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As a part of the Morning Lazziness collection highlighting empowering ladies who’re making a outstanding impression with their concepts, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kari Dowiak.
Kari Dowiak is the founder and designer behind Memorí, a luxurious DTC eyewear model specializing in high-quality, fantastically crafted sun shades designed for people with smaller face shapes—an often-overlooked area of interest within the business.
Earlier than launching Memorí, Kari spent 5.5 years as a Purchaser for Ross Shops in New York Metropolis, honing her eye for design, high quality, and market tendencies. Since founding the model, she has achieved spectacular milestones with no PR finances or advertising and marketing crew: gifting the first-ever pair of Memorí sun shades to Ed Sheeran, going viral on TikTok due to Bethenny Frankel, and collaborating with vogue icon Rebecca Minkoff in The Hamptons.
By documenting the unfiltered journey of constructing a model from the bottom up on TikTok, Kari has cultivated an engaged group and pushed natural gross sales. Her unconventional method to PR and advertising and marketing has earned options in Quick Firm, whereas Memorí’s elegant but edgy designs have been spotlighted in The Zoe Report and different prime type retailers.
On this candid dialog, Kari shares her journey, insights, and the methods which have helped her construct a results-driven enterprise and empower different entrepreneurs to do the identical.
What impressed your journey into the style business, and why did you select to give attention to sustainability?
It began with a seek for sun shades that really match and seemed good on my small face. After splurging $650 on a pair of Oliver Peoples, I dropped them the very subsequent day. I used to be devastated! The lenses shattered, they usually wouldn’t exchange them. That was my “aha” second to start out an eyewear model.
Earlier than launching Memorí, I labored as a vogue purchaser for Ross Shops. Ross has over 2,000 shops within the US. You’ll be able to think about the waste and air pollution that comes from low cost, mass-produced vogue at that scale. I knew I wished to do the precise reverse with my model.
How do you outline sustainability within the context of vogue, and the way does your model replicate that imaginative and prescient?
The concept of sustainability is easy: Use fewer assets than you acquire… In actuality, that is very arduous to execute within the vogue business. Most manufacturers throw across the time period as a buzzword and the way sustainable an organization is has grow to be a spectrum that could be very complicated to the common client.
My #1 aim isn’t to make the world’s most sustainable sun shades – if that was the case, our frames could be made from wooden and the lenses could be recycled materials that wouldn’t be crystal clear to see out of… Folks don’t need that.
My aim is to make the finest— as sustainably as potential, in order that as a substitute of shopping for a brand new pair of sub-par sun shades each season, you solely want one pair of Memoríes. When you put on them, there’s no going again to common sun shades.
What had been a number of the greatest challenges you confronted whereas constructing a sustainable vogue enterprise?
One main problem is the fabric we use: cellulose acetate, constituted of cotton and wooden pulp. It’s lovely and sustainable, we comply with an artisanal means of tumbling it for days with pure oils and abrasives to impart a extremely wealthy shine. The draw back is it has a decrease melting level. This implies throughout sizzling summer time months, we’ve needed to take care of frames warping. We will mildew them again into form, nevertheless it takes a ton of time and hands-on labor. Our purchasers additionally must watch out to not depart them on a sizzling automotive dashboard or subsequent to a bonfire or something like that, or the frames would possibly warp.
How do you steadiness type, affordability, and sustainability in your product choices?
You’ll be able to’t have a top quality, ethically made, sustainable product that can also be probably the most reasonably priced possibility. The mathematics merely doesn’t work. We don’t design our glasses to be low cost; we design them to be distinctive. To maintain costs affordable, we promote direct-to-consumer. If we bought by way of department shops, we’d must double our retail worth.
What steps do you are taking to make sure moral manufacturing and sourcing inside your provide chain?
All our sun shades are handmade in Italy, the place labor legal guidelines are very strict. Humorous sufficient, our manufacturing facility is totally off proper now… 3 full weeks of paid trip on the finish of August.
Each artisan is paid properly, greater than I, the proprietor, make! We supply our supplies domestically in Italy to make sure full transparency. We might by no means accomplice with any distributors who couldn’t share their sourcing practices with us.
How do you educate your prospects on the worth and impression of sustainable vogue?
I present them aspect by aspect why sustainably made is higher. While you maintain a pair of our barrel-tumbled acetate frames subsequent to low cost, injection-molded sun shades, it’s evening and day. As soon as they really feel, see, and even odor the distinction, they get it. They won’t have the ability to inform you WHY one feels so a lot better than the opposite, however they will sense it. Then when you possibly can clarify how the nicer one appears higher due to all these artisanal, sustainable strategies and supplies, they really feel empowered by that information, and excited to know some fundamentals so that they aren’t tricked by greenwashing advertising and marketing sooner or later.
It’s not sufficient to coach on why sustainability is vital for the atmosphere. It’s worthwhile to present them how the extra sustainable possibility will make their life and wardrobe higher than anything available on the market.
What’s one false impression about sustainable vogue that you just usually come throughout?
Folks suppose sustainability is all concerning the supplies. Nevertheless it’s SO way more than that… How a lot vitality did it take to provide? How far did uncooked supplies journey? How a lot water was used? What occurred to the runoff water with the dye in it? Sustainability is a a lot greater image than simply the tip product.
In what methods has client conduct modified lately round moral vogue, and the way has that impacted your model?
We simply had a serious shake-up within the vogue business, sparked by Trump’s tariffs. Trend Manufacturers are making knee-jerk reactions and stopping or transferring manufacturing to nations with decrease tariff charges, and placing sustainability and ethics on the again burner to assist manage to pay for these taxes. As costs for sustainable merchandise rise, customers who care about sustainability should be pickier and extra aware of what they purchase.
In Trump’s America, it’s getting tougher and tougher to exist as a sustainable model.
We refuse to maneuver our manufacturing out of Italy (Italy makes the very best glasses on the planet) and we refuse to chop corners on our sustainable supplies, so if tariff charges on Italian made items go up, so will our retail costs.
How do you keep revolutionary whereas staying true to your sustainable mission?
Small batches are our secret. We produce not more than 100 pairs per type, by hand. This lets us experiment with supplies and shapes that bigger manufacturers can’t, plus we are able to make fast changes – or simply soften down the lot and begin over if one thing’s not working.
What position does group or collaboration play in your online business mannequin?
We don’t do paid advertisements or conventional retail partnerships. As an alternative, we give attention to constructing a group of like-minded individuals who worth craftsmanship and uncommon finds. We do a ton of pop-ups at excessive finish classic reveals and vintage/property jewellery occasions. The folks we meet listed below are the spine of our group and drive the natural suggestions which have fueled our success.
What’s your imaginative and prescient for the way forward for vogue, particularly for women-led sustainable manufacturers?
I’d like to see legal guidelines that implement sustainability in massive corporations. France is making strides, and platforms like Closr ought to be as common as Revolve. We have to make it simpler for customers to identify true sustainable manufacturers and put arduous definitions and thresholds round sustainability advertising and marketing to scale back greenwashing.
What recommendation would you provide to aspiring feminine founders looking for to enter the sustainable vogue business?
In case your solely promoting level is “it’s sustainable,” your online business received’t final. Individuals who care about sustainability know that probably the most sustainable possibility is reusing or buying secondhand. They received’t simply hand over their cash as a result of one thing’s “inexperienced.”
Consider it like an natural restaurant. Being natural isn’t sufficient; the meals has to style superb. If it’s really nice, folks pays extra for it, even when they will’t clearly see why (as is the case with each sustainability and natural elements).
So, design one thing folks will fall in love with! resolve an issue, or create one thing that’s the very best in its class. Then, make that sustainably. That’s the profitable components for a sustainable vogue enterprise.
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