Looking for clarity
This Wednesday afternoon we finally arrived in Cape Town, the city where we want to test our ideas and prototype in. After the few first meetings we quickly realised that explaining to others what we want to do isn’t that clear yet, which probably means that it isn’t that clear to us either. Although the three of us were on the same page about why we believe in a market that offers only fairly produced products, we couldn’t yet agree on a more concrete and tangible vision. What value do we really want to create? and why?
The lack of clarity made it harder to identify which ideas we should further pursue. We understood that to do something a hundred percent, and not everything a little bit, we need a clearer vision statement that gives us direction and makes it easy to communicate our ideas to others. That’s why we came up with the following: Look good. Do good. Feel good.
Look good
Don’t we all think about how others perceive us?
In most cases our appearance is the first thing that other people notice about us. But what exactly defines this appearance? Although we are all equipped with certain physical features, we believe that our look goes beyond the colour of eyes or hair. It depends on the way we interact with others, how well we know ourselves, and how comfortable we are with sharing our true self with others. We see clothes as a tool to shape our individuality, which includes both charisma and how we are physically composed. Fashion helps us to emphasise on certain elements that are important to us. If our beliefs are reflected in the actions that lead to clothing items, such products are not only shaped to comfort our natural body form, but also stand for our inner selves, and therefore help us to create a version of ourselves that is beautiful both, inside and outside.
Do good
When we talked about what "do good" means to us we realised that our initial definition "having a positive impact on someone's life" needs to be expanded. If for example a parent buys a whole lot of clothing for a teenager, then that can totally make this kid’s day. But what if these said clothes were made under terrible circumstances? What if somebody else was suffering while producing them? That’s why we expanded our definition with "while not causing any harm to someone else’s life".
As customers we actually have huge power over the production standards of the goods we buy. Drawing on Margaret Mead who said "Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For indeed, that's all who ever have", we want to encourage everybody to put more thought into their consumer behaviour and thereby do good - not only for themselves but for others too.
Feel good
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou
When it comes to the products we produce, we believe that people can feel the difference when wearing our clothes, whether it’s because of the fabric we use, for the fact that it’s custom made or for the direct positive impact people have on the textile industry and people’s lives. Receiving a good product and doing good at the same time is supposed to make people feel good about themselves and others.
Feeling good is the ultimate state of mind we want to reach in our work and which we would like people to have when engaging with us. Knowing that our actions lead to someone else’s positive feelings, positive feelings are likely to come back to us. We see people focusing on reaching their inner peace so they are ready to bring this peace to their environment, which eventually brings peace to the world we live in.
This Wednesday afternoon we finally arrived in Cape Town, the city where we want to test our ideas and prototype in. After the few first meetings we quickly realised that explaining to others what we want to do isn’t that clear yet, which probably means that it isn’t that clear to us either. Although the three of us were on the same page about why we believe in a market that offers only fairly produced products, we couldn’t yet agree on a more concrete and tangible vision. What value do we really want to create? and why?
The lack of clarity made it harder to identify which ideas we should further pursue. We understood that to do something a hundred percent, and not everything a little bit, we need a clearer vision statement that gives us direction and makes it easy to communicate our ideas to others. That’s why we came up with the following: Look good. Do good. Feel good.
Look good
Don’t we all think about how others perceive us?
In most cases our appearance is the first thing that other people notice about us. But what exactly defines this appearance? Although we are all equipped with certain physical features, we believe that our look goes beyond the colour of eyes or hair. It depends on the way we interact with others, how well we know ourselves, and how comfortable we are with sharing our true self with others. We see clothes as a tool to shape our individuality, which includes both charisma and how we are physically composed. Fashion helps us to emphasise on certain elements that are important to us. If our beliefs are reflected in the actions that lead to clothing items, such products are not only shaped to comfort our natural body form, but also stand for our inner selves, and therefore help us to create a version of ourselves that is beautiful both, inside and outside.
Do good
When we talked about what "do good" means to us we realised that our initial definition "having a positive impact on someone's life" needs to be expanded. If for example a parent buys a whole lot of clothing for a teenager, then that can totally make this kid’s day. But what if these said clothes were made under terrible circumstances? What if somebody else was suffering while producing them? That’s why we expanded our definition with "while not causing any harm to someone else’s life".
As customers we actually have huge power over the production standards of the goods we buy. Drawing on Margaret Mead who said "Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For indeed, that's all who ever have", we want to encourage everybody to put more thought into their consumer behaviour and thereby do good - not only for themselves but for others too.
Feel good
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou
When it comes to the products we produce, we believe that people can feel the difference when wearing our clothes, whether it’s because of the fabric we use, for the fact that it’s custom made or for the direct positive impact people have on the textile industry and people’s lives. Receiving a good product and doing good at the same time is supposed to make people feel good about themselves and others.
Feeling good is the ultimate state of mind we want to reach in our work and which we would like people to have when engaging with us. Knowing that our actions lead to someone else’s positive feelings, positive feelings are likely to come back to us. We see people focusing on reaching their inner peace so they are ready to bring this peace to their environment, which eventually brings peace to the world we live in.