We Built the Room Before We Made Anything to Wear in It

A letter on the order things happened in, for any woman who believes she needs the product first.

Before there was a single garment, there was a field in Canada and a sound system.

For seven years Robindra and I ran a yoga and music festival called Bloom. We built it from nothing. No investor, no venue, no reason for anybody to come. What it was, in the end, was people gathered around music, breath, and the quiet idea that a life is allowed to feel sacred. We did that every year, for seven years, with no product to sell at all.

"we did not build an audience for the clothes. we built a room, and then the clothes arrived in it."

What we had, and what we did not

I want to be accurate about how little we had. I had no training in design. I could not finish a seam. I had grown up Mexican-American with a clear sense of which ceilings were meant to be mine, and I had spent years buying beautiful things and imagining making them instead. That is not a business plan. It is a feeling you keep in a drawer.

What we did have was a room full of people who trusted us. Seven years is a long time to turn up for something that does not pay you.

The invitation came through the room

Then an invitation to India arrived. Through the room, as these things do. And in India, a chance meeting with a manufacturer who had quietly made garments for Free People and Anthropologie, and who was willing to make something small with a woman who had no label and no orders.

I sketched four designs on a napkin before the flight home. I have written about those four designs elsewhere, because they are still in the collection.

The first piece went straight back into the room

The first garment this house ever made was the Kundalini Gown. A long button-down gown, pockets deep enough for the things you carry quietly.

It was not launched. There was no campaign, no list to email, no shop. It went on stage at the next Bloom festival, worn by Marianne Williamson. The first place that gown was ever seen was the room we had spent seven years building for something else entirely.

What I would say to a woman starting now

Build the room first. I know that is the opposite of the advice, which says to find the product, then find the market. Here is why I would still say it.

A room tells you the truth. People who already trust you will say plainly what they would wear, and they will say it before you have spent money. A room also carries you through the gap. There is always a long stretch between the idea and the thing, and a gathering gives you somewhere to be useful while you wait. And a room introduces you. Every real opening we have had, including the one in India, came from someone who was standing in ours.

The room does not have to be a festival. It can be eight women in your kitchen once a month. What matters is that it exists before you need it to buy anything.

What it looks like now

The shape has not changed, only the size. Around thirty Balinese artisan families cut and sew everything we make, in their own homes and in workshops the tailors own themselves. Robindra holds the systems and the numbers. I hold the room. When I go quiet, the workshop keeps working and the direction goes soft, which we have both learned to read as information rather than failure.

All these years on, I still think the clothes are the second thing we made.

With love from Bali,
Myrah.

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A Piece for This Threshold

The Kundalini Playsuit Linen

The direct descendant of that first gown, cut shorter and easier, in 100% stonewashed French linen with a wide leg and side pockets. Sewn by the same artisan families who made the gown, who have made every version of this silhouette since. $234.

Made to order: 3 to 6 weeks from order to shipment, then 5 to 15 business days with DHL.

Shop the Kundalini Playsuit

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