'Tis the season for collaborations — or so it seems!

We've got a lot of creative collaborating going on these days and we're LOVING it! One collaboration we are thrilled about is our partnership with Perennials©, a Dallas-based, female-fueled fabric company that has resulted in tons of new high-utility GAIA goodness! Read on to learn about Perennials© and each of our new & improved product categories.

Perennials© was started in 1997 by Ann Sutherland, and since then has become a leader in the textile industry, known for creating luxury high-performance fabrics. (Like super high-performance – as in, pour bleach on your black Perennials© pillow & don't bat an eye.) Perennials© is best known for creating performance fabrics for patio and porch furniture, but it also makes pillows, rugs, trim, and even pet beds (lucky pups!).

We were approached by the powerhouse Perennials© team last summer. A woman-owned business (like us!) producing products in an ethical way (like us!) – obviously we had to get together! So we popped over to their Design District showroom to get a tour and have a chat, where we confirmed that our companies should be BFFs. Fast forward a few months and – abracadabra! – a collection of lovingly hand-crafted products made from the highest-utility fabrics & indestructible pom poms just for you!

First up were our limited-edition Pom Pom Tassel Earrings. Perennials© silk pom poms are handmade in Dallas and are highly stain (i.e. makeup) resistant. We designed four color ways to choose from, but act fast! Two styles are already sold out!

Next up was a special collection of Ring Totes we're calling The Baqa’a Collection, named for the traditional embroideries we incorporated, which are made by Palestinian refugee women living in the Baqa'a refugee camp in Jordan. The bag’s other fabrics—the outside and the inside lining — are Perennials©. We’ve also used Perennials as the lining on many other Ring Tote designs. (More about why this is super cool in a moment...)

Finally, we launched Bib + Bootie Sets and Diaper Pouches made from Perennials© fabrics. All moms know these need to be able to take a lot of abuse — and now, thanks to Perennials©, they're cuter & more baby-proof than ever.

These fabrics are the very definition of form meets function. In addition to being absolutely beautiful & much softer than other performance fabrics, Perennials© fabrics are made to handle the rough stuff. They are tear resistant, stain resistant, and easy to clean. You can even use bleach without damaging the fabric! That means makeup won’t mess up your GAIA earrings. It means that an exploding pen or a rogue lipstick inside your GAIA tote will be able to wash right out. And it means that diaper duty will leave less permanent memories...

Because of their durability, we're also using Perennials© fabrics as the reverse to most of the pillows in our collection, and as the lining to many of our pouches and bags.  We're exclusively using their fabric for our recently launched Custom Text Pouches, and our entire Text Pouch collection will soon be transitioned over as well... the perfect material for our GAIA pieces that get a lot of use and a lot of love!  

We are so jazzed to be working with Perennials©, and the feeling is mutual. “We are always excited and interested in working with talented, creative people," Ann Sutherland says. "We also embrace being informed by other cultures and contributing to their assimilation into our design work. It is inspirational to know that through art we can make a difference.”

Are you ready to make a difference in a refugee's life? Shop GAIA.

To learn more about Perennials© process watch the video below!

Perennials Fabrics from Perennials Fabrics on Vimeo.

 

 

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As you might have seen on our Facebook or Instagram, GAIA products are now in select J.Crew stores all over the United States and abroad, as well as online.

It’s a big moment for us — one that was nearly a year in the making. We are beyond thrilled to see our beautiful handmade earrings, pompom bags, and hair ties (more on that later) under the J.Crew umbrella. It’s not something we aspired to, but the implications for our little brand are huge: More people find out about our products, which means more sales. But what’s meaningful about that is it means we get to hire more refugee women! And that’s why we’re here!

So how did this partnership happen? And how did a tiny brand with a tiny team working out of a 950-square-foot office pull off production of 6,200 individual handmade items? Sit tight and we’ll tell you.

The Discovery

Last May, our founder Paula shared a photo of herself in a striped J.Crew dress on GAIA's Instagram account. Paula tagged J.Crew, along with her GAIA pieces. The company’s creative director, Jenna Lyons, saw the post and “liked” it, along with several other photos on our feed. She also shared a few of our images with members of her team. Which, of course, we didn’t know.

Cut to two months later, when we get an email from the brand buyer who oversees J.Crew’s partnerships with third-party brands, called "In Good Company". She told us that they’d anonymously ordered three Pom Pom bags and that they were obsessed with them. She said that Jenna had carried one to a wedding and loved it. She asked if we could make some samples for potential consideration for the spring 2017 collection.

Of course, we said yes!

They sent us some of their fabric yardage and we made 16 samples, using a mix of their fabrics and ours. They said they might use them in their September Fashion Week presentation in New York. (What!?)

We tried not to get our hopes up because they kept reminding us that the bags might not be used and that even if they were used that they might not be picked up for stores. All summer, our team struggled to keep our composure, knowing that we might appear at New York Fashion Week! We were still flying high just from the fact that Jenna was following us on IG — never mind that J.Crew was interested in our products!

Deep breaths, like, all the time.

 

So then, lo and behold, Fashion Week rolls around, and on September 11, several styles of our Pom Pom bags show up in their presentation! We were freaking out, to put it mildly. But would they get picked up by stores? Would J.Crew actually place an order? We didn’t know. And we would have to wait. And wait. And wait.

We were getting nervous.

And then, about a month later, they finally reached out and said they’d taken so long because they loved all the bags and it was hard to choose!

The Order

When the order came, it was initially for three styles of Pom Pom bags.

 

But a few weeks later, the J.Crew accessories team emailed and asked if we could make hair ties with pom poms. We hadn’t done it before, but Bothina figured out the construction for the initial samples we were able to send the company an assortment of color combos.

And then, when Paula went to New York and met with J.Crew buyers they saw her GAIA tassel earrings. They asked for samples and then chose three styles from our existing collection.

The full order comprised 4,200 hair ties; 1,200 Pom Pom bags; and 400 pairs of earrings.

This was by far the largest order we’ve ever received. Now we had to figure out what it would take to fulfill it. We starting by plotting out how many of each item needed to be completed each week and compared it to existing resources. At that time we had six refugee artisans, and we quickly realized we needed triple that number.

So the team reached out to the International Rescue Committee, who began to recruit potential candidates. We held several interview sessions in our office before choosing the 12 women who were the best fit.

We then enlisted Alyssa to oversee production and Johnna to oversee sourcing. One of her biggest challenges was finding a reliable quality source for the elastic bands we needed to make hair ties.

The Fulfillment

A big order like this one forces a little company to shore up. For GAIA that meant not only hiring more people, but also streamlining processes, putting system in place, and formalizing training.

Volume was the challenge. Each Pom Pom bag has seven pompoms — we needed 8,400 pompoms for the bags — and each hair tie has two — which meant 8,400 more. And every GAIA pompom is made by hand. There were refugee women all over Dallas making pompoms nonstop for weeks! We knew we had the earrings down, it was just a matter of getting 800 individual pieces made. The hair ties were a little tricker, because we hadn’t done them before and our supplier was late delivering the elastic bands, which put us in a time crunch.

Ultimately, we were in the thick of things for more than a month — and it all got done only with the help of many, many volunteers. GAIA friends and family came to our office on multiple Saturdays to help us inspect each product and attach the hangtags hand-signed by our artisans. It was a family affair — Lauren J.’s mom flew in from California, both Paula’s mom and step-mom volunteered their time, and the husbands did their share as well! One friend of ours even threw a party at her house one evening where people did quality control. (Everything had to be perfect!) We all took home bags or ties to tag each night. A neighbor let us store the inventory in her office. Toward the end, we had to pull out all the stops!

And then we packed it all up and sent it to New York. Whew!

The Fulfilling Things

This order was a turning point for GAIA. Whatever happens next, we grew so much from the experience.

Our hearts are warmed by the outpouring of support we received from every direction, and we are in awe at what an incredible partner J.Crew has been. They liked us for who we are, never asking us to change what we do or how we do it, fully believing in the mission behind our brand and showing us a lot of patience and grace when we needed it.

What has happened feels surreal at times. To know that J.Crew elected to use its massive international platform to feature a little company that exists to employ refugees and to bring awareness to refugees living in the United States is significant in many ways, especially in a time of anti-refugee sentiment. GAIA refugee artisans now have a world stage on which to shine.

We didn’t dream this dream that is now a reality, but we are forever grateful.

J.Crew Order by the Numbers

18 refugees artisans
800 earrings
1,200 Pom Pom bags
4,000 tassels
4,200 pompom hair ties
16,800 pompoms

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Just in time to round out your last-minute holiday shopping list: The Little Market launches a custom collection from GAIA!

We’ve been biting our tongues for months, dying to tell you about the day Lauren Conrad and her team came to our office in Dallas to design the collection, meet our refugee artisans, and see how we make magic happen. We wanted to wait until the collection was live, and now it’s time to spill the beans!

It started back in the spring, when the folks at The Little Market reached out to us. They wanted to know all about our company, our process, our materials — everything — really digging in to what we do to make sure that the GAIA mission and The Little Market mission were aligned. In case you don’t already know, The Little Market is a non-profit, charitable organization and online fair trade shop founded three years ago by TV personality Lauren Conrad and her long-time friend Hannah Skvarla. Its mission is to build sustainable partnerships with artisans around the world and help them develop and sell their designs, so that those artisans have meaningful work and can support their families. (Have you ever heard anything more aligned with our mission?!)

After we completed a Q&A and both realized what an awesome match we are, The Little Market began carrying some of our goods on its site. GAIA favorites, such as the Pom Pom bag and Fold-Over clutch, as well as pillows, pouches, and Mini Heart purses, have found a home with The Little Market customer — so much so that The Little Market folks wanted to have us create an exclusive GAIA collection just for them! As if that weren’t enough, they told us that Conrad and Skvarla wanted to come to Dallas to meet everyone and work on the collection in person. For all of us, it was a thrill, and for some of the gals on our team — those who have been huge fans of Conrad since her OC days — it was one of the highlights of their year!

There’s nothing like a guest of honor to inspire a little sprucing up, so we cleaned and painted and rearranged a bit.  And since Conrad and Skvarla wanted to meet all of our refugee artisans, and most of them work from home, have childcare responsibilities, and don’t have transportation, it took some coordinating to get everyone into the office. But we did it!

It is so rare that we are all together in one place, and it would have been a wonderful day just for that reason, but having Conrad and Skvarla in our space, talking with everyone, designing with us, and taking lots of photos and video for The Little Market website and her own blog, was a dream! They couldn’t have been warmer or more gracious with the team and our refugee artisans. And we couldn't be more excited to finally tell you about this collaboration.

Read Conrad’s post about her visit to our office and shop The Little Market.

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Yep, those were GAIA Pom Pom bags you spied in the J.Crew Fashion Week presentation!

Such a thrill last Saturday afternoon to spot our familiar hot pink poms paired with a satin skirt in a sneak peek shot on J. Crew's Instagram feed... All the GAIA gals were texting each other like mad, we couldn't believe it was actually happening!  The next day, images of the J.Crew Spring/Summer 2017 presentation — with looks accessorized with GAIA creations — were popping up everywhere, accompanied by sweet comments and shout-outs from our friends and supporters.  Still pinching ourselves!

We love seeing our GAIA bags styled with such a gorgeous collection (want it ALL!), and we also love the fact that the brand opted for "real" people — employees, friends, family — instead of trained models. Its clothes were presented on a wonderfully diverse array of men and women of different ages, races, and sizes.

So inspiring to see such a beloved brand make an effort not only to honor those who actually wear its clothing, but also to give the skilled work of the refugee women we employ such a spotlight. 

We're excited to see what happens next.

Stay tuned!

Photos: Courtesy of J.Crew

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