At 22, I started Andira because I had lived overseas after college and done an extensive amount of traveling. While traveling, I fell in love with how diverse and artistically based international fashion and design was. I wanted to bring that excitement and diversity to the U.S. based consumer, but had no idea just how far my initial ideas would take me.
I was running Andira for about two years when I started to feel a sense of emptiness and lack of respect for the fashion industry. I was learning so much at once about import and distribution of international brands through the high-end clients I was working with, as well as my constant self-education through trade shows, fashion weeks, and my own industry consultants I used, but none of what I learned was fulfilling.
I started to see the toxicity of mass production and began asking questions about not only price points and seasonal color-ways, but also who was making this handbag or that line of dresses, where they lived, how much they were paid and what kinds of fabrics were used and how they were made – questions this industry seems to rather avoid.
So, despite the glitz of events, branding a new campaign, and travel back to Europe to scout for new lines, I was not happy with work that I thought would be thrilling and far more glamorous than it actually was.
I was stressed constantly and feeling more like a 73-year-old in a 23-year-old’s body. No amount of yoga or red wine could make my real questions or concerns about the fashion industry go away and the more I had all this running through my head, the more miserable I seemed to become.
So I decided to do something about all of it.
I didn’t have a background in sustainability but that word hardly existed in modern vocabulary when I started my own green company. I never realized it until it was a global trend but my entire life was green.
I grew up on a small farm and my entire life was surrounded by nature and a respect for the environment. Being raised with our own animals and thousands of acres of natural wildlife, I clearly understood what a pretty healthy functioning ecosystem should look like. The more I traveled and the more I researched my own questions on the industry I found myself in, the more I was saddened by what hyper-consumerism and mass production does to our planet.
I realized my goals in fashion were also causing the demise of our environment, and a women’s self worth, among other things.
I also knew that rain forests act like a delicate balancing mechanism for our entire planet and that by keeping them intact we can control weather patterns globally. Ironically, when I first heard of rain forest destruction, I was in second grade. It upset me so much that I tried convincing my classmates to donate their lunch money to raise funds to stop the logging there. I was very convincing and unfortunately my lobbying skills landed me in the principal’s office, but my passion to make a difference did not fade.
Knowing that the Amazon was still an area in desperate need of global attention I combined nature (which affects everyone in the world) with apparel, something that can reach everyone in the world.
It was then that I began to develop Rain Tees. I flew to the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, areas of La Selva Maya in Mexico, and worked with teams of volunteers in Ecuador and Bolivia, researchers in Brazil, and NGO’s in Peru who traveled deep into the Amazon Jungle. I organized to donate art supplies to all of the children in these different endangered environments.
Many of the children had never even held a pencil, so seeing Crayola for the first time was like a surprise Christmas.
Hundreds of us did art sessions in each of these countries. We asked the children to draw what they saw happening to their earth where they lived. We then took those art pieces, worked with a very tiny design team and less than a year later those pieces became the first small collection for Rain Tees.
Suddenly, I found myself on the runway of Mercedes Benz Fashion week again, but this time I was walking down the runway for a line that embodied who I truly am.
I also wanted to make the children in these endangered rain forests part of the ecological reforestation process there since they are our future and will need to understand these challenges more clearly than any of us someday. So to do this, we give the children a tree to plant in their homeland for every Rain Tee that is sold.
It’s amazing how life can change when we follow a mission we believe in! I was finally motivated because I could truly immerse myself in the research and work I was doing. It didn’t feel like work anymore, it felt like just something I had to do to feel “right”.
On another angle, so many friends joke that this is my fate or destiny, as ironically Andira is the word for a Brazilian tree species that has become nearly extinct in Amazonian regions due to deforestation.
I had no idea how much my company name would reflect the true nature of my work when I started Andira, but what a gift my journey has been. I also currently only import and distribute eco-friendly lines, like Demano handbags from Barcelona which are handmade from recycled banners (you can check them our on www.demano.net).
It’s crucial to me to keep the entire manufacturing process as eco-conscious as possible, from the way the fabric is selected to the way products are packaged and shipped. I think it’s just one of those things that if people could see the real effects of what they choose to wear and buy and support, they would make choices very differently. It’s just sad to me how disconnected we all are from where everything we consume originates. I have hope that this is all changing and that I can be part of that process.
Rain Tees is all about changing the world one tee at a time, not overnight or instantaneously. I had to realize that I had the power through fashion to educate and inspire consumers about our ecosystems using an industry with the ability to reach millions.
I want the world to see what’s really happening in our rain forests directly through the eyes of the youth living in them.
Having little money to create Rain Tees, no experience in apparel design, and armed only with a wish to make a profound difference in the world, the dreams I had as a child are finally coming together.
The most powerful message these children have shared is that we are all connected. What happens in their home absolutely affects what occurs in ours.
The farther we spread this message, the more change we create.
By
Beth Doane
Rain Tees Founder and Designer