Transcript
The inspiration for the design, they really come from women. So when I first started, I started researching a lot of different women. I was looking at sort of two aspects. So one was, okay, what are these inspiring stories? Who are these women? What did they do? And I wanted to find women from all over the world. And the other aspect was how could the things that they worked on or the areas that they excelled in or where they help people, like, how could that translate into a sock pattern? My aim and purpose of Sisu Socks is to empower women. So part of that means, building a brand that supports women with every single business aspect, really try to support women financially wherever I can. At the beginning, I hired a woman that I knew. She designed the first three collections. I gave her the list of women who I felt were really inspiring, as I said, whose backgrounds could really translate well into like a visual representation. The socks contribute in a sense to female empowerment because for me, I wanted to make them quite subtle. Like they’re feminists but they’re subtle. They don’t have necessarily pictures of boobs on them or saying like girl power. Not that I don’t agree with that or not that I don’t buy those products, but I just wanted to offer people something else. That sells like feminism that they can incorporate into their everyday life and personal style but not necessarily scream it out to the world.
I just passed the first year mark of the business. And we still have the first three collections and we started moving into other products, exploring how that work. I got inspired by these particular women because their stories are really interesting. So we started with three collections, which means three women. And under each collection we have two designs and each collection is actually named after the woman. So we have May Ayim, she was a writer and a poet and an activist for Afro German rights. She grew up in Hamburg. Lived and died in Berlin. And we have Yayoi Kusama,she’s a 91 year old Japanese artist who has installations all over the world. And even though she’s been doing art for a really long time, she does these really elaborate polka dots installations and lots of people go to the exhibitions and take photos there and just have a lot of fun with it. So she got quite popular through Instagram, even though she’s not using it, people sharing her work. And then Clelia Duel Mosher was one of the first female doctors in the States. What I really loved about her is that she paved the way for women empowerment back in those days because the types of research she worked on were really only being done by a very small amount of people and she really focused on like menstrual health and showing the world women aren’t weak just because we’re women, but because every month we deal with these changes, our bodies are going through pain.
I focus on female empowerment by sharing these stories, by writing the blog, by engaging models, both men and women who fight for this as well, who stand for this. We donate to a women’s charity with every sale. We’re constantly trying to spread this message. We’re sharing quotes and inspirational messages on our social media platforms. I guess for me as a businesswoman I really try to stay well connected with other female entrepreneurs and support others and their journey. So part of my goal moving forward is not only to expand the product offering, but also move into services and help women start their own businesses and move into the world of entrepreneurship because we are not the majority and so anything that I can do to help support other women to increase the percentage of female owned businesses.
The charity that we work with, Tata fem, they are based in Germany, but they have a number of projects and programs that help women with education, especially women in underprivileged areas around the world.
So our socks are made in Poland. It’s a sock manufacturer. It’s a family owned business that has been supporting their local community for probably almost 20 years now. They adhere to European working standards and conditions and they pay their employees fairly. In terms of sustainability, I would say this was one of the more important things when starting my business, but also one of the bigger struggles. So when I started planning my business and searching for a supplier, I had a sustainability checklist in my mind. I am no expert, but I knew the things that were important for me. So I wanted to keep the production as close to Berlin as possible, especially because I do ship worldwide so I wanted to find a way to balance out emissions that the company produces. I wanted to support a family business. I wanted to make sure that all the materials that I used in terms of product packaging, stickers, marketing material, was all recyclable and wanted to use as little plastic as possible. I tried to meet as many of the items on my checklist, but the actual stock itself is not certified organic. The packaging that it comes in, it’s all recycled. The only plastic we use is like this tiny little staple that keeps labeled together. The greeting cards that we just introduced, they come in these plastic envelopes like a seal protection thing. It’s all compostable.
I knew what was important for myself and also the brand values is, it’s not just about making as much money as possible and like profiting off of this female empowerment wave that we’re living off of, but rather if I am going to be part of this movement, like what else can I do? My passion is empowering women and I wanted to do it in a fun way. So I thought, yeah, why not create this by selling socks that were inspired by these stories and try to be at least a little bit different in spreading this message. I think more and more consumers are really looking for brands who do more than just make money.
