Moncton Fashion Designer Selling ‘Slow Fashion’ From Africa, South America
MONCTON – Erin Keatch’s journey in the fashion industry has taken her from being a designer in Toronto to promoting socially-conscious slow fashion with a new business in Moncton.
Through Caravan & Company, which started operating in September last year, Keatch curates products from all over the world that are “whimsical, personal and have a special connection to the wearer.”
These are things like handwoven Waayu bags from Colombia, bangles made out of recycled flip-flops from Mali, and artisan silver jewellery from Mexico. Most of them are made by women in various parts of the world, and sourced through partners that support local communities and empower women.
“I select goods all over the world, but it’s really to help women to have a fair trade income in their country. Because they’re the primary caregivers, they’re the ones looking after the kids…so the more income that they can have working on their crafts is great to just bring up everybody,” she said.
For example, Keatch buys the Waayu bags from Lombia & Co., who gets 97 percent of its bags directly from the women of the Waayu tribe in Colombia. Lombia & Co. also has initiatives that provide mentorship and training to the artisan women.
The flip flop bracelets are made in Mali, by a collective of women who go door to door to collect flip-flops, melt them down and then turn them into bracelets.
But Keatch doesn’t want to sell just any type of accessories.
“I want it to be curated. And I want to see my friends in it, or to really be able to envision that it’s stylish as well. Because it’s not just the big brands or fast fashion that can be stylish, you can have something really unique that’s made by artisans that has meaning to it as well,” she said.
Originally from Winnipeg, Keatch always loved the creativity in fashion. She loves that it can be used as a venue for self-expression.
She went to fashion school in Toronto, and later worked as a knitwear designer for Franco Valeri. She also opened her own clothing line, Las Valentias, with a business partner, using locally made materials, and garnered attention after becoming one of the finalists in the Toronto Fashion Incubator’s 2006 New Labels competition.
Her interest in helping women in developing countries gain stable and fair income stemmed from the collapse of garment factory Rana Plaza in Bangladesh in 2013. The tragedy killed 1,134 people, mostly underpaid women making clothes for brands like Benetton, Zara, Primark, Joe Fresh and Walmart, among others. The incident sparked a conversation about the human cost of fast fashion.
“They were making next to nothing. That really affected me in a way that I didn’t want to be part of that part of the [fashion] industry. Because I really love fashion but I didn’t love the wastefulness…and the human cost it’s really had as well,” she said.
It was also a few years before that fast-fashion brands started booming, making it hard for local brands like Las Valentias to compete.
“It was doing really, really well and then the industry just really changed once fast-fashion came in because we were doing quirky pieces, but they could do that in a matter of weeks. [With us], it would take months,” Keatch said. “So it didn’t make any sense to try to have a career doing that.”
Shortly after her line closed, Keatch started a family with her New Brunswicker husband. With two kids in tow, they decided to move to Moncton.
“We didn’t have any family in Toronto so this was a nice way of just coming to have a bit of a slower lifestyle,” she said.
Moncton’s definitely been an adjustment from the hustle and bustle of Canada’s largest city, “but I’ve come to realize you can be happy wherever you are,” Keatch said.
“And coming here has really given us a lot of opportunities that we really wouldn’t have been able to afford in Toronto.”
She also saw an opportunity to bring something different to Moncton. With her new business, she wants to focus on the Maritimes as her target market with the website as a way to test the market for a pop-up shop and a brick-and-mortar presence down the line.
She’d also like to go back to designing clothes, “again with the ethical guiding principles behind it.”
But starting a business is the fun part, she said.
“It’s to keep it going that’s the hard part.”