📍 Mexico City, Mexico
Collective, Sustainable Design
Project Overview
Alongside customers and partners, we set out to create a sustainable clothing brand. At Because, we seek to amplify the voices of causes and organizations making a material difference in communities throughout Mexico.
Project Sequence
Below, you will find panels from our Kickstarter campaign, descriptions of our partners, examples of our collaborative design process, and important moments along our brand's journey.
Forging Impactful Partnerships
Our inspiration for Because stemmed from a problem.
Friends, colleagues, strangers - seemingly everyone we spoke to - expressed interest in getting involved and making a greater impact but felt overwhelmed at the thought of where to begin.
Simultaneously, incredible organizations working on impactful solutions to vital social and environmental challenges were searching for ways to meaningfully connect with a wider audience of supporters.
Through partnerships with NGOs throughout Mexico, focusing on distinct but often interconnected issues (recycling, food, water, and empowerment), we co-created the foundation for our brand.
Cerrando El Ciclo - Recycling
Cerrando el Ciclo empowers women throughout Mexico by encouraging the transformation of recycled glass into works of art, helping generate a source of income and opportunity for the community members that the organization works with.
Huerto Roma Verde - Food Systems
One of Mexico City’s largest and most versatile urban gardens, Huerto Roma Verde, has developed a resilient and dynamic space that welcomes all to open their minds, get involved, and rethink the structures that underpin our relationship with one another and our natural environment. Through community, and redesigning how we form it, Huerto Roma Verde believes in our power to unify and address societal challenges.
Isla Urbana - Water & Water Access
Isla Urbana is dedicated to providing organizations and individuals with rainwater-harvesting barrels that can serve as safe and affordable sources of drinking water for families throughout Mexico.
Fondo Semillas - Empowerment
Fondo Semillas is a feminist organization that improves the lives of women, girls, trans, and intersex people in Mexico. Rather than providing a short-term "cure" for conditions of injustice and inequity, Fondo Semillas works to structurally combat systems and conditions in order to enact lasting, structural change.
Co-Creating Representative Designs
As we conceptualized our first release of designs for our graphic t-shirts, we created an open dialogue with our partners to help co-create each design.
Below you will find the cause area (i.e. recycling), NGO partner, design title, and collective inspirations:
Developing Impact Rooted in Choice
Choice is an essential component of our brand. We provide our customers with the opportunity to select the design associated with the cause and NGO of their choosing.
Our hand painted pins symbolize each of the cause areas that we chose to focus on: recycling, empowerment, water, and food.
These cause areas, although full of challenges in Mexico and the world at large, are ripe with opportunity for the innovative work that our partnering organizations engage in.
Weaving Sustainable Fabrics into Our Foundation
Essential to our brand's DNA is the use of sustainable fabrics. Our recycled cotton and PET materials have minimized Because's water and carbon footprints as a firm commitment to reusing the abundance of materials already around us.
Crowdsourcing & Coalition: Sharing Our Story on Kickstarter
On November 4th, 2021, our Kickstarter went live!
In 30 days, we raised over $300,000 MXN from 184 backers. The support of our loyal backers continues to reinforce our belief in Because, as well as the importance of collaborative initiatives and design.
FINAL_VIDEO_WITH_MUSIC_IN_SPANISH_SUB.mp4Our Kickstarter video, in Spanish. You can find our English version here.
Facilitating a Communal Dialogue
Following our launch on Kickstarter, our team moderated a series of talks with our partners and other organizations working in each of our four cause areas:
#Amplificatuvoz - Planting Consiousness
#Amplificatuvoz - Transform it!
#Sembrando Conciencia
In early November, Francisco (Paco) Ayala, Jocelyn Herrera, Jan Heinvirta, and I shared in a virtual dialogue where we discussed the design of more sustainable food systems and practices.
During our conversation, which encouraged viewer participation, we explored food waste, food transparency, community cultivation and food security, as well as redefining and redesigning our relationship with the food that we consume.
Developing a Multidisciplinary Team
Our multidisciplinary team is core to the identity of Because. Diana, Mónica, Charlie and I each represent our own collection of unique experiences, backgrounds, and interests. Impact, and the potential for fashion to serve as a pathway to impact, energizes our ongoing efforts.
Capturing Our Brand
Photos and moments captured during our photo shoots in CDMX
Highlighting Our Product Catalog
Catalogue 11:22.pdf