I am awful proud of her. She says that since the day she set foot on campus at SUNY's Fashion Institute of Technology she always wanted something of her own - a line or a brand. The funny thing is that she thought it would be wedding and formal gowns. I think she's only ever made her own wedding dress and a communion dress for our oldest daughter. She's making a go of it now with handbags after her experience at LeSportsac. The whole "way" handbags are conceived, designed, sourced, and produced takes years of experience.

She's hired a local bookkeeper and uses Knoxville's Mediapulse for the online presence, and there be a hire of a fulfillment person when the bags start going out to customers and retail outlets. This past Saturday was pretty exciting as JulieApple shot lifestyle photos for a "lookbook" for some potential clients in Downtown using local talent as the models and one of the best photographers we know, Sean Hunt.

The process to print the 100% recycled fabric uses no water. It's completely revolutionary (google "AirDye"). Fabric dyeing and printing is, easily, the dirtiest process in the clothing and accessories trade. Easily.

The bags are about 98% sourced from US made materials. The only parts not from the US are wooden rings (from sustainably harvested beechwood trees) sourced from a tiny factory in Slovenia. One of the guiding rules of the brand is be as green as possible, but to not compromise on human rights either with regard to workers. So a policy similar to Earthfare's "boot" program was adopted that if we found or if any customer found that one of our suppliers or manufacturers was doing something that violated the rights of workers (fair wages for their location, reasonable work hours, safe workplace, etc) then that supplier would be axed and the brand would go elsewhere. Another idea was to shorten supply chains as much as possible to reduce the carbon footprint, so that knocked China and all Asian suppliers and manufacturers out of the loop and also took down 95% of the sweated labor problem). The bags are made in the Dominican Republic at an American owned company. People line up to work there because of its reputation of high wages (relative to the economy) and great working conditions.

We really wanted to go with US labor but there's two reasons that's not feasible. First, the production people for these handbags (the actual people who can do the sewing) are disappearing rapidly in the US. It is extremely skilled labor. I had no idea until I got involved with it. The second reason is that, if you can find manufacturing time slots with a US sewing facility that can do bags, the labor rates price you out of any sensible price range for the bags. That's globalization. All you can do is minimize its effects, not eliminate it. Still, there are other products in pipeline (that aren't bags) and those are going to be Made in the USA with 100% USA-made recycled materials. That's going to be exciting to see.

Finally, the goal was to have handbags that didn't look like kitschy and downmarket like so many "envirobags" look. That's been one of the hardest things to get "regular" customers to get into the green/equitable fashion marketplace: The 'green' bags often don't look like "real" bags. It's hard to put into words, but when you see a JulieApple bag on the street, it looks like a high-quality, well-designed, well-made bag, well, because it is.

True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler

Stimulating the economy as best we can!

Further stimulation with Yoga Wear!

impressive and thanks for the share.

Congrats and best wishes for her success, metulj. You have much to be proud of. I would gladly pay more for most things that are responsibly made, but usually have little choice or knowledge about what I'm getting. If I were in the market for something like this... Well, maybe I can interest the Mrs.

Wow.
I see why you're so proud of her, M.