MountainMornings

By no means am I a fashionista. I know I know, it’s the second post in two weeks about fashion, but this time it’s a new angle, two new angles to be exact. If you like to know where your food is coming from, and you love the ‘ farm to table’ movement, you’re going to love this company – JUST! http://projectjust.com

JUST is a start-up company my BFF’s daughter, Natalie Grillon, co-founded to create transparency in the fashion industry. They help connect designers to ethical suppliers in the fashion supply chain. When we consumers hear about child labor in silk factories in  developing countries we are appalled but what can we do? Boycott a store, look for another label? Very often the thread from one silk or cotton farm in Northern Uganda to a store in the US can be convoluted.

In a nutshell, JUST provides designers with a database to search for ethical suppliers that will fit with their specialty and geographic location. When their clothing reaches the racks, it will be tagged with a JUST barcode so that we can immediately trace the journey of our new purchase. I absolutely love this idea; it’s fair trade all around. After spending time in the Peace Corps, Natalie received her MBA from Cornell where she studied Sustainable Global Enterprise at S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management. 

Congratulations Natalie, I wouldn’t be surprised to see you at a TEDx conference soon! I can’t wait to start seeing those JUST tags in Cville stores.

And next up is an online fashion company that would like to become your own personal shopper! Now I’ve never used a stylist, though some might say I would benefit from one. I remember when the kiddos were little and people would ask me where I got a certain item of clothing, I’d look down, look flummoxed for a minute because let’s face it, I was sleep-deprived most of the time, and then it would dawn on me. “OH, I picked this up on vacation in (insert our latest jaunt).” Because all kidding aside, shopping with a toddler in tow was a nightmare. Half the time I’d be trying to find the Rocker running between racks of clothing.

Well the Bride just turned me on to Stitch Fix http://www.stitchfix.com. Genius idea really especially for young women with little ones and little time. You go to their site, fill out a quick style chart about your likes “Boho Chic” and dislikes “Glamorous,” your size and the kind of lifestyle your clothes would need to represent, like mostly work or casual or evening, (I wish they had mountain-dwelling-writing- nana) and Voila! For $20 they will ship you a package with their picks and you keep what you like and return what you don’t.  Here’s one of their Pinterest pages I like http://www.pinterest.com/stitchfix/wanderlust/ which seems apropos.

Wishing everyone a joyous and warm Easter Sunday. And I thought you’d enjoy this throwback picture to my pre-adolescent self with my red headed cousin Joey in Dover, NJ. Notice the gloves and the Easter corsage! It’s pretty obvious I was fashion-challenged!