We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Laurel Schaffer a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Laurel, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.
Nothing was working. Standing at the crest of the Raider Ridge hike, with a bird’s eye view of my tiny mountain hometown, nestled in its ancient glacial valley in southwest Colorado, I had to admit this to myself. Nothing was working. My marriage of 23 years had recently ended, a tenuous adjunct position at the local college offered a “salary” of $5,000 a year, and my grandiose plan of finding a new life direction researching craft textiles in Oaxaca, Mexico was abruptly cut short by the onset of Covid and global meltdown. It was the beginning of June in 2020, the world was firmly in lockdown, and I had nowhere to escape the bald reality of my current situation. At 46 years old, my personal and professional life was in a shambles in the midst of a global health crisis, and I was feeling deeply sorry for myself.
Several years before, my then husband and I had left the high-priced pressure cooker of San Francisco and returned to my hometown in Colorado. During my time in San Francisco, I had graduated with a fashion design degree from FIDM, worked for multiple small fashion companies and sustainability organizations, and had become profoundly aware of the disastrous effects of the apparel industry on both the environment and the people involved in manufacturing clothing. I worked with grassroots organizations starting to promote regenerative agriculture, locally sourced materials for US clothing brands, and the tried and true “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” approach to cutting down textile waste. These ideas began to percolate in my mind as I danced around the thought of a fashion business that could make reuse sexy, local manufacturing scalable, and responsibly grown materials accessible. Upon returning to Colorado, I launched that business, Downright Red, and set out to change the world. I was high on beautiful design, sparkling idealism, and entrepreneurial energy. Turns out that being a world-changer is a mighty task. In short order I crashed and burned. I took on too much, asked too much of my customers, and grossly underestimated the time, money and community support it takes to get a small business off the ground. I felt like a colossal failure, and spent the next few years flailing around, eventually ending up with the adjunct position for which I was grateful, terrible pay notwithstanding. It was part-time in the small theatre department but might grow into something bigger in the future.
It did not, which is how I found myself oblivious to the spectacular scenery that day at the top of the ridge and faced with a growing certainty. I had to make a change. I had to take a risk- a big one. I could hide out comfortably in this idyllic mountain town and make ends meet somehow while ignoring the destruction and suffering behind the glamourous façade of the fashion industry, much of which was being laid bare in the new world of Covid chaos. Or, I could try again to do something to make a difference, let go of the life I had known that was predictable, and start over.
I took the risk. Sold my house, left my friends and family, and took my solo self to Fort Collins in Northern Colorado, where in the fall of 2021 I started the Impact MBA program at Colorado State University. This unique MBA focuses on global sustainability and social impact, and I knew it would give me a robust set of tools to add to my design skills and fashion industry knowledge. What I didn’t know was how hard it would be to go through a master’s program in my late 40s, it was like drinking from a fire hose! I will be forever grateful to my wonderful classmates and the incredible professors whose passion and commitment to a better world helped keep my own dream alive. A month before graduating in December 2022, I started another company, named VIV after my paternal grandmother Vivian. She was a WWII Rosie the Riveter and created a glamorous wardrobe from pennies and dreams. She taught me all about Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle before they were buzzwords, and how to sew magical clothing from mundane castoffs.
VIV is a blend of fashion, education, and advocacy. We offer a custom refashion experience for women who want to create a new couture-level, one-of-a-kind fashion piece from a meaningful but stale piece of clothing or source material. We present a lively and concise history of fashion and its sustainability framework to schools, corporations, and industry groups. And we are in the process of building an online directory of verified sustainable apparel businesses and brands, helping consumers shift purchasing habits toward “smaller, fewer, better.”
Stepping outside a traditional business model with VIV is a continuation of that first huge risk I took in the middle of Covid three years ago. Will it work? My head says “maybe” and my heart says “YES!” Time will tell. Whatever the outcome, I wake up every day with the fresh possibility of creating beauty, connecting with extraordinary people around the world, and embracing a life full of richness and adventure. Risky- yes. Worth it- without a doubt.
Laurel, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I am a designer, an artist, a dancer… a dreamer and a doer. My career has curved through performing arts, fashion and costume design, sales, and consulting. I hated school but love to learn so somehow earned three degrees along the way. I’m an American who has been lucky enough to travel and work all over the world: from Vanuatu to Copenhagen, Kenya to Kyoto. I have lived on the East Coast, the West Coast, and grew up in the Colorado Rocky Mountains where I currently reside. My life so far looks more like a Jackson Pollack than a Rembrandt, but I believe the alchemy of these disparate experiences is the foundation that brings energy and drama to the design work I offer through my company, VIV.
That foundation began with dance as an undergrad at the College of William and Mary in Virginia; I discovered my love language. The grand architecture of Balanchine’s ballets, the earthy drama of Martha Graham, the punchy fun of Jazz and Broadway- I embraced them all with gusto. I became almost addicted to moving, pushing my physical limitations, pulsing emotion out of my core the way Shakespeare, Byron, and Hawthorne did in my English classes. This was living, and it made all other pursuits dull and mundane in comparison. I needed clothing that mirrored all this frenetic expression, and ended up with a multitude of odd pairings: striped unitards and fair isle thigh highs. Denim cut offs paired with hoodies the size of garbage bags over layers of tshirts, camisoles, leotards. Corny wool sweaters with pleated miniskirts and hiking boots. I was building my fashion house “codes” and I use them to this day. I play volume against fit, pattern on pattern on more pattern, swirling skirts and glittering embroidery on fitted jackets- movement, contrast, boldness.
I formally entered the fashion field through FIDM in San Francisco, where I earned my AA in Fashion Design in 2010, built on dreams of Dior and the high glamour of couture. Over the next decade I honed my skills in the craft of design and construction, but the glamour soon wore off as I began to learn more about the destructive impact of the apparel industry on both the environment and the people involved in manufacturing clothing. I worked with grassroots organizations starting to promote regenerative agriculture, locally sourced materials for US clothing brands, and the tried and true “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” approach to cutting down textile waste. I wore many different hats and learned hard lessons as an entrepreneur. As the world went into Covid lockdown, and the many abuses of the fashion industry came to be public knowledge, I knew I wanted to do more.
In the fall of 2021, I started the Impact MBA program at Colorado State University. This unique MBA focuses on global sustainability and social impact, and I knew it would give me a robust set of tools to add to my design skills and fashion industry knowledge. A month before graduating in December 2022, I started a new sustainable fashion company, named VIV after my paternal grandmother Vivian. She was a WWII Rosie the Riveter and created a glamorous wardrobe from pennies and dreams. She taught me all about Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle before they were buzzwords and how to sew magical clothing from castoffs and scraps. Getting this degree and launching my dream company was a very proud moment for me- a culmination of experience, ideals, and grit- and I’m so excited to help other women recognize and harness the power of sustainable fashion to transform a broken global industry.
VIV is a blend of fashion, education, and advocacy. We offer a custom refashion experience for women who want to create a new couture-level, one-of-a-kind fashion piece from a meaningful but stale piece of clothing or source material. We present a lively and concise history of fashion and its sustainability framework to schools, corporations, and industry groups. And we are in the process of building an online directory of verified sustainable apparel businesses and brands, helping consumers shift purchasing habits toward “smaller, fewer, better.”
Ultimately, I want VIV clients to have beautiful options for expressing their individuality while supporting a different fashion system. A system based not on relentless growth and consumption, but rather on small businesses who know their suppliers from farm to factory, limit their use of virgin resources, and take responsibility for the full life cycle of any product produced and sold.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
While I was working towards my MBA at Colorado State University, I was lucky to be inundated with brilliant writing and material of all kinds that greatly expanded my thinking around building a business and a product. A Design Thinking course taught by Dr. Chris Blocker was instrumental. We did foundational work based particularly on two texts. The first: Designing for Growth, A Design Thinking Tool Kit for Managers by Jeanne Liedtka and Tim Olgive offers a clear path from creative burst to idea iteration to consistent growth and innovation within a company. The second: Designing Your Life, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans is a classic which I found transformative with its “reframing” mindset deeply grounded in intentional action. Lastly, the invaluable Leadership: Theory and Practice by Peter G. Northouse provides a comprehensive account of the major theories and models of leadership and how they developed. As a Gen X woman from a traditional background, this really helped explain systemic biases and assumptions that I had pushed against for years, and offered alternative models of leadership that speak more to inclusivity and collaboration.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
Most of my life has been centered around dance and fashion design, two artistic modes that have traditionally been viewed in the United States as decorative and less important than “business” and its related economic activity. They are felt to be a luxury, and perhaps even an indulgent and frivolous pursuit; therefore, its practitioners lack seriousness of mind and the capacity to bring real value to society. For a long time, I accepted this as a fact, even while feeling in my gut the falsity of this view. We are so driven by financial return that it has skewed our cultural value system almost beyond repair. Ironically, it wasn’t until I earned my MBA that I understood that economic systems and markets are just as much a fantasy construct as any ballet story or fashion theme. As humans, we thrive on story and connection; the need for those artistic expressions which provide us with the freedom to overcome barriers and reach each other is more important than ever.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://viv-world.com/. https://laurelschaffer.com/
- Instagram: @downrightredgirl
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurelschaffer/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrYYfVw_EWm-RZra8Uxeq0Q
Image Credits
Bob Younger Images (Fashion Product)