Conscious Collaborations Discussion in NYC on August 16, 2012

Please join us for an intimate round table discussion with NYC based designers, Carmen Artigas, Tara St. James, Swati Argade, Jessica Marati, Amy Decew, Jennifer Gootman, Anh-Thu Nguyen, and Francisca Pineda.  This inspirational discussion will explore the personal experiences of designers collaborating with artisans throughout the world.  The space is provided by Ggrippo Art + Design Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Ggrippo 174 Grand St, Brooklyn, New York.  RSVP here at our facebook page

Tara St. James
Tara St. James is the owner and head designer for the New York-based clothing label Study, a high-concept brand primarily produced in New York City. St James was born and raised in Montreal, Canada but has lived and worked in New York since 2004, she now calls Brooklyn home.  Tara also works with local artisans in India to create very limited edition runs of hand-woven textiles. She is looking to expand this specialized production to other artisans around the world.  "I approach ethical design as a series of questions and answers, most of which begin with my comfort level with the choices I'm making for each design process.  For example, Is this fabric choice using an excessive amount of resources? Can I find a way to produce this item more ethically or more beneficially to a society?  I see ethical design as a series of checks and balances, a constant learning process... which I think is part of the reason I named the brand Study."
www.study-ny.com

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Jennifer Gootman
Jennifer Gootman is the Executive Director of Global Goods Partners, a fair trade nonprofit that helps women artisans in the poorest communities around the world access the US market. Jennifer Gootman has ten years experience working with economic development and arts-focused nonprofits and social enterprises.  In addition to her work in social enterprise, Jennifer designs and produces her own line of jewelry. Jennifer received an MBA with distinction from NYU Stern where she specialized in Finance and Social Innovation and Impact and a BA from Harvard University where she majored in History and Women’s Studies.       
www.globalgoodspartners.org

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Carmen Artigas
Carmen has a background in apparel, accessories, and product design. Her experience in India with artisan communities, certified organic cotton, and natural dyes exposed her to the challenges of developing sustainable products. Carmen has worked in fashion for almost 20 years, most recently in sustainable fashion consulting, designing, and sourcing. She is currently teaching Ethical Fashion at FIT and Parsons New School of Design in New York, in order to reevaluate the human and environmental cost of a product and to advocate for craftsmanship, endangered crafts and to redefine “made-in and made-by”.  http://about.me/carmenartigas

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Swati Argade
Swati Argade is the Creative Director of Bhoomki, a Brooklyn-based ethical fashion line. Bhoomki makes 4-6 small collections each year. Each one consists of 3-7 styles to highlight the ever increasing array of artisan, recycled, organic and ethical fabrics and processes available to designers and consumers. 
www.bhoomki.com.

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Jessica Marati 
Jessica Marati is a writer and consultant focusing on the intersections of social change, sustainability, fashion, travel, and design. Her latest project, Tout Le Monde, features handpicked selections of socially responsible items from around the world, starting with the Cambodia Collection.
www.toutlemon.de

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Anh-Thu Nguyen
Anh-Thu Nguyen came to Cambodia as a legal practitioner, working as a lawyer for the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, and returned fascinated by the many social enterprises and community development initiatives she encountered there. With a friend whom she met in Cambodia, who was a microloan officer, she co-founded Ahkun, an initiative to promote and collaborate directly with artisans who had received Kiva microloans. She'll share her insights on the opportunities and challenges facing design collaboration within the field.  shop: http://ahkun.bigcartel.com 
http://blog.ahkun.org
                                                                                                                          

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Amy Decew
A graduate of the University of South Florida and of Parsons the New School for Design, Amy has lived and worked both in New York City and abroad in countries such as Kenya, Fiji, and Vietnam. Motivated by the FIT sustainable design curriculum and interested in ethical and environmentally-conscious business practices, Amy is using her background in both anthropology and women's apparel design to create her collection of handmade artisanal knitwear. Sourced from a women's cooperative in Peru and using vegetable-dyed heritage cotton and alpaca yarns, the collection combines traditional methods with new techniques to create a fusion of cultural arts and conscious fashion. [email protected]  Amy Decew Facebook Page

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Francisca Pineda
Francisca, a Parsons graduate has worked as a designer in the fashion industry for over a decade.  This October Francisca will host the first Ethical Fashion workshop in her home country of Costa Rica through the Ethical Fashion Academy, an educational initiative created to inspire designers and consumers to make more conscious lifestyle choices.  Francisca also mentors aspiring designers through her Fashion Portfolio courses.
franciscapineda.com

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