Spirit of 608: Fashion, Entrepreneurship, Sustainability + Tech

Getting the word out about your ethical, sustainable brand is crucial to its future -- but growing visibility can be tricky and time-consuming. There's public relations, brand awareness, growth hacking, networked marketing, affiliate relationships, content creation, social media and on and on and on. It's part of my mission to elevate brands who are making positive change in the world. Let me help you get further than where you might be able to go on your own with these top takeaways...

This week, we dive into a world where sustainable fashion gets experiential. We'll hear from a guest who not only designs using sustainable materials and ethical manufacturing practices, but is taking transparency to an entirely new level through travel. Launching a tour to India this fall, this California luxury fashion brand is not only preaching more positive practices in apparel, but opening up its supply chain to show fans and customers a behind-the-scenes view of how clothes are...

Do you need PR and visibility tips you can use for the holidays and beyond? If so, this episode of the Spirit of 608 podcast is for you. Liza Moiseeva of Scaling Good recently asked me to join her for a Facebook Live inside her Facebook community to talk about growing brand visibility, PR and speaking opportunities for founders during the last weeks of the year and beyond -- and we kept talking for almost an hour. It only made sense to share the conversation with you. Listen in for...

Hot on the sparkling, sequined heels of FEST biz Bow & Drape's recent acquisition news, we're bringing back a popular conversation with co-founder Aubrie Pagano, who helped lead the company from its early days as a custom women's apparel startup to its current life as the go-to for punny casual wear featuring phrases like Goal Digger, You Had Me at Merlot + more. In this #so608 Recycle episode, Aubrie and I talk NYC startup life, fundraising, microfunds for female founders and a lot more....

For the 200th episode of the Spirit of 608 podcast, we had to bring back a special guest, fan favorite, visionary FEST pioneer and all around badass for an update episode looking at what kind of amazing things can happen in a couple years' time. Since the beginning of the Spirit of 608 podcast way back in the fall of 2015 (I know!), we have aimed to inspire, inform and entertain women in FEST so they push on and continue bringing much-needed change to an industry that, while slow to adopt...

Finding FEST-ive manufacturing partners ain't easy, and this week's guest on the Spirit of 608 podcast is here to help streamline the process. Along with that, this recent L.A. transplant shares her story progressing from high-stakes New York PR to a career filled with meaning and purpose after an impactful trip to another country changed everything. Listen in to learn more about the reality of transparency in ethical fashion today, as well as a fun dive into the mysteries of the Enneagram...

Come with me, FEST friends, into a land where growing your business is a breeze and landing top-tier press is as easy as pie....oh wait, no, sorry. That was a dream I had the other night. Of course we all know none of that is easy. But it is possible. Big picture advice is great, but this week I'm all about the details, so I'm diving into real client campaigns and letting you know what's working -- and what's totally not -- this month. With tools and tech-enabled platforms changing all the...

For fans of vintage and secondhand clothing with next to no time to hunt through all the things online to pin the good stuff down, this week’s guest has created nothing short of a true gem in the FEST space. In this episode, you will meet the New York-based, Finnish couple behind the new Google of secondhand style. Meet this week’s guest, Liisa Jokinen, founder and CEO of Gem App. Sign up for the PressDope weekly email to get DIY PR tips and The Dope List of media opps, calls for...

Taking a career risks is never easy. But super early on? It's easier in some ways, more challenging in others. But when you have a strong vision, knack for branding and drive to fill a hole in the marketplace, you might just cruise from risk to reward like this week's guest on the Spirit of 608 podcast. Founder of a Los Angeles-based sustainable sleepwear brand that goes from day to know while relying on deadstock fabrics and incorporating zero waste design principles, the voice on the...

Have you heard about practi-mental? Well, guess what! Probably not, because we're creating that focus here on the Spirit of 608 podcast. In this week's episode, here are four practical and four kinda-sorta woo-woo tips that will help you increase visibility, reach new people and get more earned media in your business. Yes, sometimes you have to be completely practical. And at other times, being spiritually driven and totally mindset-focused is a must. But most of the times, for most of...

This week's podcast guest is all about collaboration - and not in the ways you might think. Yes, her brand, Secession Art & Design, is a gallery, boutique and workspace in San Francisco's Mission neighborhood that's championed the local arts scene for well over a decade. And yes, she's managed to create an untraditional storefront that allows customers to experience curated shows and see the process of art being made in-house -- all on a bootstrapped budget. And it's also true that, for...

Get ready, this week's guest has probably one of the most intriguing careers in sustainability thought leadership imaginable. Not only is it full of creativity, it's full of brains, combining behavioral psychology with gamification and analytic thinking to bring new techniques for creating change to entrepreneurs -- including those in fashion. She's not only the author of the book How to Save the World, host of its sister-podcast, and a speaker on the critical role of creativity,...

Are you unknowingly sabotaging your own PR and media efforts without even realizing it? Listen to this week's episode of the Spirit of 608 podcast to find out. During the August hiatus that we take every year to reorganize and improve what we're doing behind the scenes with PressDope and the clients I work with one-on-one, I spoke with so many FEST founders hoping to amp up media outreach and gain visibility during this year's super important Fall retail and shopping season. And...

If her name sounds familiar, it's because Elizabeth Cline is one of the world’s leading go-to experts on the consequences of fast fashion, the realities of fashion industry labor and sustainability. Her first book, the critically acclaimed Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion first revealed the impacts of fast fashion on the environment, economy, and society to an American audience and is a founding book of the global ethical and sustainable fashion movement. Today it's...

If you're a FEST founder - or really any kind of ethical business owner - hoping to amp up your media outreach and gain visibility during this year's super important Fall retail and shopping season, you are absolutely going to need to send email pitches to members of the media, journalists, bloggers, podcast hosts and content creators. And now - not mid-September - is the time to start. With so many requests from PressDope members, FEST founders and Spirit of 608 podcast listeners coming...

This week, listen in for a conversation about starting off small, only to end up making big change thanks to some very little things. And sparkle. Lots of drool-worthy, dreamy, sparkly goodness. The LA-based ecommerce startup entrepreneur at the heart of this episode is changing the way jewelry -- and diamonds, in particular -- make their way into consumers' hands. And it goes beyond the business model. Thanks to this company's partnership with a Silicon Valley diamond tech innovator, the...

For a lesson in taking risks, going with your gut, standing by your vision and how to turn a very bad, no good bummer of a day into the biggest aha moment of your young life, pull out your earbuds and settle in for a conversation that will make you laugh - and get you inspired to do work on even the most challenging days. In this episode of the Spirit of 608 podcast, twenty-something founder Jordan tells us how one of her earliest media moments (um, which I, cough, wrote) ended up getting...

If you've ever let who you think you are hold you back, then this week's episode is for you (stop doing that by the way). For example, say you're an introvert in Dallas building a small, luxury sustainable fashion brand with zero waste design principles. You might assume, like this week's guest did, that you're not the kind of person who should go on TV at all, much less a hit reality show like Bravo's Project Runway. But if you did that, well, you might be absolutely wrong. Take it from...

Got it all together? Everything going 100% smoothly? Like you're on the easy breezy train to chill-ville? That's fabulous. But come back next week. Seriously, this episode of the Spirit of 608 podcast is *so not* for you. This week, I'm bringing you a show that's for those murky, messy, turbulent, hectic times. It's for those days when you're not sure if you can keep the wheels on the proverbial cart, whether you're distracted because of something heady and wonderful like getting smacked...