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>>commentator: Okay, so this is the first inaugural Fashion@Google talk and I'd like
to introduce to you Sheena Matheiken. She did a pretty unique, interesting project that
became very popular and she's gonna tell us all about it today.
And, yeah, hold down the applause. It's alright she's -- [laughs]
[someone cheering]
[laughing]
>>female voice: More, more.
Okay, here she is, Sheena Matheiken.
>>Sheena Matheiken: So I wanna tell you a little story about a little black dress and
where it all started and how it started. And not unlike a lot of creative endeavors, this
project, dubbed "The Uniform Project" also started in a place of dissatisfaction, deep
seated dissatisfaction mainly from being in a career that you're unhappy with, that has
let, oop, sorry. I have something on my screen, sorry.
Mainly dissatisfaction with a lot of things, a certain apathy, creative stagnation.
I worked in advertising for a long time and I had sort of hit a point of complete creative
death as you call it, and wanted to sort of step out of that and do something different
and also something a little bit more consequential, but didn't really know how to go about it.
So started thinking about this and tried to figure out what am I really learning from
the industry I was in. And probably one of the best lessons I learned which was very
well captured by Hugh MacLeod was that if you, as you can see, if you talk to people
the way advertising talked to people, you will get punched in the face.
So what do you do with the skill sets I had and how could I turn it around and stop manipulating
people into buying things that they didn't want or didn't need and instead use it for
something a little bit more meaningful for me? [clears throat] And that's where it began.
So I started looking at the whole notion of charity which I found really problematic because
there was something wrong with the models of philanthropy. I felt that it was a very
paternalistic, patronizing approach to the notion of giving which Oscar Wilde actually
speaks about it very eloquently. "It is much easier to have sympathy with suffering than
it is to have sympathy with thought."
And this really struck a chord because it really, I found it really, really relevant
in today's context because now we're in a time where, because of the Web, everyone's
a lot more aware of social issues and there's definitely, there's a ground swell of wanting
to do something about it and people sort of coming together and there's a lot of trends
happening in digital philanthropy. And there's what we call the clicktivism culture which
sort of in itself is problematic because it is, it had sort of replaced an easy way to
like sort of absolve yourself by, "Okay, I'll make a quick donation here, quick donation
there. It's all done." And it was, it didn't really get to the root of the problem which
was that it was impersonal, like there was no real connection to what you were giving
to or where it was going, none of that really existed.
So this whole model of giving that I found really problematic because it was again this
top down, the privileged giving to the underprivileged. And it just doesn't seem right in this day
and age because we were so much more connected today and there is no us and them -- it's
more us, a lot of us.
So it was more about creating a sharing model where the grounds for the, it was an even
playing ground and it was more of whatever it is, whether it was an idea, it was a concept,
it was a cause, it was a philosophy. It was more about sharing it than sort of dictating
it or handing it down. And so these were the ideas I had floating around in my head. Obviously
not as well articulated. This is in hindsight looking and kind of making sense of where
it all came from.
So then I started thinking about, "Okay how do I do this?" But the main issue I had with
charity also was that it was so serious, everyone approached it, it was somber, there was weight
to it, that you were doing something good. And did it have to be that way? Why couldn't
it be fun? Why couldn't it be just something people get excited about? And that's where
I started thinking about a medium that I found fun, which was fashion.
But you start thinking about fashion and you realize, okay, this is a hugely problematic
field, a hugely problematic industry. And I'm taking a quote slightly out of context
but it still really applies: Marcel Duchamp said, "Living is more of a question of what
one spends than what one makes." And we have become, it's so true because we are today
a culture that is defined by what we consume not by what we create. So fashion by definition
is a toxic industry, probably the most toxic in terms of the landfill it creates and the
overconsumption.
But I was really more interested in fashion from one of its core values which was really
about self expression. And I do think that there is, it is probably the most approachable,
most accessible and radically democratic form of self expression, fashion, which is accessible
to anybody, everyone does it, it's part of your daily routine. So that's where it struck
a chord. I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna use a daily routine. Take this act of dressing up
every day and do something fun with it."
And that's sort of how it all started. So I decided to give myself a creative challenge.
And I said, "Alright I'm gonna challenge myself to wear the same little black dress every
day for 365 days." And I would reinvent it every day, make it look different without
buying anything new. So I was only allowed to accessorize with found things, pre-owned,
donated, thrifted, vintage, all those categories. These were all pre-defined.
And I designed the whole challenge to become a fund raiser for a foundation called The
Akanksha Foundation which is based in India and they support education for underprivileged
children in India.
And this is a foundation I knew about through a friend of mine and they have an incredibly
progressive education model. They proved to the government that it is not a money issue
necessarily. They'd spend exact amount that the Indian government spends in a public school
on a child, and they use the same amount of money to create a completely different education
model to show that it's really -- the challenges of education isn't just a money issue it's
about the methods you teach and it's a question of resources, [clears throat]. Excuse me.
So they've proven to be incredibly successful in 20 years and now have developed their own
curriculum, are building their own schools. So it's a great progressive, wonderfully,
enabling initiative which is why I chose to support Akanksha.
So that was the set up, and then I started in May 2009 was the beginning of the project
and we made a little movie that sort of sums it up. So I'm just gonna play it and then
we can take it from there.
[slow, pensive music getting faster and upbeat]
[lyrics start at Day 32]
"Well you didn't wake up this morning 'cause you didn't go to bed
You were watchin' the whites of your eyes Turn red
The calendar on your wall, is ticking the days off
You've been reading some old letters You smile and think how much you've changed
All the money in the world couldn't buy back those days
You pull back your curtains, and the sun burns into your eyes,
[sound of someone diving into water]
You watch a plane flying across a clear blue sky
This is the day your life will surely change [sound of a cash register]
This is the day when things fall into place
[sound of a plane flying]
[NOTE: As country stamps appear on the screen, there is the sound of a passport being stamped;
when the eBay logo appears, Christmas bells jingle in the background.]
[upbeat music]
You pull back your curtains, and the sun burns into your eyes,
You watch a plane flying across a clear blue sky
[laughing]
[upbeat music] [Lyrics begin at Day #244]
You pull back your curtains,[sound of horn honking]
and the sun burns into your eyes, [sound of plane flying]
You watch a plane flying across a clear blue sky
This is the day your life will surely change [sound of plane flying]
This is the day when things fall into place
[upbeat music]
[NOTE: When 'Sold Out' sign appears at Day 341, a bell dings.]
This is the day (this is the day) your life will surely change
This is the day (this is the day) your life will surely change
This is the day (this is the day) your life will surely change
>>Sheena Matheiken: So how did we do this?
It was all set up pretty straight forward. We designed a website. I would post pictures
everyday of the dailies, and you could donate through PayPal directly to the cause. You
could comment -- we created all these fun tags to comment. You could tag them "baddie",
"brave", "cute", "ugly", "try harder", or make up your own tags which became incredibly
popular with the community of followers because people got very excited about comin' up with
their own sort of pop culture references, very interesting things in ways, sorry excuse
me, to define the outfits. So it was actually really fun.
And all I did really was to start blogging about it and Tweeted it every day, Facebooked
it every day. Friends picked it up. Soon blogs picked it up, and it completely became viral.
And people started writing about it and then the press picked it up and we didn't do any
PR or anything. It was just purely viral, purely through bloggers who found it interesting.
And that's how it picked up. And by the end of the project, we had raised over $100,000
for Akanksha which put over 300 kids in school.
And the other part of this whole exercise was the dress itself which there was huge
demand by the end of this. In the course of the project people kept asking us, excuse
me, "Are you gonna make the dress? Are you gonna produce the dress?" So there was a lot
of, it was a very interesting dilemma for me because the whole purpose of this project
was to, one side of it was to sort of make a statement about overconsumption. So to be
faced with this new sort of demand for a product that we had created inadvertently was interesting.
And so through the course of the project, a few people had come together to help me
and we had sort of really become the team, The Uniform Project Team. And we really started
thinking about, "What does that mean? Like do we produce? Do we actually produce a product
and put this out?"
And we put a lot of thought into it and we recognized that it was a very meaningful thing
to do to actually create a limited edition set of dresses which we produced and we put
it out and a portion of it also went to the fund raiser. So it helped us raise more money
and it sold out really, really quickly. And we also got hundreds and hundreds of accessory
donations from all over the world. Which initially I had put up this link almost as a joke as
part of the site on top of you'll see there's a little "Donate Accessories" button, which
was really to encourage my friends to give me *** to wear. Oops I just cursed. So because
I knew I couldn't get through the whole year with just the stuff in my wardrobe.
But it turned out that I was speaking to a lot more people than just my friends and my
inbox was bombarded with people wanting to send us stuff to wear, for me to wear. So
we had to go through and pick a lot of stuff out and carefully curate it because the whole
purpose of this was not to accumulate more stuff.
So what we did at the end of the year was auction off all those donated accessories
and that money went to the foundation as well which again got snatched up by the community
which was fantastic. And got over two million hits over the course of the first year and
now we have a great following online that continues [clears throat] to follow us.
So by May 2010, last year which is when I finished the project, this was the big gaping
question -- what do you do now? What do I do with this? We had inadvertently created
this sort of a movement almost, but a brand that people sort of associated with. We had
made product so there was potential for this to become a business, but we didn't wanna
really lose the integrity of why this was successful. And we were really trying to put
a lot of rigor into thinking about what we were as a brand and what it meant.
And I'd be really wary to stand here and tell you the recipe for success and why this worked
because I don't think we really know hundred percent. I think the minute you figure it
out, you kinda lose the fun of it. And I think but there are to quote Idris Mootee who the
founder of Idea Couture who is a pretty incredible expert on branding and branding strategy.
He says that, "brand is more than the sum of its parts." And there's so much truth to
it in that you can't really -- you can identify the components but when you add it all up,
it doesn't necessarily have to work. So there's something much bigger than the sum of its
parts that go into these things.
So for us it was more about identifying what those things were but also to identify what
are the things that we had most fun with and why was it fun for people. And what were the
values that made it what it was? And so we identified a bunch of things that it was about
really and that made it, the values that really made it sticky and fun for people and that's
sort of where we started thinking about what do we do next.
And when I think about The Uniform Project or what it was, and we've asked a lot of people,
these are things that came to us, like this is the stuff that our community told us. It's
visual, it's viral, it's personal, it's accessible, it's participatory, it's simple, it's social,
it's addictive.
So from there we decided let's not reinvent anything, let's do what we're doing and take
what I did and ask other people to do it. So why not open it up, open up the platform,
have more women do this because we kept getting requests for people wanting to do it. And
but how to you curate it because it's not just about anyone being able to do it. How
do you still keep it interesting?
So we launched our second year early, sorry, late last year as called "The Pilot Series"
where we have now one woman taking on the challenge for one month and they pick the
cause and we work with them on the dress design. It's still the little black dress.
The idea of the black dress is so integral to this whole theme because for us, from a
fashion standpoint, it is such an iconic fashion staple. It is at the center of most -- a lot
of women in their wardrobes have a little black dress. It is the perfect jumping board
to build off of. So that is the idea and the whole exercise is really about the art of
accessorizing and doing it responsibly and smartly and creatively.
So this is the challenge. Now we have different women taking on the challenge every month.
We release the dresses every month as well. And we have -- every month there's a new face
on the site and it keeps growing. We have a few -- we're looking into scaling this even
further and we have a few other things we're working on as well currently.
So the real journey for us is really just getting started. And it's really an evolution
and it's an exploration right now of where we could go and that's really the most exciting
part that's come out of this for me personally is that it has actually led me here to be
able to leave what I used to do before I quit my job, and now I'm doing this full time which
is amazing.
And I have this incredible team that's come together and we've formed a business and it's
got a really strong social component to it. We're really strong on our philosophy about
maintaining that social innovation side, the social responsibility side, and continuing
to do something that remains fun at its core.
So that's really where we are. And I, again I'm quoting Idris Mootee again but this is
just such a great slide that I totally stole it from one of his presentations. It's really
the most important thing is those three dots 'cause a story has to evolve, it has to continue,
and it has to grow whether it's a brand or a business or a philosophy or an idea. It
has to keep growing. So like that's the most exciting part of all this for us and that's
where we are.
And that's it.
[pause]
[applause]
And here's some information if you'd like to reach out to us.
[applause]
Cool.
>>commentator: [unintellgible]
I don't know. Do you guys have questions or anything?
>>female #1: Where'd you get the first dress from? Did you make it?
>Sheena Matheiken: Oh right. So the dress, yes, we designed it ourselves. I had the idea,
I knew exactly what I wanted. Oh sure.
[laughs]
I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted ů This was sort of based on one of my staple
dresses So you know what works for you. But I wanted it to be reversible so it's actually
reversible. I can wear it front to back and it's a button down so I can wear it open as
a tunic, I can layer it, it has pockets. So it's really a pretty classic A-line standard
dress which is now on our site. We have a new iteration of it. We've added a detachable
collar to it. So I think utility, versatility, simplicity, those were like key elements of
all our dresses which we try to maintain always.
[pause]
Yes.
>>female #2: Can you talk more about the sustainability aspect 'cause it was obvious to me that it
was a project to show what sustainability could be versus what I think most people think
it is?
>>Sheena Matheiken: Right. That's a very interesting question. I think when I started this, I was
very, very conscious of the existence of the eco-movement. I wouldn't necessarily say I
was part of it. I mean I wasn't really part of the fashion industry at all so for me it
was a very personal thing. But I was already in the habit of shopping vintage and I shop
at thrift stores and vintage, and so it was a natural sort of progression of, extension
of what I was doing.
But what I learned through the year was that there was this really substantial movement
happening. And in the course of the first year, a lot of ethical designers and sustainable
designers came to us 'cause they found it really, they were excited about what we were
doing because there's -- the people who are at the front lines, the creative folk at the
front lines of that movement, there was almost a dissatisfaction on their end to not be just
labeled as "eco" because there was a stigma attached to that movement because it was labeled
as Birkenstocks, granola, fashion which just wasn't inspiring. And which is why mainstream
wasn't accepting it as a movement.
So I think the more creative, ethical designers were really about keep it creative, keep it
inspiring 'cause at the core of fashion for women is desire. You wanna walk into a store
and see something and see that's it beautiful and pick it up. You're not gonna walk into
a store and go, "What's organic here?" You're not gonna do that. So you still have to inspire.
You still have to create beautiful garment.
So personally for us it was great because we suddenly got access to the right kind of
ethical designers who came to us 'cause they got it. They got that this was about expression
and we had to sort of uphold that and the rest is a given. I mean to me it should be
a given. Like sustainability as far as production goes and ethical practices go, it should be
a given. Like you have to be responsible in the way you produce and create things.
So now we're actually building something based on that with these designers. We're in the
process of creating a platform for ethical designers which is in the works so that's
-- I don't know if that really answers your question. Okay.
Cool.
>>female #3: Would it work for you?
>>Sheena Matheiken: Well I think you have to look at it from two sides. I was out to
make a point. It's an extreme. Obviously no one's gonna wear the same dress for a whole
year. It's a creative exercise. So there is a certain sort of stretch of the imagination
and stretch of your resources happening there. I'm not saying that's what you should do every
day. It's not a literal iteration. So that's the one side.
And the other side is I mean I'm down to my basics again. Everything that came into my
wardrobe is gone because they were all donated accessories and to be really honest with you
I don't have that many clothes. I don't think about it. I actually don't think about dressing
up a lot at all.
I get up. It's like literally, "What am I wearing today?" and I'm out. And I think that's
how a lot of people are and that's sort of -- but it's not that I don't have fun with
it. And it's really like, throughout the process in the first year, 'cause I did still have
my full time job, it was very important for me to keep that daily routine spontaneous
so I didn't plan ahead accept for the crazy days like Halloween and the Mermaid Parade
and things like that when I got crazy.
But for the most part, it was deliberately kept spontaneous, excuse me, because that's
how most people get ready in the morning. And I think there's a lot -- there were --
very often I would get stumped and I would just sort work with something that I never
thought I would use in that way and it would end up working. So I think there's a lot you
can stretch given the few accessories that you do have.
And I think that's actually a really interesting point because now we're doing it for one month
and you can see how the women do it differently, but they have limited -- most of them don't
go out and buy a lot of new stuff just for that month. You're kind of working with what's
in your wardrobe a lot so.