Notes from the Underground
Anna Korte of AK Vintage, me and Gretchen Jones of Mothlove meeting face to face for the first time during NYC Market Week
I just got back from selling at D&A during New York City’s Market Week and am tired. Like, I can’t get out of bed, don’t want to talk to another designer or buyer dry-heaving in the toilet tired.
It wasn’t because I spent the past week enclosed in a 10×10 space presenting clothing lines to legions of stuffy buyers or entertaining press and new friends over cocktails, it was because sometimes eco-fashion sucks the ever-living life out of me.
So much is there to consider all the time but Market Week, oh man.
From the designer’s manufacturing, amazing new ideas and business plans desperately being shoved down my throat over dinner to the buyers wondering how the heck they can sell this “organic crap” that scares their customers, I get to see and hear it from all sides.
Take note, we all choose our paths but sometimes the weight of it all is crippling when you compare it to how much easier non-eco designers have it (you know, not having to consider the planet and all). And I had to stare at many of them for four days.
I love designers – even have a t-shirt that says it – and true, there’s always the inherent design process that takes skill and a muse, but not designing sustainably has its perks (cheaper to source, easier to sell price point wise, not freaking out customers). Yet I still can’t believe all designers aren’t trying to do something sustainable.
Blah, blah, blah.
In a perfect world, I would wave a magic wand over the designer’s head and whisper three times “Your business now thrives,” and they’d gaily skip away clad in U.S. grown organic cotton and hemp silks to Dylan’s “The Times they Are A’Changin”.
Buyers would just know that educating their customers about what they put on their bodies was par for the course. Shoppers would consider their purchases and be more invested in the person who designed for them and know that by buying a simple coat this fall, they are also doing such virtuous deeds like helping an organic farmer through another season, putting food on the table of a local seamstress, allowing a designer to sleep peacefully through a night and enabling a boutique that does care the ability to buy consciously for another season.
Still, it’s hard to create progress.
After all, Marshall’s is having a fall incentive sale! So, another time we’ll do it, but not today.
But maybe, just maybe, we will begin to consider something else next time there’s a craving for boots or a pretty cardigan or even a new wireless bra. Maybe we’ll step outside the box to consider more than that purchase; prioritizing the dedication (or lack of it) involved in the process.
Me? I’m bound by it.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
Loomstate to Debut Collection for Target
XHello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic. Zac & Zoe for Payless,
Penny Pinching in the Park
XHello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic. Yikes. Fashion writers all over
Denim Hemming and Mark Liu, the Zero Waste Designer
XHello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic. I was helping my friend
D&A Show Greens Up
XHello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic. I wear many hats. One
|
Bookmark |
9 Comments
September 28th, 2009 at 8:35 am
Hey, you, rest up and get back out in the trenches. Sounds like your needed.
September 28th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
I sure do love my Amy Dufault. And as always, she hits the nail on the head. As an eco-designer who has been doing this for a loooong time, I still haven’t reached the point where I’ve been able to say this is more than a labor of love. I have an epiphany at least once a year (usually right after I spend a few days in Jamaica in December with my boyfriend’s band – the only real vacation I am able to take) where I decide the life has been sucked out of me for the final time and that life is about enjoying yourself and existing on level where you’re not consumed by work. And every single time, a few weeks go by, and I ignore my epiphany and am back where I started, desperately trying to find a way to make this (eco-fashion) really work in an industry where it just doesn’t seem to fit in. Like Amy, I am bound to this. Whether or not the industry or the world will finally take real notice that this isn’t a trend, or that those of us it in for the right reasons will really start to make solid livings off of it, remains to be seen. But somehow the long hours, paycheck-to-paycheck living, and snubbing from certain top industry ‘it people’ just can’t seem to scare us away from continuing to put everything we have into this concept of eco-fashion. I just can’t seem to turn away from this goal I’ve had for so long. My mama taught me to do the right thing, and to work to change the world, no matter how hard it is. Whether this was a blessing or a curse, I just can’t convince myself to let go of the dream.
September 28th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Dreams, desires and GUTS, that’s what your made of AMY DUFAULT.
Keep your battery charged, people appreciate what you do and who you are.
September 29th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
You are a braver woman than I! Anymore I find myself cowering behind my laptop from the comfort of my office – waiting to hear from the courageous people who dare to work the front (ie: you). I can no longer put my life into the upheaval that is market week… cheers to you for fighting the good fight!
September 29th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Thanks all!
If I didn’t like doing it I wouldn’t.
September 29th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Here’s to persevering, as we designers, and all of those we employ to help us lift off, know it’s a rocky road, but every once in a while, it can be fabulous.
September 29th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
you’re tired ?! it never showed amy. thanks for all the wonderful support in ny – it was one of the best experiences i’ve had as a designer meeting everyone and so much of it was because of you.
xoxoxox
ursula
September 30th, 2009 at 6:26 am
Ah, truly didn’t write this for all the kudos.
In fact, you’re making my ego swell to new heights so knock it off
Go designers go!!
September 30th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Don’t worry the message is getting out. I was happily surprised when my 14 year old only wanted to do his back to school clothes shopping at a local store where they sold clothing made from organic cotton and hemp. He was perfectly happy to get a few less things that he felt really good about. “THe times they are a changing”
Welcome! The comment box is all yours to say what you like. Just make sure you use a real name, not a site or company, so you don't get sent to the spam bin. (That makes us sad.)