fashion loves people

Sometimes it’s incredible how things come together.

Five years ago, I started this blog, promoting brands that respect people and the environment.

Two years ago, I wrote a post about FashionABLE, a for-benefit company that sells scarves woven by women in Africa.

Also two years ago I first attended Alt, a mind-blowingly fantastic blogging conference in Salt Lake City, which opened my eyes to a world of opportunity. Several months ago I was asked to speak at this year’s conference.

A month ago, I was excited to see FashionABLE (in partnership with ONE) hosting a scarf design contest for Alt. So I knew I had to submit a few designs…

And last Friday, I WON!

That’s me with my winning scarf above. Isn’t it beautiful?

This is SO incredibly special to me. I am humbled.

FashionABLE is a for-benefit company hero of mine, and Alt Summit is a conference of 600 of the best-of-the-best blogger heroes of mine. FashionABLE prototyped the best designs they’d received, woven by their team in Africa, and Alt asked everyone at the conference to vote for their favorite of four top designs. I had no idea in advance that mine would even be included.

My scarf design will come out for Mother’s Day in May. (Extra special that I’m a mother myself now, too.) With every scarf sold, FashionABLE is able to create sustainable business for women in Africa.

To Barrett from FashionABLE, Jeannine from ONE, Gabby from Design Mom, everyone at Alt… THANK YOU!

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My design submission. In the sample scarf, I like the reverse, and the effect created by anchoring the threads, even better. I’ve never done anything like textile design before, but from my account days at a design studio, I’m familiar with providing specs to printers. 

The design challenge asked for geometric designs that could be created on a loom. This made me think of the historic geometric patterns I love, seen everywhere from Native American to Middle Eastern designs. I image searched “kilim” for inspiration. 

Some explorations and my other submissions. 

I found out later that they prototyped a second design of mine as well! Fingers crossed that this will go into production, too. 

It’s kind of staggering to see a design from my imagination turned into a garment I can wear. And oh how I can’t wait to wear it — both scarves are one-off samples, so I had to give them back, just savoring them with iPhone snapshots. I’ll keep you posted on when it’s available!