Fashion Week

As you may have heard, I’m hosting a Knitting Lounge and Media Suite at Fashion Week NY. And you may have heard that I’m working with kickstarter.com to raise the money to put it together.

The Knitting Lounge at Fashion Week NY

Kickstarter.com is a new, amazing platform created for people to raise cash for their projects. There are artists and activists, filmmakers and musicians, entrepreneurs, small businesses, and students — all types of people who are looking to fund their work.

For an indie accessories designer with a predominantly crafty following, it’s pretty tough to crash Fashion Week. We had to think out of the box and find the right way for me to cross over from craft to fashion. Since my knitting bags (yes, stylish knitting bags) are among my most popular sellers, and because knitting is somehow always left out of the party in fashion (like the designer colleague of mine who auditioned for Project Runway and was laughed at — a knitter? on Project Runway? ). There is this huge gap between crafty knitting and fashion knitwear. And what better way to bridge that gap than to knit right there at Fashion Week!

In addition to showing my spring 2010 collection, we’ll offer complimentary hand massages for those tired knitting (and blogging!) fingers, give yoga tips, serve drinks & tasty nibbles and… teach the media folks how to knit. Everyone gets to make the Fashion Week Bracelet – a simple, handknit bracelet you can whip up in about 10-20 minutes. The bracelet then becomes a symbol of being a knitter and can be worn all week at the fashion shows.

To put together an event like this takes a lot of planning, networking, and thousands of dollars. The money for this kind of thing would typically come from a designated events budget (um, as if small, indie labels have one) or, more often, it comes from sponsorships from larger companies. We are fortunate to have some terrific partners involved (see below), but these days, no one is working with a big budget. So even with great sponsors and a great event planned, we were still short.

Cut to kickstarter solving the problem. To post a project you first need an invitation. I didn’t have one, so I went to Twitter and Facebook to ask around. “I’m looking for a kickstarter invitation. Anyone got one for me?” or something like that. Within minutes, my old friend Jane Lerner (thank you, Facebook) contacted me with a hot lead. And later that evening, I had posted the project on kickstarter and had started to raise money.

The way it works is you ask backers to pledge money and in return you offer rewards. Some recording artists might offer a signed copy of the CD for a $25 contribution or in one case they’ll write a song about you for kicking in $1000! My rewards vary from gift certificates to a signed copy of my book to a weekend for two in NYC, including a fancy dinner and tickets to a broadway show.

And then here’s the thing… if you reach your goal, Amazon (they process the funds for kickstarter) will give you every penny. But if you fall short of your goal, you get nothing. Zip, zilch, nada, zero.

The deadline for my goal is 9/11 at 11:59pm. So far, we’ve raised about $1400 and the pledges are still rolling in. But we need more help to make this happen! Please contribute to my project and my cause. Indie designers need help from their community. The smallest amount makes all the difference. And if you can’t chip in, please link to the project or this post. Or twitter the link. Post it on Facebook.

Helping to spread the word doesn’t just help my business, it shows other artists and entrepreneurs that there are creative ways to get funding. Using social media to advance your business is new and exciting. Reaching out to your own core audience (and beyond it) and feeling their support is amazing!

Every small business, artist, and entrepreneur deserves a chance like this to reach their goals.

Thanks so much for your support!

Our Knitting Lounge at Fashion Week sponsors…