How Values Guided The Launch Of My Fashion Business
By: Avi Loren Fox
Tags: Women In Business, Entrepreneurship, Business Development, Fashion, Values

Years ago, when I was 26 when I made a hooded-scarf from remnants of beloved old sweaters. It felt cozy and warm, and when I put it on, I noticed I felt a quiet sense of comfort, courage, and confidence.

Me sewing the second “Janey” I ever made. Photo by Nikolai Fox

When I wore it out into the world, people noticed, and they asked “What is that? I want one!” I heard the same thing from each person who tried it on: “It feels like a hug,” and “I feel like a warrior.”

Pretty soon I had a list of people who wanted me to email them if I ever started selling them. A woman in a bar came up to me and said “That looks like a Dickey.” You know, like those false shirt fronts from the ’40s. I was like, “I’m not calling it a Dickey.” But I remembered those Dick and Jane story books, so I said, “Maybe it’s a Janey?” Everyone loved it.

So from then on, when people asked me what it was, I would say, “It’s a Janey,” and they would say, “A Janey, that’s so cool. I want one.” I started thrifting for sweaters and rounded up some fellow artisans to help sew the first Janeys, which I sold on Etsy.

Being in the midst of the quarter-life-crisis that is one’s mid-twenties, I had been looking for something to define me — a way to pull myself into the adult woman I wanted to become. A way for something to happen to me. I started to notice that as though the hood was magic, people noticed me in it. Strangers started coming up to me to tell me how special it was. And I did something that my slightly pessimistic, defensive, and oppositional Millennial self might have otherwise rejected: I decided to believe them. And practice magical thinking about objects. Maybe if I wore it, something would happen to me. And it did.

The confidence and comfort I felt while wearing this hooded-scarf ushered in many adventures as I stepped out into my grown-up life. I moved out of my parents' house when I was wearing it. I bought my first car when I was wearing it. And I started a side hustle that would grow into an opportunity to explore and define the woman I wanted to be.

Shipping out some of Wild Mantle’s first orders

After a year of hand-making Janeys out of sweaters for neighbors and friends, I decided to try and turn it into a business. The problem was, I didn’t want to sell stuff. You see, I had studied the environment in college, and I was hyper-aware of the impact of the manufacturing of things on our planet. At the same time, I recognized that consumerism could be a powerful tool for change. And so, I decided I would start the business so long as I did it in a way that fit my values. Those values — as I came to define them through a lot of vision-boarding and self-reflection — were sustainability, empowerment, and adventure.

Sustainability

I wanted to provide an opportunity for the consumer to vote with their dollar for more environmentally-friendly materials. This meant, whenever possible, choosing organic cotton over cotton, upcycled materials over virgin, and choosing with small family businesses supply chain vendors over large corporate interests.

Empowerment

I wanted to inspire others to think about what their role and responsibility in the world was and how to gain more agency over their own situation and happiness. As a woman, finding the right balance between courage and comfort — as the mantle design delivers—was essential for my own empowerment.

Adventure

I wanted women who wore mantles to feel the same sense of adventure I did while wearing it, whether walking to the local coffee shop or traveling to a distant land. If your life was a movie (and it is), wouldn’t you want to be excited about and inspired by the person you played?

My bookshelf, including titles that represented the values that went into Wild Mantle and business stories that inspired my path as an entrepreneur.

Once I got clear about my values, I needed a name that would reflect them in a powerful way. I started to play with different words, searching for clues among my daydreams, memories, and physical things. Here are the two words I discovered, and where they came from:

Wild

The word WILD came from a piece of writing by Clarissa Pinkola Estes called “Women Who Run With Wolves.” I first discovered this poem on a pilates studio bathroom wall poster when I was 23. I would stand in the stall and read it over and over again. In particular, this part:

A healthy woman is much like a wolf — robust, inventive, loyal, fierce. Yet separation from her wildish nature causes a woman to become meager, ghostly, anxious about leaping, fearful to create new life. With the wild nature as ally and teacher, we see not through two eyes only, but through the many eyes of intuition. With intuition we are like the starry night; we gaze at the world through a thousand eyes. The archetype of the Wild Woman carries los bultos, all the bundles for healing and meaning. She carries all the medicines of stories, words and songs, and the mending tools of dances, signs and symbols. She is both vehicle and destination. She is the essence of the female soul. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Mantle

The word MANTLE came from the book The Amber Spyglass, the second in His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman. This word had stuck in the back of my mind for about a decade and I never really knew what it meant. As I was exploring words for my new business, I finally looked it up in a dictionary. It meant:

a loose-fitting hood or cloak, and one’s role or responsibility in the world.

I put these two words together, and did a little sketching to create Wild Mantle name and logo:

With this, I was ready to launch my business, Wild Mantle.

Wild Mantle at the Narberth Dicken’s Festival. Photograph courtesy of Swan Dancewear in Narberth.

Looking to launch your brand? Here are three phases of business launch you will likely go through, and tips for making them count.

Discover Your Business

Whether you already have a sense of what your product or service is, or you’re still figuring out, make sure it’s something people want. Give family and friends a chance to test what you’re offering and give you feedback. Would they buy it? What would they pay for it? This information will be invaluable down the road.

Name It

Give your company a name that people are going to remember. Look for clues everywhere. I didn’t expect to find my company’s name in a word from a young adult novel that lingered in my mind for years. Cut up pieces of paper, write words that you love that connect with what you’re making, and combine them in different ways to see if some magic happens.

Get Clear About Your Values

Sticking with your business, in the long run, requires that you have to believe in what you’re doing. If you are a Minimalist and you want to make mass-produced plastic toys in China, that may be a red flag to re-direct. Take inventory of your values, particularly how they apply to your industry, production, and distribution. How can you realize your vision in a way that doesn’t compromise your values?