Vintage fashion is definitely sustainable, but with the popularity of those two things companies want the branding too like J. Crew Always. J. Crew announced their new approach to vintage as part of the company’s sustainability effort & I am so in.

And I’m not going to lie, there were some prized J. Crew clothing in the 90s that will forever reside in my heart.

J. Crew has long been a brand that dives deep into cotton and other natural fibers. Based on the quality of the garments and how much customers are loyal to the brand, it’s easy to bet people have held onto some of their favorite clothing from years past even if they don’t fit!

And while some of those choice outfits come back as teens go retro and search parents closets, others search these items out in resale shops from Goodwill to PoshMark and beyond. Some doesn’t have as clear a path.

And let’s face it, fashion from the 90s is hot enough to be lighting up Instagram!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Jamie Rae (@thejamieraexo)

Now J. Crew wants a piece of it — via J. Crew Always — financially and from the customer experience viewpoint. And the halo back to the brand.

Under the company’s new “J. Crew Always” banner, pre-owned styles will be listed through its website and through ThredUp (TDUP.O), an online consignment platform which partners with the clothing retailer on resale services.

Reuters

My guess is 90s fashion will be popular whether it comes from a closet in the house, a resale shop that sales a range of brands or the new J. Crew Always banner. But J. Crew is making a clear indication they want that relationship with customers old and new, much as REI has done with it’s Re-supply effort.

The post Embracing Vintage and Sustainability with Some Branding like J. Crew Always appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

Sometimes I still shake my head in disbelief that my coming up with something to uses on Twitter, has stuck with me as a personal brand of sorts. But once JPlovesCOTTON started to stick, I embraced it, have even purposefully encouraged it. That takes a new step now.

If you are seeing this in your subscription email, you wouldn’t see the new logo that’s at the top of the website, so let me put it in here now. Oh wait, there are actually two logos — one is being used in the header and the other is waiting for this big reveal. 

I hope you think they fit. They have a bit of energy behind them in my opinion…. positive energy for me and I hope for you too.

Why have a logo?

For a while, I’ve wanted to change the look of the blog…. and since JPlovesCOTTON became a brand for me years ago, it seemed I should just go ahead and let that lead. And it seemed like a logo seemed the perfect start. Problem was, I wasn’t sure what I wanted from it.

The Process of Design

Having worked in marketing a long time, I know that can take quite a process. Still, I wanted to get to work on it. Yeah, you can see that I made some bad decisions early on!

I had one go at it with a dear friend who really was happy to help. He did great work but I had trouble really articulating what I wanted. It made the design process arduous. I wanted to love one of the concepts he came up with (as did he) but my lack of direction made it painful for both of us.

A year after I really wanted that to work, I decided to go a totally different route because I saw the logo that my friend Natasha had created for her We Sow We Grow community garden in Chicago. That got me thinking about what I wanted to capture with a logo and with that I asked who had designed hers and got in touch with Mandi Buckner.

Working with Mandi Buckner on a New Logo

Mandi has designed quite a few logos so she had a whole series of questions for me on what types of elements, emotions I wanted to convey, how the design would be used and more. We talked about schedules and timing and of course we discussed fees and what would be provided at the end of the process.

You can see her first take at right. She totally got me and my mind raced with ways to fine tune it. Lucky for me I got these the same week I got my iPad Pro so I could play with ideas as I traveled.

That was when I decided the design could be strong enough to be simplified and I asked her to do two versions for me, still wondering whether I would be able to do it. She worked on some things and we were both thrilled.

Lots More to Do

So the logo is a start. I need to get the blog redesigned some more but it was safe holding onto the logo… something I’ve been doing for months. I’m ready to put it out there. Let you guys see it, tell me what you think.

And I have decided to start it with a new project, but I think I’ll write another post for that story…. for now, I want to find myself some lunch!

I Would Love to Hear Your Reactions!

The post It’s Been a Long Time Coming — JPlovesCOTTON Has a Logo! appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

a favorite photo from AgMS -- I'm flanked by Troy Hadrick & Tim Zweber

While at the Ag Media Summit, it was interesting to be called by my Twitter ID so much of the time. Somehow it has just caught hold. And when I set up the blog, it seemed a natural fit. A year ago, at the AgMS there were probably less than a dozen tweeps there. This year the number skyrocketed and twitter name recognition jumped as well.

Granted, there were a few folks who called me by JPlovesCOTTON at other events (Memphis tweetups, NAFB and the American Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting come to mind parts 1, 2 & 3 very quickly). But the number of new faces to go with long-time Twitter friends at the AgMS (posts 1 & 2), was incredible. And more of my pre-Twitter friends (yes, there was a time before Twitter), stay in touch through social media as well.

So hearing JPlovesCOTTON was far more frequent this past week and we used other Twitter handles alongside our given names. And as conversations turned to personal branding, it seems clear I have one clearly out there – my initials that friends first called me by in high school and my love of a fluffy white crop.

I didn’t give my Twitter ID a lot of thought when I set up the account. Went with a couple of things that tell who I am. Somewhere along the way, I thought pretty long & hard about changing it so it was shorter. But I decided retweets be damned, I talk ag a lot and cotton is my thing, its my passion, and the cotton industry is one of the places I feel most at home.

I love them old cotton fields back home, even when its a good cotton summer (which means far hotter than a good Janice summer). I can explain the parts of a cotton plant with the enthusiasm of a cotton physiologist thanks to friends who took time to help me understand. I love getting into a discussion with PhDs about some new genetics or a new biotech trait. And I love making an on-farm visit with a Mississippi cotton farmer or a Texas crop consultant who’s been field testing that product. I enjoy talking to a marketer about what textile mills are buying right now and where demand is headed. And I must admit its exciting to me to pass along some of the info I’ve learned about cotton fabrics and other products made from this important crop in the South.

Friends who don’t work in agriculture, sometimes say I’m a cotton girl. Farmers in other crops sometimes chuckle when I connect a crop or practice they are in to the white gold (some have even said they learned a thing or two). And in the cotton business, I cozy up to folks even if they are one of the rare names or faces I don’t know. (I know a few folks who should see themselves in this paragraph!)

It wasn’t til I had a good night’s sleep this weekend that I realized “JPlovesCOTTON” is just like a friend of mine’s dad who farms alongside the Mississippi River. The dad always refers to himself as a cotton farmer, even though a few years cotton prices have made the crop a rarity on his farm. Yep, I am pretty sure this is something that I am good with even though it could also be JPlovesAG and be a little shorter for the retweet. Lots of folks love agriculture, but espousing a love of cotton… that differentiates me a bit out here. but no worries, I’ll keep sharing the love!

Stopping alongside a cotton field near Antakya, Turkey while on vacation a few years ago.

The post Cotton as a Passion, Career Path & Personal Brand appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.