THROWBACK: IT’S IN THE BAG

You never know where your creativity will take you…

“Yep, that’s me… you’re probably wondering how I got here…” lol. Here I am in Austin, Texas in front of Whole Foods at the Corporate Campus in a crewneck sweater I made out of Whole Foods paper bags and a goofball grin the size of Lake Travis.

Why?

Well, that requires a story-time, and look at you sitting there with nothing to do, reading this… you may as well continue. Or, if you want the TLDR, hit the link here.

—

It’s funny how the onset of the pandemic in early 2020 affected creative people across the world. Many of us were so stirred up from ideas and anxiety that we surged to create, create, create. The newfound time was confusing and freeing, and for me, it was a challenge to figure out how to utilize my skills to sustain myself — mentally, creatively, and financially.

I would say I was lucky in that I had a really beautiful and considerate woman in my life, and during the static of the times, we found time to go grocery shopping down the street at Whole Foods, in between the stay-inside orders and general confusion of how to function that the ‘pandemic’ created. It was our only source of outdoor connection, taking the five minute walk to grab groceries, and we made the best of every excursion.

I was still working through designs with the brand I had created, MIEL Y NOIR, and the timing of everything put a hitch in the gears of progress. One night after looking at past work, I came upon a set of tech pack drafts of athletic pants and a crewneck sweatshirt that I had sent out to be produced. If you’re familiar with fashion, it changes so frequently that it’s a constant battle to keep up. I had wanted to rework the dimensions of those pieces to match the times, but with no access to my storage, fabric stores, etc. it meant it would have to wait.

But then, like always, I had an idea.

We had accumulated a bunch of those Whole Foods paper bags from multiple grocery trips, and as I looked at my technical drafts, then over at the pile of bags, I thought to myself: “I could make a sample idea out of those bags, and I bet that would look pretty cool too… I wonder if I could make a wearable crewneck out of recyclable bags??”

And, that’s how creativity works. It hits you. It poses a question, and you’ve got to get out there and figure out how to make what you’re called to make.

So, I pulled the bags together, got some tape, glue and scissors, and started the process. It came together pretty smoothly, as I remember. It helped me learn how important that half-inch of additional ‘fabric’ is needed when you’re creating your garment. It also showed me that my sweater rework was a pretty nice fit (after scrunching the bags a bunch of times to soften it up). I really liked the pattern printed on the bags and I figured people would enjoy the story of how it all came to be.

I took photos and put together a presentation (which I sent a few times to Whole Foods), in hopes that we could develop a cool, recyclable marketing product for an event or something like that. Unfortunately, I didn’t hear back (which is common when you send ideas to large corporations), but I figured that one day, if things aligned, I would be able to show them what I created.

A couple years passed, and I ended up working on the Marketing Team for Beyond Meat. Low and behold we received an activation for a couple events in Austin, Texas — one of them being for Whole Foods Corporate! I spoke with my manager and showed him what I had created, and he loved it! So I asked if I could bring it with us to show them and he was all for it.

In Austin, after the main portion of the event, I changed into my paper bag sweatshirt (it got a bit of tear as I got it on). My manager and I go in and meet two wonderful women who were in Leadership, and I greeted them wearing this crazy design of mine.

They were impressed and in a bit of disbelief, like: “How in the world did you make this?!” They were both full of smiles though and toured me around showing others the sweatshirt. It was so funny, and so were the reactions, but it was really awesome how things happened to come together. I let them know that I had sent a presentation a few times and hoped to make the concept with them. They liked the idea and asked me to resend it and they’ll look for it and see what we can do.

Although the opportunity to create more of these hasn’t come to pass yet, I do love the fact that whatever you decide to create can be done with pure intention and vision, and you’ll get something out of it. Whether it’s just a memorable moment of joy, a lesson, or your ideas are realized at a larger scale, whatever the circumstances are — just keep creating. You never know how it will all give back to you.

PRO

This is written without the assistance of ChatGPT™ or any AI-powered generative tools. Photos are original and edited by me.