还有她的品牌前世集体, 伯克利赌博 (通讯的16) is showing that sustainability is in fashion
By 汉娜·普林斯(22届毕业生)
在她年轻的运动员生涯中, 伯克利赌博 (通讯的16) 自豪地穿着足球服. It showed people what she cared about and stood for: determination, sportsmanship and teamwork. Today, Gamble’s self-expression is rooted in a different type of clothing: her brand 前世集体, “一个可持续发展的, small batch label for those who speak the truth, 走自己的路,惹下地狱.”
“People express themselves through clothing whether they want to admit it or not,” 赌博说. “这就像艺术.”
Her first collection, 首页 Grown, includes tops, bottoms, dresses and jackets. Gamble describes the style of the brand as a modern woman’s take on bohemian fashion with timeless pieces for women in their mid-twenties to forties. One hundred percent of Past Life’s products are made from recycled fabrics, which are sourced from downtown Los Angeles and hand-sewn ethically and locally in Denver.
Long before her foray into fashion, Gamble, a Boulder native, grew up playing soccer competitively. 在大学, she competed at the University of Washington before transferring back home to join the women’s soccer program at CU Boulder. Her identity remained rooted in athletics until a career-ending injury forced Gamble to shift her mindset and find a new game plan.
Inspiration struck when she enrolled in a course on globalization and communication, which sparked an interest in environmentalism and climate change. After learning that the fashion industry is one of the largest pollutants in the world, 赌博说, she became determined to educate consumers about how to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle.
So, she combined her passions for entrepreneurship, fashion and sustainability to create her own Denver-based company, 前世集体, in 2020.
“The initial inspiration for me was becoming so passionate about wanting to educate and inspire people that you can still look cool and your style doesn’t have to come at the expense of people or the planet,甘布尔说。, 品牌的CEO和创始人
甘布尔住在洛杉矶, 纽约,甚至国外的佛罗伦萨, 意大利, 从博彩平台推荐毕业后. 在这些城市里, she was exposed to various mainstream fashion retailers, realizing many production methods did not align with the consumer’s perception of what defines a sustainable brand.
Frustrated with the lack of transparency and sustainable clothing options, Gamble knew her company needed to be honest and authentic.
“作为消费者, 博彩平台推荐一直都在被骗, 这就是市场营销的基本原则,甘布尔笑着说。, 我可不想变成那样. I don’t manipulate people – I want to tell them how much they are spending, where the dollar goes and why we are doing this.”
Her mission is rooted in an ethical standpoint: Do you want the person making that item to be paid fairly and treated with respect?
在快时尚时代长大后, with brands like Forever 21 and Zara favoring accessibility and affordability, Gen Zs and Millennials are beginning to push back––realizing that price cuts for consumers come at an invisible, 但是非常真实, cost for the environment and those who produce their clothing.
The fast-fashion model encourages consumers to view clothing as disposable, 这些垃圾通常会被填埋, 赌博说. In fact, according to the journal Occupational Medicine, approximately 85% of the clothing Americans consume——近3.8 billion pounds annually––is sent to landfills as solid waste, 相当于每个美国人将近80磅, 每年.
“[With] everything we do in life, a human is involved in an exchange,” 赌博说. “Knowing people were treated fairly is super important. 博彩平台推荐常常选择视而不见, but if we want to create change in this world, 博彩平台推荐不能视而不见.”
从一开始, Gamble wanted to run her business in a way that aligned with her values of zero-waste production, 善待员工, transparency for consumers and support for the local economy. That meant no shortcuts and no cutting corners to save costs. Her resulting brand is part of an emerging “slow fashion” movement, which advocates for ethical manufacturing in respect to people, 环境与动物.
对赌博, making the decision to put sustainability at the forefront of her business model was the easy part. The decision to launch her brand in the middle of the pandemic, however, was much more difficult.
“人们正在失去他们的基本需求. I was not going to ask people to buy a $200 dress,” she says.
相反,赌博 soft launched the brand in May 2020 by selling custom-made masks. 几个月后的2020年9月, 她推出了官方服装系列, which she now sells online and at a pop-up shop on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall.
甘布尔继续强调 slowness of Past Life because it takes time and money to produce products in an ethical, 环保的方式. 目前, the brand is donating 5% of all proceeds to the James Beard Foundation, a national non-profit culinary arts organization, 来帮助BIPOC餐厅继续营业.
Reflecting on her commitment to a business plan that forgoes the quick wins of fast fashion with the hope of achieving long term ethical and environmental gains, Gamble points to the inspiration she found in her favorite podcast, “我是如何建造这个的.“特别, 她回忆起一集主持人, 赖斯, explained that overcoming rejection is key to finding success as an entrepreneur.
甘布尔说:“这让我印象深刻. “I am going to be someone who makes it happen. 我要去冒险. I am going to try because if I don’t risk it, I am not going to see results.”