Anthropologie mainstay Liamolly is one of my favorite brands. I love their sweaters, their dresses and their adorable children’s clothing. Yesterday founder Seema Sudan reached out to the brand mailing list about an amazing project they’re starting: moving production of Liamolly’s clothing home to New Orleans.
From the email:
Our friends at the knitting mill in Asia, increased our minimums 2,000 pieces per style, making it impossible to go forward as we have. We wanted to expand our line by adding styles, and kids and home, not volume. We want to be local. We want to remain unique and special just like you. After 4 months of research, we decided to purchase our own knitting machine and start our production right here in New Orleans. With 1 knitting machine we can rebuild our business.
Thanks to the awesomeness that is the Internet, Liamolly does not have to go this project alone. The expense to bring the production to New Orleans is huge and Liamolly is a small business. So the company has turned to kickstarter, a website that runs crowd-sourced fundraising. Kickstarter is home to projects charitable, commercial and just plain out there. With its own kickstarter page, Liamolly has set a goal of $26,000.
What that money will be used for:
We are sold in 200 locally owned boutiques in the US and Anthropologie. We’ve been self financed since our start. We need 1 knitting machine to kickstart our local production, to prove it is possible. We have the sales, we just need the production.
1 machine will bring back our online retail store for spring 2012.
3 machines will let me fill my 200 locally owned boutique accounts.
4 machines will allow me to launch our Kids, Men’s and Home collection.
6 machines will allow me to help other knitters with their production.
If you are interested in learning more about this project visit Liamolly’s page on kickstarter. Donations can be as small as $1 and if you are interested in contributing every little bit helps. I’m sad to think Liamolly might have to shut down production because of new minimums abroad and I’m delighted to see the company try to bring production stateside. A city like New Orleans that is continuing to recover from a down economy and natural disasters could always use a boost like this.
Previously:
Artist Interview: Seema Sudan/Liamolly
