We were lucky to catch up with Dana Cohen recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dana, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I spent over a decade working in corporate fashion. I watched fabrics get ordered and never be used and garments pile up on sale racks. During that time, I discovered I am REALLY passionate about waste. I knew there was a better way to design. I thought-What if, instead of depleting resources to create new materials, we just used the “waste” out there to create beautiful things? HYER GOODS was born. Our name is a riff on the word higher, since everything we do aims to be better. We know it’s impossible to be perfect, but its all about incremental steps towards a more sustainable future. So we offer accessories (bags, wallets and beanies) made of leather and fabric sourced from deadstock materials and factory scraps. By upcycling “trash” we eliminate the massive energy footprint needed to cultivate land, livestock, crops and fertilizers, while simultaneously reducing the amount of waste being sent to landfill. Less energy and less pollution mean fewer greenhouse gases. Shortly after launching my brand I started a family and now have two little girls. Although owning a business and having a family is so challenging, every day I wake up and commit to doing things better for my girls.

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

I am a fashion industry veteran. I worked in corporate fashion for over a decade, the same decade that saw the rise of fast fashion. So my job went from being super creative to “how fast can we copy this thing that already exists and get it in stores.” And since the answer was inevitably not fast enough, we ended up creating a lot of waste. I left corporate fashion in 2018 to try to be a part of the solution.

My approach to sustainability is different than most. A lot of sustainable bag brands are using vegan materials, which are usually made of plastic. Even the most innovative vegan materials, like cactus leather, apple leather and mushroom leather all use plastic backers and binders. I am anti-plastic, since it doesn’t degrade over time. I think, instead of making new materials with plastic in them, the most sustainable materials are the ones that already exist. That’s why I use waste as a resource.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I launched HYER GOODS out of my Brooklyn apartment, in November of 2019, just a couple months before our world would change in a way I never could have predicted. In the end of February right before my factory was about to begin my Spring production, which of course didn’t end up shipping for many months due to COVID, my fiance and I eloped to city hall despite our impending May wedding to make sure I could be on his insurance in case the illness that was ravaging Italy and China at the time made its way to the US. The joys of being an entrepreneur! Of course coronavirus became a pandemic, and just a couple months into launching my business I found myself selling products no one needed and frankly felt irrelevant in a time where I was hearing a new ambulance drive by my Brooklyn apartment every minute. In late March 2020, I collected every ounce of fabric scraps laying in my apartment, scavenged unused curtains from neighbors, and started making masks for medical workers. After posting instructional videos online I got a lot of requests from ordinary people to buy the masks, until I couldn’t meet the demand and hired a local factory to help me transform abandoned fabrics into masks, so I started donating a mask for every mask someone purchased. Next thing I knew my masks were on Vogue and GQ’s websites. I was proud of myself for pivoting while staying true to my mission to utilize waste as a resource while supporting people and planet.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

As a one-woman show, any time a customer reaches out, whether it’s a DM on Instagram or through our site’s contact us form or even our online chat, they get me! I love that all of these offer a direct line of communication with my customers. I use every conversation as an opportunity to get feedback and opinions. I especially love surveying my followers on Instagram and allowing them to have a voice in the colors we work with and the new styles we launch. I’m constantly conducting surverys on Instagram about it! Not only do my customers love being a part of the process, but it helps me make smarter purchasing decisions, ultimately making sure I’m creating less waste by not bringing products people don’t want into the world.   

Contact Info:

• Website: hyergoods.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/hyergoods