Time to go online.

DF Collaboravive is proud to team up with the web specialists over at Systematic Start-up in their new venture to assist Vintage Shop owners in taking their store and marketing online.

Some things in life are not that simple, but when it comes to online marketing  and dynamic website elements it can be as systematic as the low tide following the high.  Similar to growing an organic garden, a website needs daily maintenance with proven strategies and natural competitive advantages to succeed and surpass its competitors.

Together with over 10 years research in online marketing, and a number of successful storefronts, Systematic Startup now has access to:

• Over 3500 Stock Photos of of Vintage Clothing Stores, Products, Lifestyle Photos, Runway Photos and much more.
• Over 10 easy to use CMS templates with easy to use user dashboards for updating images or products.
• Custom design support team, Search Engine Marketing specialist, Online Link network
• Product Sourcing with product definition and size elements
• Plus Much Much More

Contact a Web Specialist today at Sytematic Startup.

Vintage “Inspiration”

This Past Weekend in Los Angeles Buy and Sell “inspiration”

The kulture recycling & vintage fashion event “Inspiration” was hosted by Rin Tanaka, the author of the “My Freedamn!” book series. Under the big theme of his life, “vintage fashion,” this event was held at one of the coolest “event halls” in Los Angeles, “Barker Hanger,” which is located inside Santa Monica Airport. As the photo on this page shows, this vintage-looking space was mostly used as vintage airplane storage for repair crews, but on February 12th and 13th, 2010, this huge indoor space (capacity: 3,000 people) was  filled with many vintage fashion fans from around the world!

During this two-day show, a total of 60 vendors and exhibitors were set up unique and very special booths displaying their own inspiration: 35 vintage fashion dealers, 10 designer & artist booths, 8 charity garage sales, and 7 special exhibitions. Their business concept in this vintage atmosphere is to “buy and sell inspiration.” Actually, many “kulture recycling” products, mainly vintage American fashions manufactured in the 1910s-1980s, will be displayed everywhere in this hall. Vintage fans will get amazing opportunities to view so many vintage items. Most items will be “for sale,” except for special exhibition decorations.

The main targets of this show were worldwide vintage fashion enthusiasts, not only from all 50 states but also from Japan, Canada, and other places worldwide!

Build Your Own Dress - Lego Style

The people over at Ecoterre asked the question, “How cool would it be to be able to construct and reconstruct your clothing everyday according to your mood just like legos?” Refinity’s “Fragmented” clothing lets you do just that with their colorful and customizable snap-on pieces that let you decide how long, short, wide or thin your outfit should be – no sewing necessary! Besides being totally cool, the concept is definitely one that is taking center stage in the eco-fashion realm because it reduces textile waste and allows people to easily remodel their clothes instead of throwing them away.

Designers Fioen van Balgooi and Berber Soepboer created their Fragmented Textiles collection as an experiment in applying cradle-to-cradle principles to clothing production, use, and disposal. Made from Cradle to Cradle-certified wool felt in a range of vibrant colors, the Fragmented Textiles are based on jigsaw-puzzle-like zero-waste patterns that are designed to use every last scrap of cloth.

Fragmented Textiles was recently on display at the Beyond Green, Good Design symposium gallery at the World Fashion Centre in Amsterdam. Curated by Ingrid Horsselenberg and Annouk Post of I&A, the exhibit was further evidence that the Dutch are definitely the ones to watch when it comes to combining fashion-forward design and playful attitudes.

Images & Information Courtesy of Inhabitat & Ecouterre

Puma : About the Label:

The shoe brand Puma has a large street following dating back to the 80’s when NYC DJ’s & Hip Hop Artists started wearing Puma sneakers and workout attire. Before that Puma has a long history dating back to 1924 …

Puma Throughout the years information provided by http://about.puma.com/EN/1/10/10/.

1924

• Foundation of Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik, Herzogenaurach, Germany.

• Competing at the Berlin Olympic Games, American hero Jesse Owens wins four Gold medals wearing Dassler shoes. During the Games, almost every member of the German Football team wears Dassler shoes. In total, seven Gold and five Bronze medals as well as two world and three Olympic records are won and set by athletes wearing Dassler shoes.

• Josef Barthel of Luxembourg wins PUMA’s first Olympic Gold (1500m) in Helsinki, Finland and the US-women relay team wins Gold for the 4×100m – all wearing PUMA.
• Production of the SUPER ATOM.
• At the start of the season, the SUPER ATOM is being distributed to top players and selected stores.
• The SUPER ATOM is worn for the first time by top players of the clubs Borussia Dortmund (10 players), Eintracht Frankfurt (1 player), VfB Stuttgart (9 players) as well as 1. FC Kaiserslautern (7 players). Among others, the players wearing the SUPER ATOM for the first time are Horst Eckel und Werner Liebrich, who, due to their excellent performance in the field, advance into the German national team.

• Quarterback Joe Namath leads the New York Jets (American football team) to Super Bowl III, wearing PUMA shoes.

• Guillermo Vilas wins the Australian Open wearing PUMA.
• Argentina’s football player Mario Kempes leads his country on home soil to its first World Cup triumph. Kempes is top scorer of the tournament and wears PUMA shoes together with nine other players on the winning team.

• The company PUMA goes public and the PUMA stock is traded on the Munich and Frankfurt stock exchanges.
• Argentinean football player Diego Maradona leads his country to the World Cup title. Wearing PUMA football boots, Maradona scores the “famous Hand of God” goal as well as the spectacular solo effort which will later officially be voted Goal of the Century by FIFA. Maradona is voted “Player of the Tournament”.

• PUMA presents its PUMA CELL technology, the first foam-free midsole.
• PUMA acquires its licensee in North America and establishes “PUMA North America, Inc.” as a wholly-owned subsidiary.
• PUMA AG is included in the German mid-cap index M-Dax.
• PUMA introduces a new Pittards leather - Pittards Soccer 2000 - developed exclusively for the KING boot. This new generation of the KING boot is first unveiled at EURO ‘96 in England. Wearing the boot at its debut, the Czech team reaches the finals.
• PUMA Team Atletico Madrid wins the Spanish Football League and Cup titles.
• PUMA celebrates the 2nd Street Soccer Cup Final in London, England, with a record-breaking 28 countries participating.

• PUMA announces a collaborative partnership with world-renowned designer Philippe Starck.
• PUMA and the Mild Seven Renault F1 Team sign a multi-year contract.
• PUMA introduces the revolutionary All-In-One ‘UniQT’ for the Cameroon football team at the 2004 African Cup of Nations. The new ‘UniQT’ is the successor of the groundbreaking PUMA sleeveless shirt worn by the Cameroon team in the 2002 African Cup of Nations.
• PUMA and designer Neil Barrett present the new 2004 Italian National Team kit. Named creative director of PUMA’s Italia Collection in 2003, Neil Barrett provided the creative vision of the new playing kit and personally designed the official formalwear for the team.
• At the Olympic Games in Athens, Jamaica’s women relay teams win Bronze for the 4×400m and Gold for the 4×100m relay.
• PUMA and Ferrari Spa announce that they have signed a multi-year contract, which becomes effective on January 1, 2005. PUMA becomes the official licensee of replica and fan merchandise as well as supplier of Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, the most successful Formula 1 team of all times.
• PUMA becomes the official supplier of racing shoes to Michael Schumacher.

• As leading supplier of the 2008 Africa Cup, PUMA outfits nine of the 16 teams.
• PUMA and the Ghana Football Association (GFA) announce a multi-year extension of their successful partnership through the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
• The Egyptian Football National Team wins the Africa Cup. For the 6th time, a PUMA Team wins the title.
• PUMA and the Fédération Ivoirienne de Football (FIF) continue the successful partnership through the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
• PUMA extends the contract with the Swedish Athletic Association until the end of 2012.
• PUMA appoints Hussein Chalayan, global designer, artist and film maker, as the Creative Director for PUMA, responsible for designing, creating and developing the sport fashion collections of the brand. PUMA also acquired a majority stake in Chalayan´s business and brand Hussein Chalayan.
• PUMA and the Swiss Football Association (SFV) announce a multi-year extension of their successful partnership, which was first initiated in 1998, through the 2010 World Cup and beyond the 2012 European Championships.
• Presentation of the new racing boat for the Volvo Ocean Race 2008 – 2009 in Boston Harbor, which was christened “il Mostro” by actress Salma Hayek on May 12^th.
• Giorgio Belloli is appointed as CEO of the PUMA subsidiary Hussein Chalayan.
• PUMA by Mihara Yasuhiro launches its new sport-fashion apparel collection that complements the PUMA by Mihara Yasuhiro footwear.
• PUMA athlete Usain Bolt breaks the world record, when he clocks 9.72 seconds in the 100 metres in New York City on May 31^st.
• PUMA sponsors five national teams at the European Football Championship 2008 including the World Champion Italy as well as the host nations Austria and Switzerland.
• The licensing contract for socks and new licensing contract for bodywear with Dobotex is extended.
• PUMA sponsors 16 national teams at the Olympic Games 2008 in Beijing.
• PUMA’s outstanding athlete “Lightning” Bolt sets a new 100m world record at 9.69 seconds, smashing his own mark from May this year, and sprinted 200m in a world record time of 19.30 seconds, beating Michael Johnson’s 1996 record by two hundredths of a second. He won his third gold medal as Jamaica shattered the world record at 4 x 100m relay in 37.10 seconds.
• PUMA and Sergio Rossi initiate a collaboration and launch a capsule collection of women’s footwear during the Milan fashion week.
• PUMA and the global organization Peace One Day celebrate the “International Day of Peace” on September 21^st.
• PUMA and German premier league football club VfB Stuttgart continue their successful partnership by signing a multi-year extension of the agreement until 2015.
• PUMA produces for the first time footballs - bearing the fair trade certification mark – in order to endorse a campaign focusing on the prevention of juvenile delinquency in South Africa.
• PUMA and the Egyptian Football Association announce a multi-year extension of their successful partnership beyond the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

Vintage Shop Notes : Shoppertainment

Get ready for some crowd control! Shoppertainment — the fine art of running in-store events and promotions — is the perfect way to differentiate your store from your competition, build a buzz about town, and thrill your customers all at the same time!

Vintage Stores are staples for fashion in their communities, and often attract some of the cities creative types from artists, musicians and designers. Getting your customers involved with your promotions is an easy way to put together an event with minimal effort and great success. Many successful stores have number of different events that they run throughout the year to attract customers from all different walks inside their shops.

Putting together an event can be easy or difficult considering how organized the event planner is. Often employees can easily help with putting together the event, as well as some of the marketing and canvassing that is needed to get the event off of the ground. Most planners plan events 6 months out, but lets get real… aren’t you looking for a way to increase sales yesterday. With that being said, you need a minimum of thirty days to market your event successfully using flyer’s, radio plugg’s, social marketing, event listings or whatever means you plan on using to get word out about your cool event in your cool store.

Don’t forget about weekly events on specific days that could increase traffic on that slow Monday afternoon or Thursday morning. A special sale event, or donation day… bring in an old item for a charity and get 15% off an item from the store. Some shops even have mimosa’s and coffee for customers on Sunday mornings, this is great way to show them that you appreciate them and get them to hang around your store for a while. Others have record listening parties on wed nights, recycle clothing workshops on Saturday morning, or a clothing swap every second Sunday…I think that you get the point, ,the sky is the limit.

Don’t be afraid to think big and plan an event that could help out your neighbors or other shops in the area. Larger events attract larger crowds to your store. If you plan your event correctly often times you can get your neighbors and sponsors to cover the marketing costs to promote the event, while you do the planning and book the acts. Don’t forget to think about adding a charity aspect to it either. A clothing or can food drive for a local charity can often attract musicians and artists that you thought would never come out of the woodworks to help out in the event. Don’t forget to put together PR packages for each event you do and send them to your local radio stations and news organizations. they are often looking for things to promote and it could surprise you how much free press you can get for your store…I mean event.

QUICK LIST OF EVENT IDEAS

• Anniversary Party
• Concerts
• Art Shows
• Fashion Shows
• Instore Promotions
• Music Listening Parties
• Recycle Clothing Drives

8 Effective Stain Removals

Vintage Clothes can have a multitude of stains as a result of their journey over the years, this does not mean that the garments are no longer good, it just means that is time to buck down and be smarter than the stains. The following are tried and proven techniques to getting some of those common 8 pesky stains out of that one of kind garment.

• Acrylic Paint:
  Remove acrylic paint from clothes with pine cleaner. Soak, scrub, repeat. Takes
  some time, but it works. You can also try hairspray. Test a small spot on the
  item and then spray on hairspray and use your fingernail to remove the paint.
  Occasionally you have to wash twice.
• Berries:
  Blot the stain and dip it in cold water. Rub the spot with a cut lemon, rinse,
  and air dry. Use prewash stain remover and then launder with warm water.
• Blood:
  An easy and quick way to remove blood is to spray the area with Windex and rub
  a little. Then just throw it in the wash. You may also use saline solution for
  contact lenses to remove blood stains. Put paper towel under the fabric and squirt
  solution onto it. Blot to remove any left over. It draws the blood into the solution
  and doesn’t harm the fabric like hydrogen peroxide may.
• Chocolate:
  Blot or scrape off the excess chocolate, then flush with club soda. For a tough
  stain: Sponge with liquid hand soap and ammonia; launder as usual. Or you could
  try to soak the stained article in milk.
• Grease:
  Mix Dawn Dish Soap and a little Simple Green into the wash, and launder as usual.
  Or try Cheese Wiz smeared generously on a grease stain, takes it right out in
  the laundry.
• Ink:
  First, put a paper towel or a rag under the stained area to absorb the excess
  ink. Spray on a non-oily, alcohol based hair spray. Saturate the ink stain with
  the hairspray. Blot with a rag and repeat until the stain is gone. Apply prewash
  stain remover and launder as usual. Or you can try milk! Yes, put the piece of
  cloth into a cup with milk and you’ll see it vanishing… then wash or dry clean
  as usual.
• Lipstick:
  Get it out by rubbing the stain with a generous amount of petroleum jelly, then wash
  as usual.Or you could try a non-oily, alcohol based hair spray.
• Ring Around the Collar: Wet the collar with
  warm water, sprinkle liberally with cream of tartar and rub in well. Launder as
  usual. or you can soak the collar with an oven cleaner, this works good as well.

How Buying Vintage Can Change The World

This article was originally posted on our Born Activist blog back in April 2007. Since then it was posted on 10 other blogs and feature in 4 publications. All opening eyes to recycling not just aluminum cans and plastic products but textiles as well.We thought that it was worth posting again for some of our new viewers that may have missed it the first time around.

Sweatshops and child labor are a growing problem, particularly in clothing and textiles. No one wants to buy products made with sweatshop labor, but it is hard to know what to avoid, and where to find green and Fair Trade products.

Corporate greed and global competition to produce goods at the lowest possible price are the main reasons for the existence of sweatshops. It’s much more cost-effective for corporations to subcontract their manufacturing to suppliers who produce goods cheaply by minimizing worker salaries and benefits, skimping on factory and dormitory upkeep and standards, and demanding high levels of productivity (long hours and big quotas) from their workers. Developing countries desperately need foreign investment, and therefore compete with one another to produce goods more and more cheaply, allowing US corporations to dictate their purchase prices. As reported by the business journal Fast Company in December 2003, Wal-Mart (the country’s largest retailer) actually implements a corporate policy of requiring its vendors to continually seek ever-lower prices for its products. “[Wal-Mart] has a clear policy for suppliers,” writes Fast Company’s Charles Fishman. “On basic products that don’t change, the price Wal-Mart will pay, and will charge shoppers, must drop year after year.” As retailers compete with one another by seeking lowest-cost workers, they put pressure on suppliers to keep their costs down, and they encourage consumers to buy more at “discount” prices. This market for cheap goods then squeezes factory owners to pinch even more. The result is forced overtime, low wages, punishments and fines for slow work and mistakes, worker intimidation, child labor, and other abuses.

What you can do to make a difference.

Unfortunately, no overarching “sweatshop-free” label exists. Some independent monitors follow the supply chains of companies that pay a fee for that service and help facilitate follow-up correction programs for factories found to be in violation of labor standards. Because conditions can change rapidly at factories, often these companies do not go on record endorsing particular companies or factories. For some select industries, however, dedication to recycling efforts has resulted in useful Vintage labeling for a handful of products. For example, Dust Factory combats the existence of child labor in the apparel industry by recycling vintage products to re-issue back into the fashion industry. Labeling specific items with a Vintage Tag, letting consumers know that the item is eco-friendly and child-labor-free.

By purchasing products that are recycled, fairly traded, cooperatively produced, or produced in a unionized factory, you can help end sweatshop and forced child labor. Many other well-respected organizations have called boycotts to put an end to unfair labor practices, animal testing, dangerous pesticide use, and other abuses of people and resources.Whether you’re protesting treatment of workers at a national retail chain or mobilizing against the construction of a waste dump in your community, a boycott can help you get the attention of your community and the company you are targeting.

N.E.E.T. Magazine Still Killing It

We have been fans of this online DIY publication out of the UK for, well I guess for 15 publications now. Ever so often we feel that they are worth mentioning again, for some of our new readers. If you are looking for fashion tips, or how to wear or stylize/merchandise clothing from your store or closet check out the pictorials and editorials from all over the world. Keep up the good work N.E.E.T.

Images Courtesy of N.E.E.T. Magazine

SMASH IN READY MADE

Long time friends and dealers of Dust Factory Vintage, SMASH in Iowa, got some great press in last months Ready Made magazine. Ready Made is an national DIY Lifestyle and Project magazine. “Our first national feature! And it’s well written and accurate! Today is our lucky day. This great spot in Ready Made has launched us past Pioneer Hi-Bred’s latest soy bean seed to become the 14th most popular thing in Iowa.”

We are excited for them and everyone that shares the same dream and ambition that these lads do. ROCK ON SMASH!!

check out SMASH at http://www.thesmashsite.com/ or visit their FLAGSHIP location at 400 EAST LOCUST
DES MOINES, IOWA 50309 t: 515-288-1323

Rag & Bone “Textile 101″

The folks over at Waist Online have a detailed page with allot of useful information about Textile Recycling. They note that textile recycling originated in the Yorkshire Dales about 200 years ago. These days the ‘rag and bone’ men are textile reclamation businesses, which collect textiles for reuse (often abroad), and send material to the ‘wiping’ and ‘flocking’ industry and fibres to be reclaimed to make new garments. Textiles made from both natural and man-made fibres can be recycled.

Why Bother:

It is estimated that more than 1 million tons of textiles are thrown away every year, with most of this coming from household sources. Textiles make up about 3% by weight of a household bin. At least 50% of the textiles we throw away are recyclable, however, the proportion of textile wastes reused or recycled annually in the US is only around 20%.

Although the majority of textile waste originates from household sources, waste textiles also arise during yarn and fabric manufacture, garment-making processes and from the retail industry. These are termed post-industrial waste, as opposed to the post-consumer waste which goes to jumble sales and charity shops. Together they provide a vast potential for recovery and recycling.

Recovery and recycling provide both environmental and economic benefits. Textile recovery:

• Reduces the need for landfill space. Textiles present particular problems in landfill as synthetic (man-made fibres) products will not decompose, while woollen garments do decompose and produce methane, which contributes to global warming.
• Reduces pressure on virgin resources.
• Aids the balance of payments as we import fewer materials for our needs.
• Results in less pollution and energy savings, as fibers do not have to be transported from abroad.

Reclaiming fiber avoids many of the polluting and energy intensive processes needed to make textiles from virgin materials, including: -

• Savings on energy consumption when processing, as items do not need to be re-dyed or scoured.
• Less effluent, as unlike raw wool, it does not have to be thoroughly washed using large volumes of water.
• Reduction of demand for dyes and fixing agents and the problems caused by their use and manufacture.

How, what and where of recycling textiles:

The majority of post-consumer textiles are currently collected by charities like The Salvation Army, Good Will and Chalk. Some charities, for example Good Will and The Salvation Army, sort collected material selling it on to merchants in the appropriate sectors.

Some postindustrial waste is recycled ‘in-house’, usually in the yarn and fabric manufacturing sector. The rest, aside from going to landfill or incineration, is sent to merchants.

Collection Method’s:

At present the consumer has the option of putting textiles in ‘clothes banks’, taking them to charity shops or having them picked up for a donation drive.

The Salvation Army is the largest operator of textile banks in the US. On average, each of these banks is estimated to collect about six tons of textiles per year. Combined with door-to-door collections, The Salvation Army’s textile recycling operations account for the processing of in excess of 17,000 tons of clothing a year. Clothes are given to the homeless, sold in charity shops or sold in developing countries in Africa, the Indian sub-continent and parts of Eastern Europe. Nearly 70% of items put into clothing banks are reused as clothes, and any un-wearable items are sold to merchants to be recycled and used as factory wiping cloths.

Processing and Outlets for Waste Textiles

All collected textiles are sorted and graded at a “Rag House” by highly skilled, experienced workers, who are able to recognize the large variety of fiber types resulting from the introduction of synthetics and blended fiber fabrics. Once sorted the items are sent to various destinations as outlined below:

Post industrial waste is often reprocessed in house. Clippings from garment manufacture are also used by fiber reclaimers to make into garments, felt and blankets.

Some selected items will be sold to the “Vintage Market” and reused by designers fashioning garments and bags from recovered items. Companies like Dust Factory Vintage grade the textiles even more to produce mixes that will sell in trendy Vintage Shops in te US, Japan and Europe, however this is a very small sector within the overall destinations of textiles. For more information on what happens with Vintage Clothing click here.

What You Can Do:

• Take your used clothes to a textile bank. Contact the recycling officer in your local authority if there are no banks in your area and ask why; they may collect textiles through other means. Alternatively you can take used clothing to local charity shops.
• Give old clothes/shoes/curtains/handbags etc. to jumble sales. Remember to tie shoes together: part of the 6% of textiles which is wastage for merchants are single shoes.
• Buy second-hand clothes - you can often pick up unusual period pieces! If bought from a charity shop, it will also benefit a charity.
• Buy things you are likely to wear a long time - a dedicated follower of fashion can also be a green one if items are chosen carefully.
• Look for recycled content in the garments you buy. This should be on the label, though at present there is no conventional marking scheme and some companies do not always advertise the recycled content.
• Buy cloth wipers instead of disposable paper products as the product can be used repeatedly.

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