How Fitting: design a slow fashion business that fits

If we’re talking about how values show up in the creation of specific clothing styles, you won’t find a better example of this than fair trade fashion. For fair trade fashion brands, the process is just as important as the product. Collections don’t begin with design inspiration, they stem from family-owned production partners, long-term boutique relationships, cross-cultural collaborations, and a commitment to each person involved.

This is the foundation that Mata Traders is built on. In episode 139, Mata Traders Owner & Director Taylor McCleneghan shares what it means to be fair trade and just how those values, strengths, and limitations came together in their Rosy Snakes Lucielle Dress. Taylor and I get nerdy about the details and, as Taylor sums up so well in this episode: “I continue to just be amazed at what people can create together.”

Early exposure to building costumes for school plays could very well be what sparked Taylor's curiosity for garment construction!

With a deep appreciation for how all things are made and a joy in creating with our producer partners, Taylor’s passion for products that support an equitable system grows every day at Mata.

What we learn about fit in this episode:

Fitting the people

How Mata Traders prioritizes the people in their supply chain just as much as the people who are their customers

Why relationships are so important to fair trade production

Fitting the performance

How Mata uses customer and store feedback into their design process

How Mata’s customer-favorite style – the Lucielle Dress – has evolved over the last 7 years

Fitting the purpose

What fair trade actually means at the brand and product level

The difference between fair trade product versus brand certifications and memberships

Transparently telling the story behind the clothes to customers and buyers while protecting the privacy and relationships with production people

Fitting the production

Why Mata designs each piece with a particular manufacturing partner in mind

The nuances of different printing and production processes that Mata’s partner’s use and how Mata’s team designs with strengths and limitations in mind

People and resources mentioned in this episode:

Mata Traders website (code WELCOME10 will give new customers 10% off!)

Mata Traders Instagram

Mata Traders LinkedIn

Mata Traders email

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A good product is not enough. As much as we’d like to pour our creative time and resources into creating the most beautiful design and exquisitely crafted product and then let it sell itself, it just doesn’t. In fashion business, the job doesn’t stop when the garment is produced. Marketing it is just as important. And that job actually starts before the product even exists.

For some designers, it might seem counterintuitive to think about the marketing and business first, but for Ann Simmons, it came naturally. After working in merchandising and brand marketing at iconic heritage lifestyle brands, she founded her own label – Annie Ozark. Before designing anything, Ann thought about the lifestyle and marketing concept of her brand. In episode 138 of How Fitting®, she shares how this brand story is woven throughout each aspect of her collection’s design and development – including that of the Mulberry Denim Overalls.

Annie Ozark founder Ann Simmons was raised in the Arkansas Ozarks with a bent toward design, Americana, and all things vintage. Her mother and grandmother taught her the difference between a garment made for the season and one crafted to be passed down – a distinction that now shapes every piece she makes.

After studying Fashion Merchandising in college, she built a career in apparel and retail. Her time at two iconic heritage brands, Ralph Lauren and Wrangler, inspired her to be the architect of her own label, Annie Ozark.

The brand was born where the American South meets the Midwest, in the folds of the Ozark Mountains. It offers women’s pieces for everyday living: overalls, work shirts, and bandanas, all designed with equal parts femininity and sturdiness, and built to outlast a single season.

What we learn about fit in this episode:

Fitting the people

How the Ozarks lifestyle influences every part of Annie Ozark

How Ann balances fitting herself versus fitting other women in her target market

Referencing vintage clothing when designing for the modern woman

Fitting the performance

The unexpected ways that longevity plays a role in Ann’s design choices

How Ann responds to trends in her brand and designs

Fitting the purpose

Why Ann created the story and world for Annie Ozark before she designed any clothing

The Americana niche that Ann found was missing in fashion

Fitting the production

What Ann learned from producing her first collection that she is bringing into the development of future seasons

Balancing cost and quality in production

People and resources mentioned in this episode:

Annie Ozark website

Annie Ozark Instagram

Annie Ozark LinkedIn

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If you run a slow fashion brand, you’ve probably experienced this. You saw how wasteful the fashion industry can be and vowed to run your brand differently. You want to pursue quality over quantity, sustainable materials and practices, fair labor, and avoid over-production. But how does this slow fashion intent meet the reality of factory MOQs, wash tests, and production costs for a new brand? Plus, as the brand grows, is there a scale where a slow fashion brand is no longer slow fashion?

These are all questions Arianna Levesque considers for her brand Triplicity. Arianna and her triplet sisters create versatile, chic pieces meant for a long-lasting capsule wardrobe. In episode 137, hear what slow fashion values Arianna prioritized as Triplicity started out, how she’s planning for the brand’s future growth, and how these goals impacted decisions for the Adelaide Adjustable Drawstring Pant.

Triplicity was founded by Arianna Levesque, a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology. Arianna began her career designing for a fast fashion company and eventually realized she wanted to do things differently.

She saw hundreds of styles produced each month in poor fabrics and likely unethical conditions, in trendy designs that would not carry over to the next year. It felt wasteful, and she wanted to offer styles that were higher quality, and could help people build a capsule wardrobe that they could wear for years to come, which would reduce waste, save people money in the long run, and make deciding what to wear easier.

Inspired by growing up as an identical triplet and sharing clothes with her two sisters, Arianna developed a passion for designing basics with extra functional details that make her designs versatile, with flexible sizing on many of the styles. These features turn timeless basics into unique, adaptable pieces.

What we learn about fit in this episode:

Fitting the people

How sharing clothes with her sisters growing up helps Arianna design capsule wardrobe pieces

How Arianna incorporates adjustable features in each piece without cluttering the simplicity of the designs

Fitting the performance

The debate between natural and synthetic fibers and where Triplicity landed on their materials

How the flexible designs are made for the lifestyle of the Triplicity customer

Fitting the purpose

How Triplicity follows a slow fashion approach

Why sustainability probably isn’t the biggest selling point for your product

Fitting the production

Why Triplicity doesn’t follow a traditional fashion production calendar

What Arianna envisions for Triplicity’s production model to scale the brand without giving up slow fashion values

People and resources mentioned in this episode:

Triplicity website

Triplicity Instagram

Triplicity TikTok

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As entrepreneurs, we didn’t start businesses to create a job that we hate. In fact, for most of us, it is quite the opposite. We want our work to be fulfilling. But we also want it to pay the bills and not burn us out. So how do we build a business that is both fun and financially stable? That offers both creative confidence and commercial control? Where the day-to-day process feels magical, but also manageable?

These are the kinds of questions that underlie all of our businesses and impact how sustainable running the business actually is. Ceilidh has experienced this first hand over the ten years she’s been running her brand BillyNou. What started as a natural dyeing hobby, became a maker business. As the brand grew, she realized both the strengths of her creative process and the limitations of her business model.

In episode 136, Ceilidh shares how she’s aligning her product offering with the content she already loves to share and how the Original Overalls she started with still embody the magic she wants the BillyNou community to experience.

Ceilidh Chaplin is a British designer and the founder of BillyNou, a slow fashion brand based in Provence in the south of France, focusing on unique, simple, statement pieces coloured with natural pigments and flowers.

Born out of a desire for comfort and sustainability, BillyNou clothing is low impact and easy to wear. There is a strong focus on low impact fibers and using natural dyes to colour garments made with vintage and antique French linen. Most pieces are made slowly, from start to finish in her small atelier bridging the gap between fashion and craft.

Ceilidh describes the natural dyes she works with as “living colours” having a charm and personality very unlike chemical dyes and offers natural dye workshops and tutorials in person and on line. She communicates her story and showcases her brand in collaboration with her partner, through high quality and visually beautiful content, encouraging people to consider their relationship to fast fashion and over consumption whilst also feeling they have stepped into a magical floral universe.

What we learn about fit in this episode:

Fitting the people

What surprises Ceilidh about the women who buy BillyNou

Why listening to her audience led Ceilidh to start teaching workshops

Fitting the performance

What makes some styles staples that sell for years or decades

Fitting the purpose

How BillyNou’s Original Overalls embody the brand’s values

Why natural dyeing is a big part of the BillyNou brand and a big reason why customers buy from BillyNou

How the new natural dyeing course that Ceilidh teaches is making her business more sustainable

Fitting the production

How Ceilidh balances control and consistency with creativity in production

The moment Ceilidh realized that the content she was sharing online and what she was selling weren’t aligned

People and resources mentioned in this episode:

BillyNou website

BillyNou Instagram

BillyNou Youtube

BillyNou email

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We’re told in fashion business that your brand’s patterns are your IP, don’t let anyone else have access to them. It is true that your patterns are one of the most legally protectable aspects of your brand’s unique fit and design aesthetic, but is gatekeeping patterns really necessary for fashion business success?

Today’s guest, Megan McCullough took the opposite approach for her brand The Sample Room. 100% of styles are available as both the finished garment and the sewing pattern. Not only that, but Meg designs each pattern and style to be upcycled so that the final garment is not its final form. The unique business model means The Sample Room operates half way between an apparel company and an indie pattern company.

In episode 135, we talk about the reasoning behind her decision to sell her patterns and ask the question: ‘Is there any financial benefit to working with upcycled materials?’. It’s an interesting conversation about business, fit, circular design, and more. Hear how this all fits together in her signature Workwear Jacket.

Meg McCullough is a clothing designer and the founder of The Sample Room, a circular fashion brand focused on designing garments that can be remade, repaired, and eventually returned to the earth.

She also runs Studio M, a freelance apparel design studio where she helps small brands design and tech pack clothing. With over a decade in the fashion industry, her work focuses on better design, natural materials, and clothing made to last.

What we learn about fit in this episode:

Fitting the people

The Sample Room customers’ response when she designed the Workwear Jacket to be upcycled

Why Megan shifted from using GOTS certified cotton to upcycling garments in her fashion brand

What The Sample Room’s fit testing process looks like given that they sell both garments and patterns

How Megan balances fitting each individual fit model versus fitting her customer across the board

How Megan keeps the fit and sizing consistent across her fashion brand while working with a variety of fit testers

Fitting the performance

The regional lifestyle that influenced the amount of ease in the Workwear Jacket

How The Sample Room’s different income streams fit together in the business

Fitting the purpose

Why Megan sells The Sample Room patterns as well as finished garments

How Megan designs her patterns so that the garment can be upcycled

Fitting the production

The production costs of using upcycled versus production using virgin materials

How Megan handled conversations with her factory when there was pushback on the sustainable way she wanted her apparel manufactured

People and resources mentioned in this episode:

The Sample Room website

The Sample Room Instagram

The Sample Room Youtube

Meg’s email

Meg’s LinkedIn

Circular Factory biodegradable trims

Clo3D fashion design software

Optitex patternmaking software

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