(upbeat music) - Thanks for tuning in to the glossy podcast. I'm your host, Jill Manoff, and today I sit down with Otis and Kristy Dawn Bushkowski, the founders of Kristy Dawn fashion brand, which has been pioneering sustainable fashion for a decade. But don't call it sustainable. The brand has evolved to now focus on farm to closet fashion, which we will dig into on today's show. I'll also ask Kristy about the brand's Land Stewardship Program, allowing customers to grow their own dress. And finally, I want to get the scoop on the brand's iconic Dawn dress, which has been selling light-hot cakes for 10 years and counting. Welcome to you, Otis. Hi. - Hey, I'm so grateful that you're having us, Jill. I'm happy to be here. - This is so fun. And hi to you, Kristy. How are you? - Hi, I'm so good. Thanks for having us. We're so excited to be here. - This is such a treat. Before we dig into the brand, and the story, and the evolution, got to talk about your own back stories. You guys have such interesting roads to fashion. We have Otis here. For those who don't know, you one survivor, which seems interesting, were you at all involved prior? What were you doing before a survivor before you became a household name to some? - Actually, I don't know about household name. So I played survivor twice the second time I played. We were preparing for a challenge, and it was a bunch of returning players. And we asked Jeff, we said, "Jeff, in the pre-game talk, "how will you describe each of us?" And he got to me, and he said the most boring winner in the history of the show. So just for context. Before survivor, I had spent six months living in South Africa, and then I had just spent 21 days living in an ashram up in Santa Cruz, studying yoga and meditation. - Oh my gosh. I was saying before we started that you guys are very Zen, and I am going to try an attempt to be calmer. (laughing) - No, that's exciting. What was the secret to winning survivor for those who don't watch, or didn't watch your season? - Or for those who think they might one day go on a survivor and for it. - Yeah. - The truth is that it's a lot of grace, a lot of grace that wins survivor, because there's such a complexity to it, and there's so many things you can't control that I could have easily been the first one voted out to. So as proud as I am of my work on winning survivor, I take very little credit for it. - Oh my gosh, well I love it. Be boring, be Zen. (laughing) That's my takeaway. - Christy, talk to me, you have more of a, more of a fashion background, having been a model. Yeah, tell me a little bit about that. - Yeah, so I grew up in a really small town in Northern California, and just like spent so many of my days outside and nature playing with my farm animals, and I think like the start of my love for fashion happened there with my mother, and we would shop vintage and thrift, well, not really vintage, I guess, in the town I grew up in, more thrift stores, and we would buy women's dresses, bring them home, my mom would sew them to fit me, and we'd kind of redesign them, if you will. And so when I moved to LA, that really stuck with me, and I started my modeling career when I was 17 in LA, and I would buy vintage and thrift clothing in LA and take it to my tailor in Santa Monica, and we would recreate these dresses, and I would wear them on set for my modeling jobs and the creative directors and the stylists would always give me compliments about the pieces that I would kind of recreate with my tailor, and I was in the industry for about 10 years, and when I was modeling, I was like a sponge, soaking up so much information around this industry, where I was on the totally different side of what I do now, but I asked a lot of questions, and I learned so much, and there was just a moment where I came home from a photo shoot and came home, and I said to Otis, I would love to have and design my own dresses. I wouldn't even know how to start, but that would be so fun. I'm essentially doing it already, but they're all one-offs, and Otis turned around in his office chair and was like, I would love to help you. I know how to do that. Let's do it, and then three months later, or six months later, we started Kristi Donne, and we had five silhouettes and launched it. I also got pregnant at the same time that we launched Kristi Donne, so we were really birthing two things at the same time. - Very close, just time. - Yeah, little did we know what we were stepping into. What was your approach, but were the steps? Did you decide we're gonna work with deadstock fabric? We wanna try and, I don't know, pull in this idea of thrift into the line from the get-go. - Yeah, I mean, the total aquarium in me loves the idea of being very unique. So I love the idea of deadstock for that reason, but there was also a financial reason too, because we didn't have the means to actually invest in thousands of yards of fabric, and we didn't want to invest in so many pieces. We didn't wanna have stock of Kristi Donne. So yeah, so we started with deadstock fabric, and it was amazing because we could buy one of the yards of something and make five of the kind pieces. And so that's how we started, and we started with $20,000 of my modeling savings, and launched Kristi Donne with like, I don't know how many SKUs did we have, like 70 SKUs in Berlin? - No, they're all 70 units. - 70 units, all of them, sorry enough SKUs, sorry. - Oh, wow. And this was on your own direct-to-consumer website, and yes, oh my God. - And I can give a little bit more context as well. So when Kristi had this grand idea to start her own clothing company, she was modeling, and she had success modeling, and she'd saved up a small savings. I had just burned through all of my survivor money, so I had not, it was dead broke. But I had the experience of having started a business before and failing miserably. So Kristi had about $20,000 in savings, and we said, we'll start with that, and let's see what happens. So the context for where we were was that neither of us are environmentalists. We both have a deep love for nature, but I don't think either of us have ever been to a Greenpeace rally, right? Like that's just not what we are or what we were. And so with such little money to start a clothing company, we couldn't go to a fabric supplier and purchase the minimums, because first of all, we didn't have the cash. And secondarily, like we didn't have the customer base to support making that many units. So the best opportunity for us was to use deadstock fabric because we could buy 20 yards of it. And so we fell into deadstock, not because of a deep desire to change the world. Like Kristi wanted to make beautiful dresses. I wanted to make rent. We weren't trying to make a difference, right? That was the truth. And as any good marketing kind of half-ass marketer would do is like, okay, we're using deadstock as a material. How are we gonna tell the story of deadstock? And we shared the story of fashion being the second largest polluter on the planet as an industry, and by using deadstock, we weren't adding to the problem. And so we started and people really resonated with that story, but more than the story they resonated with Kristi's designs. They really loved her designs. And people liked buying things that weren't bad for the planet. - Yes, and that's a similar story that I've heard from regarding the use of deadstock and how really not only does it bring a unique element, but it's more affordable option. Like Charles Harbison has told me something similar in his designs. That's so interesting. And when it comes to like linking with a factory or a manufacturer, like who was Kristi, you're designing, who's doing the piecing together of the things? - I mean, as far as like production goes. - Yeah. - Yeah, so when we first started, we had someone that we worked with. And you know, we didn't know much about anything. Like we started and we just, we learned as we went, which we are still learning. But we had this woman that we were working with. And I remember the first few samples we got, we were just like, wow, these like, the measurements are kind of off on all of the mediums. Like all the mediums have slightly different measurements. And we would measure it, you know, as we were doing this from our garage and we were making so little at the time that it was easy for us to like pull out a measuring tape and see the differences in the quality of the same size. And I remember asking this woman like, could we go and meet the people that are making the garments? And she was like, oh, no, no, no, no. Like you don't need to do that. Like I'd have it under control. And this is in LA in Los Angeles. And I remember Otis and I were both kind of like, that's weird. Like why wouldn't we meet the people that are making the clothes? Like we didn't know anything really about the industry other than it was really toxic. But then once we got to really like kind of get a glimmer of how toxic it was. And that was just like the first, you know, experience that we had. But after that, we were like, okay, this isn't working for us. And we fell into a relationship with this man named Pedro who's still with us today. And it was such a different experience. I mean, the way that he brought us into the factory so that we could see and meet and understand how to make a garment and how to make it in a right way while just taking care of the people because that's just what you should do. Like why wouldn't you do that? They were more expensive. Like the pieces were definitely more expensive. But when we understood why it was like, yeah, you would never do it any other way. So Pedro is still with us today and his wife works with us and his daughter works with us. And it's a quite a family unit we've created in our factory in LA. - Nice that you found Pedro. How are you guys? Well, how did you get the word out? You talked about that you were marketing what the messaging was. This is kind of the digital heyday like meta Facebook. Is that the go to in terms of getting the word out to others? - Yeah, so it really started with watching Christie use Instagram 10, 10 and a half years ago. And I was like, wow, she uses it so differently than I use it. And to go back 10 and a half years to Instagram, that was pre algorithm. That was all just chronological, right? And so it dawned on me, and this is before there were influencers, but it dawned on me that we had some friends who had a lot of social capital. And if we created a blog on our website and took really beautiful pictures of them in our dresses, that we don't even need to ask them to post, they'll want to post these pictures, right? And we were so small and we had so few resources that when we would go to our friends and shoot them for what we called it, Friends of Dawn, they didn't even get to keep the piece. Like that's where we were at, you know? But that's what we did. And of course, our friends shared one, 'cause they loved us but two also because the images were beautiful. So we put a lot of emphasis on the quality of the imagery. And I think that's been kind of a through thread for Christie Dawn since the start is our imagery. And it was really, really kind of a pre-influencer, influencer strategy that helped us launch. And we didn't spend any money on advertising for the first six years of the company. It was, you know, in terms of paid ads, the money that we spent was on content creation. And that's how we grew it. - How great. And you are, are you still based in Los Angeles area? I would think that a large, I wouldn't say large majority, but like a large percentage of your customers. It seems very suited to the LA shopper base. Is that where, how would you say the breakdown is in terms of where the customer is? - Yeah, it's majority LA, I love Angela. - But Jordy might be the wrong word. - Okay. - 20% of our customers are in LA. - Great. - So the largest chunk is in LA. And then it breaks down in like New York becomes the next largest. - Baris, Australia. - London. - Yeah. - Yeah. - It just, it kind of, it spreads out. So, but yeah, you know, and I think that's obviously a function of Kristi being a California native and she, and kind of the directive for Kristi that she's taken and that she's like, run with is she designs for herself. She's not trying to please anybody else. So it would make sense that. - Yeah, I feel like when I design things that I wanna wear, I believe in it. So then I can talk about it and I can wear it and share it and it sells that way because I'm fully 100% in love with it. - Yes. I mean, and you're a model. Are you showing up in your or were, are you showing up in the own in your, on your e-commerce and you're the face of the brand? - And, you know, I used to because it was affordable for me to be the model. And then, you know, when we first launched Kristi Don, it was called Don, which was my middle name. And then we ended up changing it for legal reasons to Kristi Don. I remember thinking like, gosh, I really don't want it to be my name because then I'm gonna have to be the face of it. And, you know, it's been a beautiful thing for me to actually step into and see how when I step into it with, you know, it's a lot of courage to step into something and show your face and be this spokesperson for it. But I'm so proud of what we do, but it's just not my nature to be like, hey, look at me, like, I'm here, like I have something to say. And it's actually been really beautiful medicine for me to step into that just for my own being. And then also to see like how people receive it. And, you know, it's funny. Our marketing manager is always like, all the ads where you're talking to camera about the dresses, those are the best ones. And I'm like, I'm lucky being really. Yeah, I'm really being asked to step into that role and like really share it from my heart. And yeah, it's been, it's been beautiful to be received in that way. And it really works. So yes, I definitely am the face of the brand. And I'm so proud to be, 'cause I'm so proud of what we create and the way that we create our garments. But it's been a process of me stepping into it, for sure. - It is paying off for sure. Do you guys split your responsibilities where you're more Kristi on the creative side and Addis, you are more the business side? - Yeah, pretty much. - But Addis is so creative. Like we just launched our men's line today and it's like a small capsule of three different pieces. And he fully backed that, like he designed that. And that was him wanting to wear regenerative clothing that we did that. And so yes, like in our roles of Kristi on for sure, there's like, I am here, he's there, but it's our baby and we can both like breathe into it, however we wanna breathe into it. And Addis is really creative and he jumps over a lot. He always says he wants to cover the design director job. (laughing) - Yeah, that was the design director. Kristi, curiously they'll never ask to see any Excel files. He's not interested in the spreadsheets. - No problem. - No spreadsheet. (laughing) - Gonna inspire me, guys. - No doubt. Well, let's talk about the evolution. That's interesting that you're moving into men's. First of all, in terms of sales channels, I would have a hunch you've moved beyond your own e-commerce site. Where can you buy the brand today? - Oh, okay. Well, how about this? Let's go because we haven't even got to the full evolution of like what Kristi Don is. - Yeah. - So can we take, I can evolve there. Okay, so we're using dead stock fabric, which maybe you find 200 yards of something if you're lucky, right? So just for the listeners, the average consumption of a Kristi Don dress is about three yards of fabric. So if you find 200 yards of fabric, you can do the simple math and figure out like, okay, you're not making that many units, right? Which means that there's a lot of work that goes into any release, and you can't sell that many. And so we were releasing dresses, we re-released four new pieces every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. So if you can imagine the scale of content creation that was required for that, it was really unstable, you know? And maybe it was five or six years ago, I forget it. - Is it happening on Instagram when you were kind of launching them or introducing them or like email? - Yeah, and people like people would rush and we'd sell a lot of things like a few hours, you know? It was this like bomo that we created, which is wonderful. But the reality is that like we weren't, we weren't gonna be able to sustain it energetically. It was just too much. It was too much. And then we took on investors in 2018. And it let us both take a deep breath. You know, we have two small children, 10-year-old and a five-year-old. So in 2018, they were not 10 and five. In fact, one of them wasn't even born yet. But, you know, being a sustainable company that wasn't part of the problem, definitely had a dopamine hit, but that dopamine hit also wore off over time. Because after a certain point, you start asking the question like, hey, cool that I'm not part of the problem, but what would it mean to be part of a solution? And so we started to ask ourselves that question and for me, as I kind of went into that inquiry, it really asked to, well, what's the problem? What is the problem, you know? Is it economic? Is it environmental? Is it social? And as I explored it, and Kristina talked about it, like we were like, oh, these are all just symptoms. These are all just symptoms of a greater issue, which is intimacy. You know, we've created a very disassociated culture in society. There's a lot of trauma in these bones and all of our bones. And so we forgotten our innate connection with the planet. We've forgotten our innate connection with this web of life. - And with each other. - With each other, right? And with ourselves. And so if we want to solve for that, we have to get intimate. What an invitation. And what would that mean for a clothing company to get intimate? Well, where do our clothes come from? Right? And we were only using natural fibers. They come from the earth. We mostly make dresses out of cotton. Cotton is grown on the earth. It's grown in the soil. So what would happen if we started to have a more intimate connection with the soil and the earth and those who tended her? And I remember I kind of went into my own little ceremony around it and I came out and I told Kristi, and then the next morning, we're going to start our own, sorry, regenerative cotton farm and grow the cotton in a way that heals the earth. And it will call it farm to closet. I remember I told her that fresh out of the ceremony. And I'm curious. I haven't even asked her. What was your experience hearing that? - I mean, Otis has so many great ideas. And when the light bulb goes off for him, it will happen. But I am such a dip my toes person. Like I go really slow with things. And then once I see that it's working, then it's like, oh, I'm all in. But it's so nice for our relationship because he is like the fire of the relationship. Like if an idea is proposed, he's like, I got this. Let me light it up and it'll happen and manifest. And I think it's really beautiful that we both can kind of work that way because I like to be in the more dreamy space. So when he was saying, talking about the farm, it was like, I could totally imagine it. Like the dream of it was so real. But then for me, it's more the like, how does that actually happen? And for him, he's like, no problem. Like once the intention is set, you just go. And so it was definitely like, holy shit, like we're gonna do this. And I'm so down to do this, I don't even know where to start. Similar to like when I said, I want to make a line of dresses. And he was like, amazing, let's do it. Like you say it, let's do it. And it was a very similar experience actually. But yeah, I remember being like, oh wow, okay, we're diving in, like we're going deeper. Well, when we started our factory in LA, like we had released a factory that was like a small little factory. It was not inspiring at all. And we'd already signed the contract. And then we found a different place that was like 12,000 square feet. It was so big, it was like, this is it. We're moving here. And so we like completely just got out of that lease, didn't get our money back and moved it. And I remember feeling, I remember how scared I was. I was like, how are we gonna afford this? What are we gonna do? And it's like to go back to that grace, you know, like trusting that if you have enough faith, like it will work out. The intention is clean, you know, and it's been clean. - Some might say, some might say you just need the fear. (laughs) - And the fear of both on the same coin, right? - Yeah, definitely. Oh, I have to ask because Christy, you were like, let me think about it. Okay, let's do it. Like you're on board, but you also have at this point, yes, investors in the mix. And I hear things from brands and founders about, you know, you link with partners and you can't, you don't have the freedom that you use to. Like what was the discussion there? - We're really lucky. Our investors are on board. And they've been really patient and they believe in us. And yeah, it's been such a blessing to have them. - 'Cause we wouldn't have been able to do it with them. - I mean, let me just like, let's back up for a second, right? Like we were purchasing dead stock fabric from an aggregator two miles down the road that we had like net 60 terms on. And all of a sudden we were like, wait, we're gonna start a cotton farm, or regenerative cotton farm and never been done before. Fashion companies do not invest in farming because it's a global commodity. It's part of a supply chain that's incredibly exploitative, incredibly extractive. And everyone sleeps well because there's no intimacy. There's no connection. So no one knows who's getting it. - And there's no transparency around how our clothing is made. So no one knows. - But let's just say like, let's just say there's a flood, right? Does it affect a fashion brand? No, let's say there's blight. Does it affect the fashion brand? No, but it does affect the farmer, right? And so all of a sudden we were putting a whole lot more risk on our shoulders. And just so you know. - Where's this farm? (laughs) - In road India. And if I told you the story of like how it came to pass, it was really, it was really divinely timed. It was very little of our doing and really kind of... - It was like we planted the seed and it was received. - Yeah, it happened by the... Oh, I came home that morning and told Krista the vision. And within three months we had seeds in the ground. So, you know, a brief little story. So I come home, I say, okay, we're gonna start a regenerative cotton farm. How are we gonna do that? And where are we gonna do that? I Google regenerative cotton, nothing comes up. So then I Google ethically grown cotton and I find in NGO, I call them up and I say, yeah, I wanna start a regenerative cotton farm. Can you help? They say we don't deal in how the cotton's grown. We just deal and how the farm laborers are treated. But we're losing funding and we have this kickass employee who just started fresh out of college, you shouldn't meet her. Her name was Marin. She came into the office, we met. I shared the vision. We both agreed that India made the most sense for many reasons. And she said, yeah, I'd love to work for you. I'll try. This is fresh out of college, no experience in fashion. And so the first day she works for us, she calls a woman up in Northern California, Rebecca, who has an organization called Fibershine. And she says, hey, Rebecca, my name's Marin. I'm working for Kristy Don. They wanna start a regenerative cotton farm in India. Can you help us? She replies back, I'm sorry. I can't help you. I know no one in India. Three hours later, a man in India whose father owns a conventional textile company, his name's Nishant, is listening to a podcast Rebecca had recorded months earlier. Loves what Rebecca has to say. Gases her email address and says, hey, my name's Nishant. And I wanna start an organic cotton farm. - And I need a brand. - But I don't have the money and I need a brand to partner with. - Oh, stop. - And there we were. And we started and it worked. The crazy thing is it worked. We got, we started with floor acres. - And no one knew, like we were just in an exploratory. We were like, we don't really know much about regenerative farming, but we know our ancestors did it. So it's gotta be like somewhat not like we can do it. - Yes, and Nishant was game. And it was very much an exploration. And we started with four acres on land that was, it wasn't dead land 'cause if it was dead land, it would have the opportunity to really come to life. It was devoid of life and death. It was that bad. And no one thought we were gonna be successful, but we modeled it out like best case, middle case, worst case scenario. And when we came to India to visit on the second trip, Nashwari, who was the main trek of those four acres, that land, I asked her, I said to her, I said, well, have you noticed a difference in farming this way? And she said, well, first of all, it's not as hot when we walk through the fields and we don't have sores on our arms and our legs from walking through the fields with all those chemicals. And she said, and as far as the earth, don't ask me, just look around. Of course, the earth is happy. The dragonflies are back and the earthworms have returned. And for me, that was enough. But the yield that we got was incredible at far exceeded our best case scenario. And we sequestered a whole lot of carbon in the process. So it worked. And then COVID hit. So we come to market with a cotton. So we doubled down, we did another 20 acres, we added to it. And finally in 2021, we came out with the world's first regenerative farm to closet dress collection that had reciprocity woven into every seam. And we were so excited because neither Christy or I set out to make a difference in the world. And we started this thing. She wanted to make beautiful dresses. I wanted to make rent. Now we would have been gifted this vision to make a difference. And we were so excited. And we launched it. And nobody cared. We didn't get a podcast interview. We didn't get a glossy article. We just didn't know. Yeah, exactly. It's not your fault. It doesn't get anything, is what you're saying. Remember, we're trying to, as a collective, we're still trying to digest and metabolize the idea of sustainability, regeneration. I mean, first of all, it's a weird word. Like, what is that, right? There was really no context for what it was. And I think like, if we also think about what's been going on in kind of in a broader level, is there's been a ton of greenwashing, you know? Most people don't really believe that we have the capacity to heal as a culture. And they don't trust it. They don't trust it, right? Like, it's we, you know, on that, right, right. And people, and it's hard to trust brands, right? But it's also super vulnerable to do the work, like you're saying. Yeah. Yeah, so it was time to chop wood and carry water. And released this first collection. And our community cared, but our community wasn't, you know, we were hoping to grow the community and make it bigger. And we pumped a lot of money, not just into the farm, but into growing a team that was ready for takeoff. And for three years, the company lost money and lost a lot of money. And we, last February, 2023, we were on the verge of turning off the lights. We were, it was not looking good. Yeah, it was like, we just, it just wasn't happening. And we were just burning through a lot of cash. And apparently we were burning through a lot of karma at the same time. We're going to take a quick break. Stay with us. What happened? How did it, how did you turn it around? And PS, before we go there, whenever, when we went from deadstock to cotton, you're producing on your own farm, like this is impacting the price of your dresses, no? It is, it is impacting the price of the dresses. Just, just, just so you understand, like, at a financial level, at the time when we were buying deadstock fabric, it was about $3.50 a yard for cotton. Our cotton that we grow, and the way that it's finished, and all the beautiful techniques that are done to it, it's about $13 a yard, right? So you take a dress, take a dress that's got three yards of consumption, and you do the math. Well, that's a big difference, right? But, you know, they're, we were able to mitigate that in certain ways by kind of getting to scale, right? And, and other kind of, we started a facility in India as well, so we have a factory in LA, and then we work with partners in India who meet our standards of how we treat us. So that helped offset a little bit, right? But yeah, we were on the ropes, and had to let go of two thirds of our staff, and basically had a month and a half of runway, and we were done. There wasn't no more money coming, like we had kind of blown our chance is what it felt like. Does that help you then? Yeah. Yeah, it was, it was. You tried. You gave it your, your best shot. Yeah, we didn't get up. We did not get up because we believed in it. Funny enough, we didn't give up, but we did surrender. We did. You know, I think there was a point for me at least, because it was really, you know, that vision of farm to claw that came, it was, you know, came through me, and there was this, like, I felt angry at God, like you gave me this idea, and I followed it and made it so easy. You made it happen for me, and then, and now you're like, I'm in the middle of the ocean with no more wind. Like, how am I gonna get to the other side of this thing? I'm waiting for the, like, and then you were on, I don't know, Oprah's favorite things. No, what happened? Yeah, I think to the point of surrender, I think it was just like, I don't know, like an energetic shift of just like accepting what is, but continuing to love and put intention into this thing that you really believe in, and going back to grassroots. Like, truly going back to what worked. Like, we were, we were putting all this energy onto growing, and like, actually growing the farm and growing the business and expanding and reaching new customers because we believed in it. But like, the reality was, is like our customer, they want what they want from us, and it's like, they want beautiful, unique, one-of-a-kind feeling clothing, and they don't need every category, and they don't want a lot of options. And so, when we had that moment of like, surrender, it was like, okay, like, let's look at this and ask ourselves and ask our community, like, what is it that they're really wanting? Like, like, and just listening to that. And so we went back to grassroots, and it was like, I went back to doing so many things, and the beauty of like, having your own business is like, when you start it, you've done a lot of the jobs already. So like, you know how to do them. So, you know, we went back and just like, worked overtime, but really smart, you know? It was like a smarter way of working, and there were just like little tweaks that I could say from a business perspective. Like, we were shooting in studio before, and for me, it was always this feeling of like, this does not capture the essence of our brand, of me. Like a studio, we were shooting everything in the studio, and I was just like, we're going back to shooting lifestyle on the road. We're going to travel again, and like, even if it's just traveling to Malibu, or traveling wherever, but like, we're going to bring back the life force of this, of the vision of the brand, which is how it started. It was like, me and the girlfriends going to Big Sur, and have our friend James, who's still with us, our photographer, shooting us while we're, you know, having a girls trip, and we're going to happen to be wearing the Kristiton pieces. And so that was one thing that I think that really helped, and then also just like, looking at what are the dresses that women want from us. And we could see, we had the data, and the data show that like, our Dawn dress is a classic, and it's been since day one. It was the first dress I designed, and women love it. They want it in every fabric, like every fabrication, every print, every color. And so we were like, okay, let's make more of the things that really work for us, and then let's slowly introduce new bodies that we love, but we don't need to introduce 20 bodies a season. Let's introduce five. And let's make it so well, and let's believe in it wholeheartedly, and let's just go back to grassroots. And so I think with the combination of surrender, and then like looking at the data, and asking what it is that we needed to like, really kind of purify within the business, those two things really like merge together, and helped us see clear, and helped our community see like, what we really stood for. - Yes, it reads as authenticity in terms of your own, what you want to do with the brand, and what the intention was from the get-go. And also, yes, speaking to what you've built, and the community, and listening to them. Like anyway, it seems like an aha moment, even if it wasn't like a snap. - Yeah, and it was for us individually too. I mean, so much letting go for our own selves, and imagining the business letting go. And then in that act of letting go, you actually, there's that purification too, of like releasing it, and not being so attached to it. And then like having the appreciation for it. It was a really intense, hard lesson, but it was, I see now that we're on the outs of it, how important it was, like how much of an important piece that was to our growth, and our evolution as individuals, and for the brand, for sure. For now, when you're talking about, it doesn't have to be grow, grow, grow, category, category, category. We've got dresses, we're inching into men's, what else is happening with the brand? - Yeah, we have intimates coming, and we're so excited about to have regenerative cotton for our most intimate areas of our body. You know, like the dresses themselves are all ready. So healing, the fact that we're wearing regenerative cotton with plant dyes, and, you know, art, like indigenous, like art from block printers, and we're wearing it on the largest organ, our skin every day. It's so special, so to take it the next level, and make intimates, it's very exciting for us. We have events, we launched men's today, like three styles. And again, we're just like starting slow, you know? Like what are the best things that we want our men to wear? - Yeah, do you anticipate that your female, your woman shopper is going to be buying for her man, or are you going to have to like, okay. - Yeah, that's a worth thinking. And we'll see, I mean, I was on Instagram today, and there were a few men commenting on the photo that we launched. So I was like, okay, this is cool. We have footwear, we have like really beautiful boots that we made last year, and some sandals. - Gosh, what else? I mean, we have denim that's in the works. We have regenerative denim that we've been working on, but we, yeah, we're branching out to point 10. - There's some fun collaborations in the works that we can't speak to, but with some really cool brands. - Yeah. - There's some exciting, really exciting things happening. - I mean, this sounds so cheesy, but are some of these trends working to your advantage? I'm seeing so much content on TikTok. Like there's a debate between men and women about what is a sun dress and what is, everybody's talking about the milk-made dress. There are a lot of dress trends happening where some of your looks, your styles could definitely fit the category. But yeah, are you leaning into that? Are you seeing some, I don't know, ramped up traffic? - Well, I think what's fascinating what we've learned is that trends, when something becomes trendy, it actually doesn't help us because that's when Old Navy and GAP and Forever 21 and H&M and Zara all make those things, right? And the reality is, is this is what we also learned and we changed kind of our messaging. We continue to do farm to cloud that we've sequestered over two million pounds of carbon. We take responsibility for 80 acres a year, right? We steward that land, we bring it back to health and grow the cotton. And that is not why people buy our dresses. It's better for them, but that's not why they're buying them. They're buying the dresses because they think they're gonna feel really good and they're gonna look really beautiful, which is a wonderful reason to buy the dresses. But when you're competing with H&M or Zara or every of the dress brand, 'cause it's trendy, it actually makes it really hard. When it's not, like this is like, Christy is not a trend, right? I can tell you 'cause I've been married to her for so long now, it's she's still here, right? Like this is really her aesthetic and survived. So when trends come, we actually support when they go and just continue to chop wood and carry water and make beautiful pieces. And I mean, Christy's got this incredible gift of designing pieces that are so feminine and beautiful and really make the wear feel so beautiful in them. And you know, that's what the custom, Christy Don customers really love. They just, they really appreciate it. And that's so beautiful to see. But yeah, we try to avoid this. - The trends are beautiful. - Yeah, yeah. Well, let's talk about the magic that is the Don Dress because it's been around, like you said, you're doing this in new fabrics. It's, you're reinventing it all the time. I would love to know if you have some fun stories about so-and-so has 20 of the dress. But I don't know, what do you think is like the secret sauce? Is it about the classic, the flattering, all the things that I would assume? What's going on here? - I really think it's all the things you would assume. I don't know, part of me is like, is it because it was the first dress that I ever made? Like, is there that? And who knows, we'll never know. But yeah, I think it's all the things you named. I think it is very versatile. It looks good on every body type. It has room for big, bigger boobs, smaller boobs. Like, the waist size could be any measurement. It has a drawstring. It's like, you can cinch it tighter on days that you're like, I wanna make it feel more fitted. There are days where I don't tie it. And it's really loose and oversized. It has a snap. So like, when I was, you know, a mama and I was breastfeeding, it was like, there was a snap enclosure so I could easily breastfeed. And then even like, yeah, it's just like the dress you can put on any time of day. You can wear it to work. You can wear it to drop your kids off at school. You can go out to a nice dinner in it, put a difference shoe on it. It's like truly so versatile and comfortable, which is like the always the lens through which I design. Is this comfortable? And do I feel beautiful when I'm wearing it? And will this look good on different body types? All different bodies. - Tell her who wears the Dondress. Tell her all the famous. - I gotta know. Taylor Swift loves our Dondress. She is one of our clients that has multiple different colors and prints. - No big deal. That's major. - So cool. - I know. She's a really, yeah. - That's kind of a Watson to go to Johnson. - Yeah, I guess he knows more than I do. - All the in girls. - Yeah, exactly. - Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of women who own the Dondress. And interestingly, like just from a strictly business perspective, the lifetime value of a first-time customer who buys a Dondress is much higher than the lifetime value of a customer who buys any other dress in our collection. - Yeah. - Oh my gosh. I don't know how many times I said, oh my gosh, on this episode. That's so interesting. That is so interesting. I'm not hearing a lot of this for the first time. I gotta ask also, before we run out of time, this, I mean, it plays into the concept of the farm and what you're doing with regenerative fashion. This land stewardship program. This is ongoing. Who, tell everyone what it is and tell me about the customer who was buying into this concept that is, I don't know, 12 months, a 12-month process? Or am I understanding it correctly? How does it work? - It's six months. It's six months. Well, it just depends. I'll explain how it works, right? So remember I explained that the person that holds the weight of the drought and the flood and the blight is the farmer, right? And so, and there's also a long, a long story about the level of debt spiraling that happens to farmers these days because yields are dropping and they have to add more chemicals. And so they're in these crazy debt spirals and they can't shift their farming methodology 'cause they can't afford it. So like, on paper, why isn't every farmer in the world farming regeneratively, right? Sorry, that's the cat. But on paper, why isn't every farmer in the world farming regeneratively? 'Cause they can't afford the risk of it. So what Christie Dawn did, when we take a step back, is we said, we'll take the risk. We'll shoulder that burden, right? These first four acres, we'll do it. And we did it and it was amazing. And there was such a level of intimacy that was created from it. And an immediate kind of exchange that I can't really describe, but it was beautiful. And then what we quickly realized is that if we wanted to scale this thing, that we couldn't carry the entire weight of that on our shoulders either. And the way to lessen the weight on any one pair of shoulders is to add shoulders, right? And we have this incredible community that loves the work that we do. What if we invite them in and they finance it, the farm, right? We're paying this money for us. It's a year before we see it, which for anybody who understands cash flow, that's not a great situation, right? It's not a great situation. But what if we could invite our customers in? And so here's what we say to our customers. We say for $200, which is the price of a Don Dress, you can steward 3,500 square feet of farmland in a road, India, so that it regenerates. And we're gonna buy back the cotton that's grown on that parcel of land from you in the form of store credit. So we price it out, we say, give us $200 and that's gonna take care of this 3,500 square feet of land. That's the cost for us, right? And we anticipate that there's gonna be this much yield. So we say, this is the price we're gonna buy back the cotton for based on this yield. But if the yield is better, you're gonna get more back. If there's a drought, if there's a blight, if there's a flood, you're gonna get less back 'cause we're gonna get less yield. So now you're shouldering it, but you are in this intimate relationship and every month we send you an email and we update you about what's going on in the farm and we show you pictures. We do kind of some farmer stories, right? And so now six months go by and now we say, hey, guess what? And every season we've done it now, five seasons, the return has been better than the investment. So it's not like asking anyone to be a martyr. We're not asking you to just, this isn't charity. That model doesn't work. And I don't just mean from a business, I mean, when we look around, if we aren't part of the circle, if we put ourselves aside as the hero, it's not gonna work. It's a spiral. It's an ever evolving, expanding spiral and we all have a place on it and we're all connected. And so every generative system does not ask for anyone to take a hit. Every stakeholder benefits, human and non-human alike. And so the farm, this land stewardship is an invitation to get intimate. And then now you're at a dinner party and someone's like, oh my God, I love your dress. They're like, yeah, I grew it, capitalism. And so then there's more story to tell about it. But it really, I think the people that participate in the land stewardship, the feedback that we've gotten is when they put on the dress that they've bought from that return, is they have so much more of an appreciation for what's woven into it, right? And isn't that just the essence of what we're inviting our customers into an intimacy and how we can begin to be more present to what's actually in our clothing and in our food and all around us? 'Cause the reality is, is that we are in a really precarious situation on this planet. Humanity is really, we've done a number and it's time to heal and it's possible. But we just have to start, we can't wait. There's no hero coming. Nobody's coming to save us. We're gonna have to do it ourselves and we're gonna have to do it together. - And do it through a fashion company. - Yes. Oh my gosh, I, for marketing or for just whatever, the messaging, like you just explained that to me, I get it, it wasn't short and sweet. Like to put that out in an Instagram post and to ensure that, or a TikTok or whatever and be able to have people who are, I don't know, they don't have a long attention span. So yes, how do you get the message across and is it just about showing beautiful dresses and this is the bonus? - Probably about that, for sure. Also like, how do you get the attention of someone through an Instagram post or a TikTok video? It's like, it's not the same way that we're connecting right now. You have like how many seconds, it's like two seconds to get their attention. So for us, it's like, let's grab their attention with the beauty and then when they receive it and understand it and see from whatever the packaging is, or maybe they're just wearing it and it's like, this feels different and that's one of the things I hear so often when I meet women wearing our stuff, they're like, it just feels different and I don't even need to know why. And then when I understood the why, I fell in love with it, you know? - Yeah, yeah. It's really, it's for both Kristen and I, it's been an invitation into letting go of an expectation of when the tree is gonna fruit. We have a shirt that says the day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit, but we've really had to go a step further and just say the day you plant the seed is the day that you have to let go of the idea that it might even fruit at all. You keep playing the seeds 'cause it's what's in your heart. It's the song of our heart, right? It's our Dharma. It's why we're doing this and I hate fashion personally. Like I never imagined that I would be the CEO of a woman's clothing company. Now, it's a really, yeah, it sings in it and that's the song of my heart and Christie's heart. And it's, yeah, it's been a really beautiful discovery for both of us. - You all are a good influence in all the many ways. Tell me about what I can expect this year or we can all expect this year from the brand moving forward. You mentioned a lot about the category expansion. It's all exciting. Anything we didn't talk about? - No, I mean, we're so excited about the Intaments launch which will happen in a few months. And yeah, I think you'll see the same beauty that you've seen just, it'll just be renewing itself all the time. - Yeah. - Yeah. - There's a lot of beautiful things coming and I think the ground, we feel the ground so now. - Yeah. - We feel people are waking up to what we're doing without us even having to talk about it. - Yeah. - And it's really cool to see. - Yeah. - You made it through that crazy time and out, yes. You can relax a little bit and do what you love. Amazing, you guys. Thank you so much for being here. This was so fun, so valuable. Thank you. It was great. - Thank you. - So sweet. - That's all for this episode. Our theme music is by Otis McDonald. If you liked this episode, be sure to share it with someone else you think would. Thanks for listening to the glossy podcast. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
