Arts
Dressember combats human trafficking through fashion, individual advocacy and fundraising
By Colette Smith | December 14Content warning: This article discusses human trafficking.
Colette Smith
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Brands who deserve your dollars: SVNR
By Colette Smith | December 8Christina Tung created the brand SVNR to sell ethically-made pieces of jewelry that each have their own unique stories. Before founding SVNR in 2018 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Tung worked at her PR showroom, House Of. Tung is described as having an “eclectic, globally-influenced style,” which carries through to each handmade jewelry piece and their wide variety of materials.
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Brand who deserve your dollars: Girlfriend Collective
By Colette Smith | December 1Girlfriend Collective is an athletic and loungewear brand that uses recycled materials like polyester, fishing nets and used water bottles to create its pieces.The company was founded by a husband and wife duo, Ellie and Quang Dinh. They noticed that it was difficult to find activewear that was created in an environmentally sustainable way and also that many of the activewear brands used the same exact materials. So, Ellie and Quang began to search for alternative fabric choices, which is how they found a fabric mill in Asia that creates fabric from 100% recycled bottles and an SA8000-certified factory in Vietnam. The SA8000 certification means that the factory meets a standard developed by Social Accountability International to protect workers’ conditions and wages. Thus, once the sustainable fabric factory and the production factory were discovered, the husband and wife duo began the design process and Girlfriend Collective was born.
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Brands who deserve your dollars: Asportuguesas
By Colette Smith | November 17This week’s column is dedicated to my love for those shoes that are ugly enough that they are cool. Think Birkenstocks, dad sneakers and now, the new addition to the list: Asportuguesas shoes. Asportuguesas started their shoe design process with the explicit intention to create sustainable footwear. They achieve this by using sustainable materials and a small, manual production process.
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Brands who deserve your dollars: Elvis & Kresse
By Colette Smith | November 10HEADLINES: Brands who deserve your dollars: Elvis & Kresse
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Brands who deserve your dollars: Nynne
By Colette Smith | October 13This week’s brand, Nynne, is more upscale and expensive than the brands highlighted thus far, but the company’s approach to sustainability is unique since it outlines eight clear focus groups. This tactic makes the sustainability objective clearer for the company itself, but it also helps the brand be more transparent with consumers, because they will have a better understanding of how Nynne is approaching sustainability.
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Brands who deserve our dollars: Naclo Apparel and Aliya Wanek
By Colette Smith | October 6As temperatures start to drop and the leaves begin to turn, it is time to break out your fall wardrobe and, perhaps, look for some new additions for your closet. If this is the case, here are some fashionable fall options from Black-owned clothing brands.
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Brands who deserve your dollars: Unspun
By Colette Smith | September 29Denim jeans are an item that most people have in their closet, but they are also one of the worst offenders in the apparel industry when it comes to polluting the environment.To grow just enough cotton to make one pair of jeans, 1,800 gallons of water are required. Furthermore, the additional dyeing process and machine washing used to make jeans means that one pair uses around 9,982 gallons of water. So while it is clear the industry needs to change to help the environment, it is sometimes unclear what steps in the production process can be changed to make improvements.
Arts
New York Fashion Week is back and better than ever
By Colette Smith | September 14New York Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2022 kicked off on Sept. 7 after three seasons of virtual shows due to the pandemic. Despite the barrier of required proof of vaccination, the show was a welcomed return to normalcy.
Arts
SMFA looks back on a year of anti-racism activism
By Colette Smith | May 5“Anti-Racism: A Year of Creative Activism at Tufts” highlighted initiatives that have sprung up across the university over the past year. It was sponsored by the Daynard Microgrant for Collaborations in Racial Justice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and brought together individuals from all corners of the Tufts community. The event, which took place on April 20 on Zoom, underscored the versatility of the anti-racism initiatives and the power that art has in society to actively fight against racism.
