Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Adrienne Catone. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Adrienne, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

In the 1990s people weren’t talking about sustainability as much as they are now. I was adventurous and decided to take a trip to Africa. There, I had the opportunity to venture into the forest to see a wild troupe of mountain gorillas. Watching the guides track the gorillas was inspiring, but actually seeing silverback gorillas in the “mountains of the mist” changed my life. At that time, there was a fear that without conservation involvement, the majestic silverback gorillas could be extinct before the end of the century.

Coming back from that trip, I realized that I had to personally start taking conservation and sustainability seriously. From then on, each year I picked a different aspect of my life to turn green. I became a vegetarian, and eventually a vegan. I removed all cleaning products that had harsh chemicals in them. And each time I needed to buy new clothes, I looked for items that were made from eco-friendly sources like organic cotton and hemp.

However, over time, I found that of all the changes that I was making, finding nice looking clothing was the hardest. It was easy to find hemp t-shirts, but where were all the eco-friendly dresses & gowns, nice pants and undergarments? By 2005, nearly 10 years after my first encounter with the gorillas, I realized that I had to focus on a more sustainable career, and create my own eco-friendly, ethical clothing company that I couldn’t seem to find elsewhere.

Today (17 years later as of this writing), my company sources some of the world’s most supportive and well-constructed organic cotton bras from Europe, latex- and spandex-free clothing for people with skin sensitivities from Fair Trade factories in Asia, and sophisticated, eco-friendly gowns and dresses from California. We even locally manufacture our own line of women’s panties using Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) certified fabrics right here in Oregon. Of course, we haven’t forgotten the men either. With boxers and briefs from organic cotton or bamboo fabrics, organic cotton thermals for cold weather, and men’s shirts from a variety of sustainably sourced, sometimes recycled fabrics, we’ve curated more than 1000 different products.

It’s been an interesting journey with ups and downs, but we’re still offering beautiful, ethical clothing and intimates at https://www.FaeriesDance.com. We ship our collection throughout the USA and Canada.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

“We at FaeriesDance.com are committed to providing a completely sustainable shopping experience for anyone who cares about our natural world. Whether you’re a full-on fashionista, a minimalist, or an everyday person who just needs to get dressed in the morning, we’re here to help you make better choices. Our clothing is made of environmentally sensitive fabrics and low-impact dyes. We source only ethically made products. Both our US-based and overseas ethical fashion brands take care to ensure that all workers are treated fairly, are safe from sweatshop conditions and receive fair living wages. No children are ever employed by any of our manufacturers. And of course, we consistently donate both our time and money to environmental charities.”

“Adrienne Catone is the founder and current CEO of Faerie’s Dance, Inc. While Faerie’s Dance is a micobusiness, Adrienne liked the term CEO better than President. (She also happens to be the Secretary and the Janitor, but hopes to rectify that over time.) Adrienne has an M.S. degree in Applied Math and worked in the Aerospace Engineering field for 20 years before opening Faerie’s Dance. She’s an avid traveler and has been fortunate to experience a lot of the world. An encounter with a silverback gorilla troupe on one of her journeys first opened her eyes to the need for sustainability. Adrienne is a vegan and custom built the Faerie’s Dance warehouse on her property in Happy Valley, Oregon.”

For more ideas on this section, please visit our About Us page at: https://www.faeriesdance.com/about-us

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Today I run Faerie’s Dance, Inc. with my life partner, Glen. We’ve survived the internet crash of 2008, several recessions, and most recently the COVID pandemic. At the early start of COVID, we were fortunate not to be shut down because we’re an online company. But the general panic led us to the lowest sales we’d had in years, suddenly bringing in so little that we could not support even just the two of us.

I worked long hours to try to regain some of our lost sales, and my partner stepped up and got a side gig to keep us paying the bills while we regrouped. In the end, we both survived and thrived through the COVID and are still here.

The important lesson I’ve learned through numerous downturns and adversities is that you just have to keep going. Sometimes, you might even have to get a second income for a few months, but if you survive the downturns, you’ll keep going stronger than before.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

Initally, we had only intended to be a retailer, curatoring a collection of eco-friendly goods from around the world to create a one-stop boutique for all things eco-friendly. But we kept running into a snag with women’s underwear. We’d find a great new underwear brand, carry it for a year or two, and then they would go out of business. It happened once, then twice, then our largest underwear manufacturer also went out of business.

At that point, I knew nothing of manufacturing, but I knew that we needed a stable source of women’s underwear. Most people find an undergarment they like, and stick to that brand or style. Constantly needing to try something new was wearing on our customer base.

So we launched Green Tree Organic, a subsidiary company of Faerie’s Dance, Inc., and started manufacturing underwear under the new business. The manufacturing process was much more complicated than I had originally realized (read more here: https://blog.faeriesdance.com/2014/04/the-zen-of-organic-panty-manufacturing.html/), but we eventually pulled together a line of 7 women’s panty styles and a camisole, all of which we still selling today, 8 years after the initial launch.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.faeriesdance.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/faeriesdance/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FaeriesDancecom
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/FaeriesDance
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FaeriesDancecom
• Other: https://blog.faeriesdance.com/