Sustainable Fashionista
Kirsten Dickerson, CEO and co-founder of Raven + Lily talks Mother Teresa, fashion and the new storefront.
By Kelly E. Lindner, photos by Kate Stafford
When you meet a fashion designer, you don’t expect this to come out of her mouth within the first five minutes of meeting her, casually, like it’s no big deal: “That’s when I worked with Mother Teresa.” Mother. Teresa. When considering sustainable apparel and accessories in Austin, do you really need to know anything else about a store’s founder?
No, but you should, because Kirsten Dickerson, CEO and co-founder of Raven + Lily, which opened its first storefront in Austin this April, has a lot more to say about ethical design than that. After earning a bachelor’s degree in education from Baylor University, Dickerson spent 20 years doing humanitarian work here and overseas. She’s also worked on wardrobes for documentaries and music videos with her filmmaker husband, Brandon. Today, she’s traveled to more than 30 countries, including India, where she worked with Mother Teresa.
“I saw so much suffering and poverty, a lack of opportunity and no outlet to discover gifts and talents,” Dickerson says. “These women were just waiting for someone to believe in them and give them a chance.”
Dickerson and good friend Sophia Lin founded Raven + Lily in 2008 in Los Angeles as a non – profit that trained women in design skills, both here and abroad. The name of the store, from a Bible verse (Luke 12) that speaks to the value of women, is also the namesake of the two diamond doves that live in the refurbished birdcage that now sits in the brick-andmortar store.
“I wanted to do something that combined my love of fashion with my love for humanitarian work,” Dickerson says. “This turned out to be the perfect outlet.”
Originally, accessories were created by volunteer designers, but today Raven + Lily is a benefit corporation that empowers more than 1,000 marginalized women in Ethiopia, India, Cambodia, Kenya and the United States through design and fair-trade wages. Everything sold at the Raven + Lily storefront and the online store at ravenandlily.com has a story behind it.
“I think this helps consumers realize that there is a woman behind every product and they can put their purchasing power toward something positive,” Dickerson says.
You can either get the story on each product in person at the store, or just click the “story behind this product” link online. These are the type of stories you’ll find:
In the United States, formerly homeless women hand-pour soy candles, and refugee women create scarves out of remnant materials and metallic leather.
In the Entoto Mountains in Ethiopia, HIV-positive women craft jewelry from beads produced by melting down bullets from former wars. “This is a good example of something that was meant for harm turned into something beautiful,” Dickerson says.
In Phnom Penh, Cambodia, a group of at-risk women, some HIV positive and some former victims of human trafficking, specialize in sewing, hand-printing and hand-looming pieces out of eco-friendly materials. “Just because you’re HIV positive doesn’t mean you don’t have something to offer,” Dickerson says.
In Northern India, marginalized women create stationery and journals from recycled paper and cotton waste from the textile industry. Also in Northern India, women work with local wood craftsmen to combine hand-carved wood with locally sourced leather.
In the Himalayan Mountains, a group that once faced severe poverty and discrimination can now provide for their families by handcrafting herbal soaps.
In Kenya, the Maasai women from the Esiteti community create intricate, hand-beaded jewelry, which empowers them to eradicate FGM (female genital mutilation) from their “there is a woman behind every product” community, as well as afford to be the first generation to send girls to school.
“We’re used to fast fashion like fast food, but there doesn’t have to be someone behind the scenes who is suffering,” Dickerson says. “I can’t tell you what an amazing feeling it is to help a woman learn a skill that enables her to provide for herself and her family.”
Aside from the story behind each item, the accessories and apparel have a look that’s strictly Raven + Lily. “I’d describe our style as modern, bohemian, clean-lined, natural and textured with a modern twist,” Dickerson says. “There’s also a distinctive color palette we stay within since natural dyes do not lead to bright colors.”
The storefront itself is also unshakably Raven + Lily, with handmade furniture, art from local artists and even wall murals created by Royal Design Studio to reflect the brand’s unique stencils, which appear on their paper products and cotton totes and bags. And Dickerson is not afraid to practice what she preaches. She lives in the same neighborhood as the store and also has locally sourced décor.
“This is what my house looks like,” Dickerson says with a laugh, gesturing to the store.
Though Lin stayed in LA, Dickerson moved to Austin in 2010 with her husband, her biological 13-year-old son, Mason, and her adopted Chinese-American daughter, Mei Li, who’s 10. She relocated because of the failing health of her mother at the time, but she describes the move as serendipitous.
“There are so many sustainable and socially conscious companies emerging on the Eastside,” Dickerson says. “I can’t think of a better place for the Raven + Lily storefront!”
Raven + Lily, 2406 Manor Road, Suite C.
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