Apr 6, 2021
In episode 229, Kestrel welcomes Dani Des Roches, the founder of Picnicwear, to the show. A slow fashion brand, Picnicwear is made by hand in NYC (almost) entirely from vintage and deadstock materials.
“A statement piece doesn’t have to be a trendy piece per se —
those descriptors can exist separately from one another. So just
like a sustainable item doesn’t have to mean that it’s banal or
it’s expensive, a statement piece can be special today, and still
can be special 2 years from now, 3 years from now, 10 years from
now.”
-Dani Des Roches, Founder of Picnicwear
On this week’s show, Dani shares more on how her love and appreciation for secondhand fashion started at a very young age. Not only was she influenced by her family's lifestyle, she also had this desire to always look "different" through the way she dressed, which drew her to the one-of-a-kind nature of vintage.
Dani went to fashion school and ended up working in fast fashion for years. While she was grateful to have these opportunities in the industry, they weren't resonating with her and her lifestyle - she never was even buying fast fashion in her own life.
While she had left her fast fashion job before COVID-19 hit, when most of her freelance jobs dried up amidst the pandemic, it inspired her to dive in and push to make Picnicwear come to life.
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Selina Sanders, designer and friend of Dani, featured on Conscious Chatter episode 222 — listen to that episode here >
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“Right now, the way I’m working is not really sustainable, because I’m working all the time. But, it’s also my first year in business, so I’m learning — what’s working, what doesn’t work, where am I spending too much time, how can I scale that down and be able to focus more on these things that are more productive, and then be able to get some time back to myself. So yeah, that’s definitely the work of the work when it comes to how to scale this type of brand, for sure.” -Dani