How Sustainability is Woven into the Fabric of Who We Are
Christine’s Journey as a Designer and Business Owner
Here’s the story of how Christine Alcalay came to be and how sustainability has been woven into our practices since our inception. Through Christine’s background, both working in the garment industry with her mother and her studies at the High School of Fashion Industries and Parson’s school of design, as well as internships and free positions in the fashion industry, she knew that she wanted to pursue fashion design, but she didn’t see herself designing for the companies that she and her mom worked for. She didn’t see a path paved for her in the fashion industry, so she carved out her own. She was most fascinated with retail. She wanted to get to know the women who fashion designers actually design for. She worked in retail to better understand this and to develop her skills in a different way. Then, she had the opportunity to open a little boutique in Brooklyn with a business partner who became a close friend. Her partner provided the capital and Christine put in the work of making everything from laptop covers to beaded jewelry before she decided to start making the clothes she had always dreamed about. That’s when the magic happened and she saw how a garment really transforms someone’s spirit. She made more each season and focused on custom designs. As the shop grew, so did the workload.
Christine tried to sell her clothing wholesale, but with the fashion line being pricey and unknown, it was challenging for anyone to take a chance on her brand. Taking a break from selling her collection in her shop, she focused only on wholesale, which didn’t yield great results. Later, she became the sole owner of her boutique, KIWI, and opened a menswear boutique, fig.. It wasn’t until she began investing in herself as a designer with the studio space in the back of fig. that things started to slowly shift. She soon moved out of the back room of fig. into a larger studio. It’s given her the space and solitude she had been craving to focus on her designs.
The pandemic caused her to halt all wholesale production and focus on what she was designing and why. She made masks out of remnant fabric from her collections for first responders in the first months of lockdown during the widespread PPE shortages and continued to make masks for customers throughout the course of the pandemic. Christine continued designing and producing her small batch designs with the utmost intentionality. It’s been a long journey to reach this point but we’ve only just begun!
Designing and Manufacturing Garments in New York City
We’d also like to give you some background on how small-scale high quality fashion brands manufacture in the US like we do, and how we function from the design of a garment to the finished product. Some of our customers ask why our garments are at such a high price point. It’s easy for our conception of the value of clothing to become warped when so much labor is outsourced and the majority of manufacturing is done overseas. We’d like to pose a different question—why are some garments so inexpensive? And at whose expense? Garment workers who make textiles and fabrics or who manufacture clothes overseas are not compensated fairly, often having to work in terrible conditions. This is not just a problem in fashion, but in all industries where skilled hands are needed. The U.S. educational system fails to acknowledge and address the trade worker shortage. Skilled trades have taken a backseat to higher education; thus, the opportunity for Americans to learn a skilled vocation is disappearing.
Our clothes are at a higher price point because every skilled laborer and creative involved in the chain of production is paid a more fair wage for their skill and artistry than you would see within a mass produced fashion line. It is also more costly to be a sustainable brand; although, it is more than worth it. Our fabrics are sourced from small, sustainable, and usually organic mills in Japan, Italy, and Korea. We use this fabric in a multitude of ways. When we have extra fabric, we even do a recut of styles and make a small run. Small swatches are used in gifting packages at KIWI and fig.. We’ve made lavender sachets, scrunchies, and face masks. Most of the buttons that we use are dead-stock from companies getting rid of their end goods. Christine despises waste. After the designs are finalized and the materials are acquired, we gauge the production based on demand and offer the chance to pre-order for the new collection. The small factories in New York City where we manufacture our clothes have low minimums of twenty to thirty pieces, but sometimes they make an exception because we have developed a great rapport with them. Sometimes we produce one piece that is one of a kind or we produce thirty to forty pieces of a garment, depending on the demand. Christine has worked with larger retailers in the past, producing hundreds of garments at cost. She hated that process, decided to go small, and never looked back.
