THE DREAM
Its beautiful fall Saturday in San Francisco...I came here three years ago to pursue my almost life long dream of owning a custom fit denim shop. Today is where it all starts...again.When it all began, I saw myself working closely with a loom building shop in Chico, California that made my dream fell like it could be a reality. Visiting the industrial building where the loom shop operates during a field trip in my Business 101 class, way back in 2002, I was inspired watching a loom weave up a beautiful pattern...but in a different way than I imagined. The loom was powered by a CAD system! A program telling the loom when to shoot the green yarn, then the blue, then the green ten times, then the blue twice. I could see my dream building, whizzing back and forth like the shuttle taking the thread back and forth, weaving up fabric. Why can't I do that with DENIM! An article that my mom had shared with me a while back came flying into my head, linking up how women's jeans tear in places of stretch because if the fit isn't perfect (which it usually is not) the Lycra or Spandex snaps and weakens the quality of the denim. VOILA...Why not weave the spandex only into the denim in the places where people need it, and keep the rest strong and rigid!
The ideas kept coming, and coming...I had sketched the way I would program the loom, weaving the spandex into the places where each pattern piece would be laid out on the fabric...weave rolls of fabric by size...in my store, the shell of each size will be hanging on a rack, waiting for women to come in and have a "denim glove" fit to their body, cut exactly the way they want. Then, provide personal finishing (rigid, washed with stones/enzyme, bleached, dyed)...the possibilities seemed endless.
THE REAL WORLD
Working a 9-5, and at a pretty awesome company, Levi Strauss & Co. (have you heard of it?). I like my job, I work in a field that I studied for, a Product Development Assistant, on the brink of being promoted to Specialist. Sure, it seems like the perfect transition - get my experience in a great company, get paid to learn about something you are passionate about, and hopefully, it will be an smooth transition into my Kustom denim dream. Perfect! Well, one thing that I learned pretty quickly is that corporations are really good at working you hard, and keeping you in your silos...when I have time, I reach out to the technical developers, the fabric teams for general advice...but right now, I am so busy that I cannot work in questions specific to my dreams, but more so to the industry in general. Not bad, I do learn a lot...the down side it that when I leave work, I am more apt to spend my time swimming, vegging, plans my boyfriend or friends...and somehow, almost two years have gone by, with my dreams slipping farther and farther away. My fault entirely, but the real world has proven to be much more challenging to navigate - working and dreaming just don't seem to be dual paths...up until now it has felt like I get one or the other, and the working pays better.
THE BLOG - DREAMING IN ACTION
This blog...hmmm...its my online journal, my research motivator, my first step. Throughout the next year (at least), my goal is to post one to two entries a week. Focusing on industry news, other small denim shops, technical research, small business development links and learnings, and a growing excitement towards actually following a dream and not being stagnant or complacent...I am here to push my own envelope!
Links visited during the writing of this post:
