Custom Collaborative
Training women to run their own fashion businesses
I have been curious to learn more about Custom Collaborative for the last couple of years, and I finally had the opportunity after meeting Ngozi Okaro, the founder. Custom Collaborative is a fashion training and support organization created for low/no-income and immigrant women. Ngozi Okaro started the non-profit in 2016, and by the end of 2024 they will have graduated almost 100 women through their Training Institute program. They also offer a business incubator and plan to create a worker cooperative. Below is their Mission and Vision, best said in their own carefully chosen words.
Our Mission
Custom Collaborative trains, mentors, and advocates for and with no/low-income and immigrant women to build the skills necessary to achieve economic success in the sustainable fashion industry and broader society.
Our Vision
Custom Collaborative envisions a world in which all women possess the skills, confidence, and agency to design their futures and contribute to a sustainable world — regardless of race or socio-economic background.
I support this vision and believe that what they are doing - helping women become independent and successful business owners- is positive for everyone it touches. The women benefit from the training, and their families and their communities benefit from their businesses bringing revenues into their neighborhoods, creating jobs for others and generally building on and evolving New York City.
The free, 15 week Training Institute program teaches the participants everything they need to operate their own custom fashion business through a sustainable lens. They learn pattern making, draping, fitting and sewing, concept and line creation, tech packs, and more. Many already have their own businesses and this helps them grow their business acumen. Others have no sewing knowledge whatsoever, and when they leave they feel empowered to start their own business. The women are also encouraged to fold their indigenous practices, skills and crafts into their training process and their businesses. In my opinion, it is important to continue building our domestic population of folks who know how to design and make clothes (for near and re-shoring), but also to fold in new and creative ways of doing things so these skills evolve with us as our society and culture changes.
Once trainees have graduated, the business incubator helps them with their business plans, supports them with legal documents, and gives general entrepreneurial support to help the graduates’ businesses succeed.
This month, Custom Collaborative is running a Behind the Seams campaign to raise money for their organization, so they can keep providing these valuable services to an underserved population of women. This campaign highlights six different graduates of their program, and I want to tell you about Jade Koroma, a 2023 graduate, who I had the pleasure of speaking with.
During the pandemic, Jade realized she liked working with her hands, and she found that embroidery helped teach her patience and channeled her creativity. She learned a few hand stitches from her mom and became curious about what else she could do with embroidery. She discovered artists who paint with thread, who embroider portraits and other complex images using hand embroidery. Jade introduced me to the art of Ruth Miller, who calls her work ‘embroidered realism’. Jade loved the detail of her work, but also that the people Miller depicted looked like Jade.
Now she is working to create a businesses centered around hand embroidery. I love her current offering of ‘shoulder pad bags’, shown in the photo below. Jade sources shoulder pads from thrift and vintage stores across NYC and combines them with hand embroidery to create one-of-a-kind bags.
Jade is currently continuing her education at FIT where she’s majoring in Fine Art so she can learn how to draw and incorporate color theory into original designs for hand embroidery. She’s 23 now, and hoping in 5 years she’ll have her own studio where she’s a multi dimensional artist who creates at her own whim. She wants to have the financial and spiritual freedom to create as she pleases, and she wants to create things she wants to see in the world. I think this is a beautiful, entirely possible and probable vision based on what she has already accomplished- and also given her clarity about what she wants for herself. Not many folks, myself included, are that clear about what they want when they are 23.
You can find Jade on Instagram @jadeembroiders.
Please take a moment to check out the incredible work Custom Collaborative is doing and make a donation if you are able!
Thanks for reading,
Cynthia
cynthia@moltevolte.com
PS. Our Fall Circular Coalition group is gaining great momentum! 28+ orgs and individuals have signed up from across the circular value chain (resale shops, resale software platforms, repair services, academics, sorting technologies, brands, and more). This will be an opportunity for expanding your community, learning from others and sharing what you know. Learn more and sign up here! It will run for 8 weeks Oct-Nov, 1 hour/week.