La Petite Special Issue 6 | Page 26

CAN YOU TE L L U S WH AT WAS THE ABOUT YOUR N E W I N S P I R AT I ON COLLABORATIO N ? B EH I N D T H IS KRISTIN: It is a gender C O L L AB O R ATION? fluid line with a message JAIME: For me, working of hope and a no with Kristin was a judgement society. necessity because I immediately knew that WHAT ATTRA C TE D she was going to get YOU TO GARD N E R what I was looking to AND THE GA N G do. She was already AND DOING A inherently making these COLLABORATIO N incredible clothings with WITH THEM? JAIME: sayings and drawings Kristin is electric to me. that I had never seen Everything she does is before. And, to me that electric. My mom was was really radical and a seamstress growing really cool and I just up and so I have a huge wanted to be a part of attraction to supporting that in whatever way businesses that other I could. For me, the moms have built from inspiration behind the the ground up. If my collection was that I mom had an opportunity started realizing through like that it would have many of my friends and been so amazing for societal norms that when her. The majority of I was looking at clothing what my kids wear all come from moms and small businesses. I (and not knowing if my friends were going to have a boy or a girl) believe in supporting small business. Kristin’s business has grown society tells you that you can only choose between certain colors. tremendously and is successful but she started that on her own. There were no gender neutral colors. I remember giving a gift to It’s amazing to me what people can do. There’s something about someone and they commented that it was “pink”. Is pink not a her way of thinking; her designs and the colors that she uses are gender neutral color? It was a really cool outfit and I realized that really fun and electric. this idea of gender assigned colors has been embedded in our society. It’s as if our children are not allowed to wear what they WHAT INSPI RE D YO U R C O L L A BO RATIO N might be attracted to because adults think that there are color WITH JAIME ? KRISTIN: After speaking with Jaime the first assignments to a specific gender. There wasn’t really anything in time, I knew that we were on the same page in terms of views the market that had colors and had messaging that said, “Hey, on these topics. It was like talking to myself. We share a passion your children can wear and be whatever they want to be and and wish to make some sort of difference. So in our minds, this is express themselves however they want to express themselves.” not "just" a clothing line. It is a visual message to all children and On top of that, I had friends whose kids were fluid in their parents that it is OK to be yourself. The message of LOVE is very expression. One minute they wanted to wear a striped shirt with present in the campaign images. jeans and the next minute they wanted to wear princess dresses. | 23