Camo Shorts
A few years ago I had an epiphany through my healing work of wanting to change my business to focus on styling. I have been doing custom design work for over ten years and I truly love design and creating clothing but, full disclosure the last few years I was not happy anymore. It wasn’t filling my tank the way it used too. I don’t want to assume people were not grateful and this is a product of living in a fast fashion world that is today but most people don’t care about quality. It is completely normal to buy a garment knowing you will only get a few wears out of it before it starts to disintegrate.
Fast fashion really started in the 90s retailers started to create cheaply made trendy pieces they could get on the racks quickly. It then turned into chains such as H+M and Zara that had full design and manufacturing in house essentially. This really changed the game I mean they could watch a fashion show and literally create knock off designs at bargain prices in a matter of weeks. I worked at one called DEB when I was a teenager at the time I didn’t even know what fast fashion was. I do remember my mind being blown at the prices being so cheap especially when they went on clearance and then you add my employee discount - I mean! We were marking things down to clearance so quickly because we had so much new products coming into to get on the floor.
Twenty years later to see how this industry has blown up is overwhelming seeing these brands like Shein and Temu now which I have recently bombarded with are disturbing. I guess the content creator world has been a huge part in the growth of these companies. I find it personally disturbing as a designer who sews clothes, I understand first hand the work that goes into making a garment. Unless it is at a thrift store paying 5 dollars for a shirt should not be the normal.
Clothing must be sewn there is no way around that whether it is someone like me or someone in a factory sewing 100’s of pieces a day and when a skirt cost 7 dollars you can guarantee most of the profit is going to the retailer not the garment worker. The ripple effect of this practice is not good anyway you look at it human rights and the environment. In the US alone 66% of discarded clothing ends up in the landfill. The garment workers are abused and under paid pretty much the modern day equivalent of slave labor. Yes, technically they are getting paid but not a thriving wage.
I am not here to judge you or anyone who shops at these places but I do want to encourage you think about the ripple affect of shopping at these places. I understand the budget appeal if you don’t have a lot of money to spend on your wardrobe but, I know a lot of people that make good money and are able to spend more money on well made clothing and still shop at these places. Remember it is all marketing to get you to buy more and more and more of which most of it is not essential to your wardrobe. That is the insidious thing about content creators and influencers is they are really good at marketing to you without feeling like it’s marketing. They are selling you a lifestyle to get you to buy the products that most likely you don’t really need.
I remember when I was in school there was article about fabric scrap waste and it showed a factory in India and the overwhelming amount of fabric thrown away. They showed pictures from behind the factory and it looked like a fabric dump there was so much piled up it was overwhelming. It really made an impression on me and when I started my design career I saw first hand how much fabric waste that I created as one person sewing and made it my mission to repurpose as much of the scraps as possible. Which creatively was a really fun challenge to come up with ways to design things out of the scraps which was how Collar Candi was born. I started making cute accessories for dogs collars that slide right onto their collars to add a little pizazz and could easily be switched out. I think to be human is to consume but, to what degree and at what cost is the question.
I think the old model of luxury design houses needing to showing six new collections every year is quite frankly an outdated way of doing things. I mean there is so much coming down the runway so much of it starts to blend together becoming a blur. They didn’t have this when I was in school but, I love these you tube channels that post all of the runway shows. I love to be able to watch the shows and take the design and color elements from the shows and break them down into practical bite size pieces for my clients but, I must confess it has been overwhelming for me to stay on top of the collections. There are so many designers now days showing so many times per year it really starts to bleed together. During the first really bad rainstorm we had this last winter the one where it stormed for a week, I thought well this would be a good time to cozy up on the couch for a day or two with Simon and watch the spring shows. The first day I when I realized seven hours had passed and I had literally not made a big dent in the shows - Crazy!
Don’t get me wrong I love fashion design and well made clothing but, this obsession and false narrative of needing a new outfit everyday or keeping up with the trends has got to change, on average we only wear 20% of our wardrobe. It is one of the many reasons I love styling so much! There is a common misconception that when you hire a stylist that you throw everything away and go on a shopping spree which couldn’t be further from the truth. We purge the things that don’t fit, compliment your body shape, or is damaged beyond repair. Then we fill in the gaps with the essential pieces and start putting all of the different looks together. My goal is to empower as many people as I can to become their own stylist. It is just like training your muscles the more you learn and the more you practice the muscle will get stronger.