Evolverie Brings Sustainable Clothing to Old Worthington
Amy Homan is the founder and designer behind Evolverie, a responsible clothing brand that provides affordable, sustainable quality clothing for women. The company just opened its first brick and mortar location - right here in Old Worthington at 695 High Street! We chatted with Amy about the company, its mission, and its new storefront.
What led you to start Evolverie? What's the driving idea behind it?
I took up my left behind dream of becoming a fashion designer when I turned 40. I taught myself how to sew again and started my business making accessories, selling at local markets for years. I took an accelerated fashion design course that focused on sustainability, which I had no intention to necessarily be a sustainable designer; in fact, I didn't even know what that word even meant.
During a class assignment, I watched The True Cost documentary and I couldn't "un-see" what I saw and completely rewrote my brand story, mission, and business plan. Not only is it a top priority for me to create ethically - what I call the human side to make clothing but also sustainable. After trying for years to produce in the U.S., thinking that was the only way I could control how everything was made and finding it extremely difficult to create a quality product at low minimums and ridiculous waste and pricing, I started looking overseas. As you can imagine, a lot of obstacles but after five grueling years, a lost savings, and exhaustion, the stars aligned and I found Shannon from Victoria Road. We have exactly the same outlook on every detail of the business and we are true partners in this brand.
How do you usually describe Evolverie to newcomers?
We are a women-led business that ethically hand-makes each piece of clothing from leftover fabrics. We hand-make our patterns, hand-cut each pattern piece for every garment, each and every button is hand sewn, and all of our embroidery is done by hand as well. Our sewing team is part of a larger brand family – if they succeed, we succeed. No new fabric is created to make our pieces; we purchase locally through leftover markets.
We are the only Central Ohio Clothing brand that is both ethical and sustainable in our practices.
There are real people affected by each and every purchase we make. Whether it's clothing, household items, the food we eat. The process matters and what we choose to spend our money on directly impacts another human and in our case, the planet as well.
Since you’re using leftover fabrics, does mean your stock rotates frequently?
With leftover fabrics, sometimes our quantities are limited, especially with prints. We have new small batch and limited stock launches typically every, or every other, Monday. With limited stock, we can sell out of something pretty quickly. We always encourage our customers to become an email or text subscriber so they never miss out on anything. We do offer backorders with many of our products if we do sell out of a specific size. No extra fee and takes about two weeks.
What does it mean to finally have a retail location for the business?
It means the opportunity to expand our reach for education and awareness locally. Clothing is one of the top five pollutants IN THE WORLD. We now have the opportunity to meet more people, increase our conversation around this, offer workshops on slow fashion and sustainable practices. We've been an e-commerce store for a few years and now with a brick-and-mortar with nothing else like it in the area, we know it's a huge opportunity for us to share what we do and offer. What other clothing boutique can you go into and meet the designer, listen to the process of how something was made, and know your purchase is more than just a piece of clothing. It's changing lives.
What's been the reaction so far to the shop?
Very positive. Customers have been impressed with our fabrics and quality and they love that we carry all-year-round pieces as well. Word of mouth is huge for a small business and the best thing our neighbors and community can do for us is to continue the conversation around this growing issue and share what we do/offer with others.
Anything else you'd think we should know?
We sell our clothing at fair market price, meaning our mark-up is only 1.5-2 times versus traditional resale which is 5-7 times – selling direct to the consumer versus wholesale so we can pass savings on directly to our customers. There is an assumption that in order to be sustainable or ethical, it has to be expensive. We don't believe that to be true and want to give customers the opportunity to purchase better without the "flash" of a large brand. This is why you won't see us run traditional "sales" in our store. Large mark-ups allow big retail to run sales. So when a customer sees a 50% off sale, it's really not a sale. The product was marked up so much for the original retail price that the retailer is still continuing to make a large profit. This goes into education on marketing and retail which we would like to cover in workshops as well. We've all been conditioned to purchase for "the sale" but most do not know what that "technically" means. The psychology of it.
Oh, and pockets! I design everything with pockets and we offer sizes XS-3X in-store and online.
