed with pets,” Benz says. “They even have a Halloween costume competition for their pets.” She simplified her style to fit the brand, and the sweatshirts sold out on the very first day. Two years later, the partnership is still going.
The dogs behind the designer
Benz’s own pets are woven through her life as much as her work. These days she shares her home with two Brussels Griffons, Sanchez and Lou, and her days revolve around the tides, beach walks, and, somehow, a Burger of the Month club.
The pack came together gradually. Years ago, living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Benz had a tiny Chihuahua named Vida who would go on to live to 19. Long obsessed with Brussels Griffons, Benz searched for a Griffon-Chihuahua mix and found Sanchez in a hoarding situation, a frightened little dog originally named Black Bear because he hid under everything. “Now he’s the coolest guy ever,” she says. Sanchez is 10.
Lou, only six months old, arrived because the household always had two dogs. After Vida passed, Benz and her fiancé decided Sanchez needed a buddy, and Lou came home the same day they met her. The introductions were a process. Benz jokingly called Sanchez “Sarge” for how thoroughly he schooled the new puppy, but he also taught her plenty. His favorite thing in the world is the beach, and when he is there, the once-timid Lou turns into “queen of the world.”
There is real tenderness underneath the comedy. When Vida passed away, Sanchez fell into a depression and stopped eating his usual raw food, which he had always shared with her. The family coaxed him through it with burgers for a long stretch before he was ready to eat normally again. “He has his pack back,” Benz says.
A craft built on love
The throughline in everything Benz makes is affection: for pets, for the people who adore them, and for the small joy of carrying something personal with you. Her next project is fittingly sweet. She recently received matching denim vests for Sanchez and Lou and plans to embroider each dog with the other’s face, finished with the phrase “Best Bitches.”
It is the kind of detail that explains why her work resonates. In a world of mass-produced everything, a stitched portrait of the animal you love most feels like a small act of devotion. You can find C.Bonz online and at Fred Segal Malibu.
Why pet-face fashion caught fire when it did
Benz’s timing was not luck, and it is worth naming what she caught, because it explains why a niche embroidery craft turned into celebrity handbag commissions almost overnight. The custom pet-product market has been one of the fastest-growing corners of an already booming pet economy. Americans spent roughly 152 billion dollars on their pets in 2024, and the sharpest growth has come not in the basics but in the extras: personalized goods, apparel, and the kind of sentimental, one-of-a-kind objects that treat an animal like family rather than a possession. The global market for custom pet products alone was worth about 5.5 billion dollars in 2024 and is forecast to nearly double by the early 2030s.
Personalization sits at the center of that shift, and it pulls hardest on exactly the demographic, younger millennial and Gen Z pet parents, who drove the 2020 adoption wave. A dead-ringer portrait of your own dog, stitched by hand onto something you actually wear, is personalization at its most emotional. Benz did not invent the desire. She just built a craft precise enough to satisfy it, and did it in the one window when the whole country was home, in sweatpants, and more attached to their animals than ever.
That is the quiet business lesson underneath the beanie and the beach walks. The most durable pet brands are not selling supplies. They are selling the feeling of keeping something you love a little closer, and a stitched face on a sweatshirt is about as close as a picture can get.
References
- American Pet Products Association. “U.S. Pet Industry Spending Figures and Future Outlook.” https://americanpetproducts.org/industry-trends-and-stats
- Future Data Stats. “Custom Pet Products Market Size & Industry Growth.” https://www.futuredatastats.com/custom-pet-products-market
