Farewell 2017 and Hello 2018: the Year of Civic Engagement & Empowerment

I have worked in the apparel industry for 5+ years, first at Under Armour and now at prAna, which is owned by Columbia Sportswear. My career has been largely based in supply chain and traveling to the factories where our clothes are made. I have had the unique opportunity to see firsthand how to connect the dots within the complex supply chains from which our apparel products are made and this has been my biggest takeaway to date: the responsibility to protect and promote human rights and the environment is a voluntary practice and not obligatory for companies nor regulatory. The corporations that make our clothing have sustainability initiatives that are either based off of 1) a risk based approach 2) a core business and value creating force usually driven from the top down or 3) a customer driven demand. 

There is very little external facing visibility and transparency in the apparel industry’s supply chain and that is why I teamed up with my fellow sustainability fashionistas, Kestrel Jenkins of Conscious Chatter (a podcast I highly recommend!) and Charlie Reed, who just wrapped up her masters at Oxford on the apparel industry and who is Califia Farms new sustainability manager, to host a screening of The True Cost by Andrew Morgan with the goal of educating and informing our local community and igniting a spark to ask where our clothes come from and who was impacted. 

Now if we are friends and you are reading this and you have not yet seen The True Cost, shame, shame, shame. (That’s right, I straight up Game of Thrones called you out.) And if you are just a LinkedIn connection of mine on here, please, please add it to your must watch list for 2018. The documentary took Andrew and his colleagues 3+ years to make and encompasses all of the most important information about the apparel industry into a 90 minute video. It’s on Netflix, Amazon, iTunes and available for purchase. 

Warning, be prepared to do a clean sweep of your closet post-doc and scoff the next time you see a promotional ad to buy more shit. But wait! Please don’t go for the trash bin… approximately 20% of our current landfill consists of apparel. If you are curious on how to extend the life cycle of your garment once you’re through with it… check out Fashion Revolution’s buying hierarchy (apologies to Maslow) or send me a note on here and I can point you in the right direction. *Disclaimer, I will also probably chat with you about the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals too!

Done adding The True Cost to your queue of movies? Well, alright, we shall proceed. We watched the documentary as a group of 40+ people and it was amazing to feel the energy in the crowd and the impact of the film. We partnered up with a like-minded local, Jessica Waite, from Wrench & Rodent/Whet Noodle/Pickled Ginger, who graciously let us use her space to host a screening and feed our guests yummy vegan tacos. Their tacos consist of caramelized banana peels that they collect from the nearby smoothie shop, Banana Dang, to promote the zero waste comparisons between food and fashion. 

We decided to host it in Oceanside, CA (where I currently reside). I have found Oceanside to be one of the most entrepreneurial, honest, hard-working and amazing communities that I have lived in to date (and I have lived in 10+ different places (3 of them outside the US) since 1989!) The notion around supporting your local community isn’t a nice-to-have in O'side; it’s a way of doing business. That’s why I felt like it was imperative to start sharing my knowledge of clothing with the people that I interact with every day. 

We were also able to team up with Frank & Jon from Golden Coast Mead to provide cups of their delicious mead made with fermented honey = their product illustrates the future in drinking by promoting the move away from mono crops like wine and beer. 

We invited local businesses and hands down one of the coolest things that came from this was the opportunity to connect in person with familiar and new businesses in North County. It gave us the chance to connect with people that we were always curious about or were inspired by. Who knew that Oceanside had its very own environmental journalist who runs a bomb candle shop called Terralite that makes coconut wax candles? (p.s. the citrus spice is my personal favorite!) 

After it ended, Kes & her beau, Drew McGill, put together a rad 3 minute clip featuring people in Oceanside who are not only local but also sustainable. What happened next was truly inspiring and empowering. We spent over an hour conversing as a group on how we could be a part of the change and be conscientious of the impact that our clothes have on people and the planet. The dialogue that we had at the end and the energy that pulsed through my veins felt like we were a scene out of Wonder Woman or some other blockbuster hit when the main character finally gets their strength back and takes on the bad guys. Needless to say, the intensity was palpable. People were thirsty for more. Our event had started at 630p that night and I didn’t get home till midnight!   

Tired, relieved the event went off without a hitch and proud to give back something that I am passionate about to my local community, I polished off the rest of a bottle of Lechuza Chardonnay from the Valle that I had opened to celebrate and closed my eyes. All said and done, the event was truly magical. And not just the event. The preparation and lead-up to the event, the conversations that it created and the opportunity to connect with one another. 

I don’t know about you but 2017 was a doozy, folks. Between threats of a North Korean war, Trump’s tweets, terrorist attacks, police brutality, racial injustices, mass shootings, #metoo and more… I’m ready for a change. I’m ready to not separate my personal and professional beliefs but to take a stand in my community for what I believe in and partner with others to live a life that treats others kindly and respects (not trashes) our earth - while still creating a space to be financially profitable and caring for family and friends. 

It’s funny, since doing this event, I have shared the experience with others who were not there and they always ask "Was this something your company did?” “Were you required to do it?” “Why did you do it?”… And it has puzzled me but I can clearly respond back with:

Because someone had to do it. We are at a place in time where we cannot rely on the government or the perspective that someone else is going to fix it to suffice any longer. It’s the activation of civic engagement and empowerment, baby.   

Margaret Mead said it best, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” I plan to live every day of my life with courage and strength to stand up for what I believe in and I trust that you will too. And with that, I am going to steal a line from the end of Kes’ podcast, cheers to all you change makers out there, 2018 doesn’t know what is going to hit it. 

Yours truly,

Brianna