How I created my way.
My mom walked in on me cutting up her hosiery, I was in the midst of replicating one of Madonna’s recent performance looks. It was soon after I would start designing my own dance dresses and customizing my school uniforms with design elements to set me apart.
I was into business, ready to work at a young age and event started a flower pen gig as a side hustle to my barista job. I’d go by to hospitals and businesses encouraging them that my flower pens because they would alleviate the stress of stolen pens (with a lawyer like tone). It was the start to finish of seeing “something” come into fruition while solving someones problem that did it for me and to this day keeps me going.
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Finishing up my B.S. Apparel Design & Textile Science degree with an internship in Hollywood that led me into pivotal first-hand fashion industry experiences that would redirect me significantly. I thought I was concerned about “fitting in” but I was shocked to conclude that there were many aspects of the industry that I didn’t want to “fit in to”.
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I took my last salary check and moved to the mountains of Colorado and started working as a server and riding my bike everywhere. I soon realized that the pace of LA wasn’t good for me and the slow mountain lifestyle was everything my spirit craved.
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Nestling into the beauty of Grand County I soon fell in love with a cowboy, an entrepreneur and a dreamer a like. The first night was the first of many moments speaking of a better vision for the planet, traveling the world, and building a lifestyle that would bless us to create as we pleased. Somewhere in between falling in love and navigating the off seasons of a tourist economy I started to design my “creative lifestyle plan” under the entity of Lavender Elephant, which soon became my sole occupation a transparent fashion company dedicated to saving pounds from the landfill.
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So why transparent fashion?
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I felt the need to expose the negative affects our fashion consumerism has on the planet. What became apparent in the process was how many artisans were unaware of their ability to use better resources to create products and quickly became an advocate for ethical consumerism.
I’ve always thought that the industry has been responsible to help shift the mindsets back to sustainability. My call to design clothing was redirected to repairing clothing and redesigning pre-existing goods into new wearable works of art. What I learned was listening to the community and observing my resources helped me sustain through the seasons and created a wonderful foundation of ethics for me to live by and pass on.
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What about this creative lifestyle plan?
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It’s easy for me to get bored, sometimes too simple and redundant can loose my attention. In the first half of my decade living in the mountain, I found the time to travel and continue my education while building Lavender Elephant. Being a student keeps me sane, constantly learning and evolving is what I love to do with my time.
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I became yoga certified, took some healing courses, studied as a doula, became a WFFR (wilderness first responder) and kept sewing. During my time teaching yoga or teaching horsemanship clinics (I married a cowboy with horses) and quit focusing on my personal needs I started to listen to client and community needs.
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Everything I loved doing, could be practiced in exchange for currency. I was able to create a monetary business model around each service I became qualified in, evolving into what I have now a creative lifestyle business plan.
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In a nut shell, it was perceived as nutty then and still I am misunderstood often today. It’s a process when I wake up everyday and get to do a medley of things that bring me joy, solve earthly and communal issues, I don’t run short of energy (too often).
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So what do you DO for work?
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I run a business portfolio of creative side hustles as services and fashion brands all founded on the same ethics of my founding brand, Lavender Elephant. Each service/brand is dedicated to reducing consumer waste and shifting consumer mindsets.
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Yes, I still design and almost to the point in my career where designing is something I can actually do most often. From wedding gowns to planning actual weddings plus designing the florals to prototyping ethical outdoor apparel and repairing it…I get to play with all the fabrics I’ve dreamed of.
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My youth and adult programs are scheduled to meet community needs seasonally. I get to break away from the design studio and get back to the roots of nature. And the best thing (other than saving lbs of fabric from the landfill), is that I can employee a staff that works well in this versatile environment. Giving others the opportunity to live a fulfilling life as I have, engaged in what they do as a “job” and believing in it.
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