Reflecting on the journey *Grand Opening Day*

photo by Janet Bloom. “Mompreneur life be like…”

This is a story of a New York turned Jersey mom opening a sustainable fashion and lifestyle retail store despite hard times. 

A bright eyed young Brooklyn mom, I dreamed for many years of launching a sustainable fashion business. I dreamed, I planned, I studied… I strategized. I took time to heal myself for a pivot from NYC fashion industry into a year of yoga in an upstate ashram. I did an MBA in sustainable business at Baruch.. supported my new husband by moving to the Caribbean so that he could study medicine & fulfill his dreams of becoming a doctor.

We were a young yogi family living in Windsor Terrace… home birthing, holistic living, spending summers upstate. We had a great community and incredible opportunities for our children’s development. When at last I felt my son was old enough to start at a daycare I felt comfortable with, I started this sustainable business.. October 2018.

I joined The Wing, I developed a unique business model. I was going to give visibility to Scandinavian companies entering the US market with sustainable fashion for women & children. I signed on 4 clients, and by June 2019 I was post revenue. I launched e-commerce in October 2019, launched a Nolita pop-up in November.. even met Martha Stewart who “loved it all.” I put everything in, and by everything, I mean a lot of money. Meanwhile, my husband was a medical resident at Brooklyn Hospital in Ft Greene. 

March 2020, I sped over to Industry City, filled my car with all the inventory I could before the doors to my studio office closed…and we spent the next month locked in our apartment with a 2 year old and a 4 year old…My husband was wearing a garbage bag and a gas mask at work…people were walking in through the front door of his hospital and leaving out back in body bags. 

I pivoted the business online, and held some virtual events. I partnered up with a local designer to make masks…PPE was the only thing legally allowed to be produced, and I wanted to keep my industry supported. We made masks for the public, but also made supplies for the hospitals. My original business model of supporting Scandinavian businesses was dying, but new avenues to support local were emerging.

I had a new local initiative ready to launch at the end of May. Then, Ahmaud Arbery’s death happened. I threw that launch out the window. All that mattered to me were Black Lives.

I was suffering, we all were suffering. As helicopters constantly hovered over my apartment, I laid on the floor of the living room, unable to move. Daniel Tiger buzzing from the TV in the next room. We didn’t used to allow screen time for our kids like this. The pressure was too much. Park play under cover of darkness or rain so that my kids wouldn’t come into contact with other people was not really serving any of us. Nightly, at 7pm, we were going out to cheer on our balcony for essential workers for more than 2 months now. We had to make a change, we also had to keep our family unit together.

We found a Jersey suburb that my husband could bike to work from, the schools were good, and a great house was available for rent. We moved mid June. Somehow, my business was keeping a pulse with the new pivots. 

I threw some very successful sales that re-fueled the business with cash, and I opened up an extended pop-up in Englewood, NJ… this allowed me to grow the collection to a full lifestyle marketplace. Everything with it’s own sustainability or ethical story. I didn’t love the Englewood spot, but it helped me to the next level, which was developing my retail concept business. 

Here I am now, 2 years later, we just bought our house in Tenafly. My husband is still biking to Ft. Greene for his pulmonary critical care fellowship, and I’ve opened a permanent retail location in our town. The grand opening is tomorrow! My goal is to be a corner stone of this community, where people can come and purchase something beautiful for themselves or a loved one…but leave feeling uplifted, knowing that their purchase has positive implications for the earth and the humans that made it. The online marketplace continues to thrive, and I dream that I can replicate this model in communities across the US. 

Have I reached incredible success yet? No. But, I have persevered, continuing to take the next best step for my family, for myself, for my business, and we’re all here growing and thriving. In these times, I feel that this is notable.