EcoSalon interviews Lily Piyathaisere, the brains (and hands, and heart) behind  the made in NYC jewelry line, Gamma Folk. 

Juliette Donatelli: What is at the heart of your jewelry line Gamma Folk?

Lily Piyathaisere: Gamma Folk is really about the merging of new materials. So the new collection incorporated ceramics, which is a white earthenware clay, and I like to incorporate that with natural fibers. Everything is naturally dyed using different plant based materials including indigo and log wood. What I love about log wood is that it has a range. You can add modifiers and different things to have a range of purples to grays.

The ceramics are all hand built. It is my first time incorporating ceramics. I love the fibers but I was always looking for weight. It is a comfortable necklace but you want it to hang, and I thought it was a good was to incorporate that.

JD: Is there a history to where the fibers are sourced? Or how they are dyed?

LP:  Well, I do everything myself. I do all the dying in small batches. There are variations that occur and that is what is part of what is beautiful about it. They are all cotton.

JD: How does your customers respond to the specialty and craftsmanship behind each piece?

LP: I think that people who like my stuff, really like my stuff. Meaning they appreciate the handmade quality of it, and that there is variation. There are times I will work with people who are kind of like, “Oh that is too different.” You know, they make that point. And I always say, ‘Variations are natural.’ And that’s how you know it isn’t a good fit. The right people appreciate that. If they want something mass produced they’ve got to go elsewhere.

Part of textile arts in general is the labor part of it and embracing that part.

JD: You participated in the Market 605 pop-up shop in NYC, which brought together conscious designers throughout NYC into a single retail space. In your experience, what has the public response been to Market 605?

LP: The response from the public, whether they have found us online or through press, or even walk-throughs have been really nice. The locals around here get really excited to find something unique in this area because they have a lot of chain stores moving in, so the people that I have met get excited to see something new going on.

images: photographer Christine Han for Gamma Folk

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Jewelry designer, Susan Domelsmith of Dirty Librarian Chains crafts handmade jewelry and elegant accessories out of second market materials from past jewelry factories on the eastern seaboard. Materials dating back to as early as the sixties have found new ways to shine through in Susan’s collections. EcoSalon caught up with Susan to discover more about her craft, upcycling process and made in NYC appeal.

Juliette Donatelli: Your line is produced in New York City?

Susan Domelsmith: Yes, by me.

JD: Do you do all the labor yourself?

SD: Yeah pretty much. I have a few assistants that come in and I teach them as well. It’s like continuing the manufacturing process and trying to keep it here.

But I also work with materials that were primarily made in the United States. I shop at factories that have shut down in Providence Rhode Island, and components from the sixties to the eighties. Second market

JD: Are all of those factories closed down now?

SD: A lot of the production has moved overseas since primarily the mass market stuff is made in China now. But I feel like there is a resurgence where people are starting to care more where their products are made and who makes them. So I feel like there are some new ones that are opening back up.

JD: When bring your handmade jewelry to a buyer or the larger public, and they find out it is made in NYC, is that an appeal to them?

SD: Yes definitely. I do a lot of markets where I am selling straight to the customer and they definitely love meeting the maker and knowing there is a nice person who made the jewelry, infusing it with good energy, rather than someone being forced into this kind of way to make a living. Which you know, some people still have to do in other parts of the world.

If they can identify with the way of life of the maker then I think that’s nice for the customer.

JD: Are more jewelers using reclaimed materials?

SD: Yes. When I first started — I’ve had my line for almost ten years — so when I first started I saw that was not really something people were doing. But it has definitely become more of a common way of designing and producing jewelry. I am really happy a lot more people are taking the more environmentally conscious route, because then it takes all the chemicals that are involved in plating and the mining of the materials as well — it takes that out of the equation, and it is still nice things that are beautiful to wear. So I am happy that that’s becoming more of a movement.

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images from the brand

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One half of the dynamic ethical fashion label, Feral Childe’s Alice Wu, chats with EcoSalon for an inside discussion on their work as made in New York City designers.

Designing all their prints by hand, the bi-coastal team, Moriah Carlson, in Brooklyn, and Alice Wu, in Oakland, are never short of eye-catching designs, easy feminine silhouettes and intelligent ethical values. We sat down with Alice Wu of Feral Childe to talk about their carefully sourced fabrics, ethical production and why having a keen eye for practicality matters for sustainability.

Juliette Donatelli: Feral Childe is best known for its prints and fabrics. Where are the prints made and is there a story behind them?

Alice Wu: Some of the prints are done right in Los Angeles. We use a sample dye house in Marin so we work with our dye guy to create the sample palette for the season. We have our printer print one color and do different dye lots. The same fabric comes out different ways so you get a nice tonal range.

This one is actually printed in Korea. So our silks come from either Korea or India. It depends on what fabric our suppliers have on offer. Everyone has different specialties and fiber qualities. We used a silk linen which was really nice. And for a really vibrant silk, this is digitally printed on a silk cotton.

So we make the image and then we try to find the right fabric partner to do it. Then you have to wrestle with the fabric to make it into the garment. But we try to make it fun altogether.

JD: And all the clothes are made in NYC?

AW: Yes, all the clothes are made either in midtown sewing facilities or we also have started working work sewing contractors in Sunset Park.

JD: When you have a buyer, or the general public come in and see the collection or see the clothing in a store, and then find out they are made in NYC, is that a selling point?

AW: It is. I think people like it. I think it is really wonderful to know the person who made your clothes, to say hello, and thank you for cutting my fabric and putting it together. It adds a very personal touch to something you are going to be wearing for a long time. That is something that is very important to Moriah and me–to try to work with people we can interface with. Even my fabric supplier from India I have met. The first time we worked together was over email, but about a year later he came to New York on business and we met up. It was really wonderful to put a face to all the email correspondences.

JD: How important is it to you to think about where and what fabrics you are using?

AW: For us it is very important to consider materials and where they come from at all steps of the design process. It is choosing materials that have meaning.

In the beginning, whether that meant discovering Garment District castoffs or remnant fabrics, we like to have a story to go along with the fabrics we find. Even though we aren’t necessarily working with remnant fabrics right now–we are creating our own–it is still important for us to have personal connections with the fabric suppliers that we are in contact with each season and to know as much as we can about where the fabrics are coming from, whether they are durable, and are they easy to care for.

It is less important that it is specifically organic — but we try to use organic whenever possible just because it is better for everybody. But for example, even though this is not organic cotton, [this fabric] is woven in Japan working with a small mill that has restored all this vintage production equipment. So you could say it is more of an artisan fabric or made by people who really care.

For instance, take [a product] blend of modal, cotton and polyester. There was a time where I thought, ‘I am never going to make anything with polyester again, I am only going to use natural fibers.’ But if there is a little bit of poly blended with natural fibers it sometimes helps to make the garment withstand more wear and tear. You can throw it in the washing machine, or we have customers that are vegan but want to look nice. So there are lots of things to consider.  But we certainly want to make things to treasure.

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images: photographed by Jonathan Hökklo for the brand

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EcoSalon sits down for a fun conversation with jewelry designer Natalie Frigo on her made in New York ethically sourced stones, the three kinds of fashion consumers and what it takes for people to change.

Juliette Donatelli: All your jewelry is made in New York. How important is that to your customer?

Natalie Frigo: I launched my first line in 2010 and I would say that it was made in NYC, and it didn’t matter at all. Nobody cared. There were, like, three people who cared. How could you not care about this? This is awesome! You don’t want something domestic? There would be a couple of stores that would say, ‘Oh, we love that. We will totally promote that.’

So, now people are more excited about it. And I have people who will contact me –buyers and retail customers who will contact me and say, ‘I love your designs, but then I saw it was made in New York, and I knew I wanted to get it.’ And it’s this thing that justifies it to them.

If you are interested in that it matters, but this is not going to convince you to be interested in that.

I definitely still get from buyers, they seem to understand it more, but I do get a resistance on price because my stuff is made domestically. And my stones are ethically sourced. If you don’t know where your stones are coming from, it is like apparel, a little child cut that stone. There is no question in my mind. I would put money on it. Awful. My stones are not like that. They cost more money–two to ten times as much. And so some people are like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s all great but our customer won’t pay more.’ They like the designs but there is a price resistance and they would just rather have a cheaper good. As much as they think that it’s great that it’s made domestically, it’s not worth it to them, or they don’t want to educate their customer or try to get a new customer base.

JD: What do you think it would take?

NF: Really. What could it take? How much more information do you need to make things domestically? The economy fell from underneath us.

There was a woman who came in [to Market 605], she was dressed pretty cute, and she started going through the clothes. I was wearing something from Feral Childe, and I said ‘I love this jacket, I just bought it.’

And she looks at the tag and it’s a four hundred dollar jacket and she’s like, ‘Oh yeah. That’s too expensive.’

And I said, ‘Well, you know, it is an investment piece. I am going to have it for a really long time, it’s very classic, this isn’t going to go out of style.’

And she said, ‘Yeah, I don’t shop like that. I buy multiple things every season and I never invest in anything. I have friends that do that, I am so impressed. But I can’t do that.’

You can do that right this second! You could get that one thing right now and just start. So people who shop like that are also the buyers.

What does it take to change a person?! I feel like some people are just never going to think it matters. And then there are people on the fence, and the more they learn about it they get super excited. And then there are people who have always known about it and they’ve always been into it and they are all about it.

I would say most of my accounts are galleries or local stores that have been in their communities for a long time and are interested in developing relationships.

JD: It’s all about the relationships we build.

NF: Yeah. You don’t have to have everything made domestically but you could have some things. People want to buy domestically, but they are so used to not having to pay for things on that level.

JD: Getting the conversation started is so important. If Michelle Obama, someone who is always being asked who she is wearing, made a simple statement about where it was made, because it was probably made in the USA because of the designers she wears and the quality of the pieces–a little awareness like that could go really far. 

NF: Yes, we need good fashionable ambassadors.

I got into a conversation with this guy, he was one of the workers at a show that I was setting up for. He came over to my booth, and said, ‘Oh your stuff is really cool,’ and I said thanks, it’s made in NYC. He said, ‘That’s awesome. I had to stop buying Carhartt because they don’t make it in America anymore, they make it in Mexico.’

He was amazing! Just this regular guy wearing t-shirt and jeans, and he’s all mad because Carhartt stopped producing domestically. You need people like that in all walks of life. He’s probably lecturing his friend non stop about wearing something made in China!

Related on EcoSalon

The Promising Future of Men’s Fashion: An Interview With the Discerning Brute’s Joshua Katcher

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images from the brand

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