Upcycle, recycle this gal makes the greatest clothes and more!

 

Strike a pose! Ms. Mallory showing off her great FEMA dress

Mallory Whitfield

 

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Today were finding out a little about Ms. Mallory Whitfield, she lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. She has loved art, crafts and making things for as long as she can remember. She began documenting her love of all things handmade in 2006 on her blog, Miss Malaprop, and she recently opened her new online shop this past March (2010), which features both her own work alongside the handmade work of others.

While she has dabbled in all sorts of crafts, her main interests are in textile based crafts: mostly sewing with some embroidery thrown in. She makes recycled clothing and accessories, and her favorite material to work with is denim. She’s also made some more elaborate outfits, including an outfit made from recycled FEMA blue tarp from the streets of New Orleans, which took 3rd place in Etsy's Up-cycling contest in 2007.

So Mallory what has been your most challenging project? And how did it turn out?
The outfit I made for last year's Worn Again fashion show was probably my most intense project to date. Worn Again is a fashion show fundraiser event where designers are given a random trash bag full of unwanted clothing and fabric scraps and they are challenged to transform those materials into something new and amazing. It's kind of like a Project Runway challenge. The event started in Virginia, and came to New Orleans in 2007. I've participated in each year's events, and I'll actually be on the judge's panel for this year's fashion show. Anyway, last year I sort of decided that I needed to top what I did in 2008, which was an outfit made from mattress batting and a puffy vest which won an honorable mention, and I wanted to go all out.

I have the greatest respect for the Mardi Gras Indians here in New Orleans, which are neighborhood "tribes" who work all year to create a new and amazing costume, loosely based on the outfits worn by the Native Americans of the Great Plains. This is a long tradition here in New Orleans among African American neighborhoods, and I wanted to respectfully pay tribute to them, but I put my own twist on it, since my outfit was all recycled materials. (And a whole lot of hand sewed sequins!) It was really cool that when I started doing more research on the history of the Mardi Gras Indians I found out that in the early days they used a lot of recycled and found materials themselves. I found some pictures of their outfits from the early 20th century where they'd incorporated bottle caps into their costumes. It was so inspiring! I'm really pleased with the way my outfit came together, after hours and hours of hand-sewing sequins and piecing everything together. There's a video of my walk down the runway here, and I've got photos from all 3 years on Flickr.

In your opinion what is the most important factor to running a successful on-line shop or business?
Passion; above all else, if you are passionate enough, the rest will follow. Passion will drive you to learn more, create more, and grow more as both an artist and a business person. You need to consider yourself a business person in addition to an artist. In some ways I consider myself more of an entrepreneur than an artist, but even if art is your primary passion, you must get smart about treating your art like a business if you want to make a living doing it.

How do you promote your business?
I've been helping to promote OTHER people's handmade businesses for almost 4 years now through my own blog and other websites and a local magazine that I write for. I really believe in karma, and I think that I've built a lot of amazing connections over the last few years that are now paying off for me, as I'm in the process of promoting my new online shop. I've built connections with local press and media, who have come to me in the past for suggestions on local crafters. Now they know to look to me as a resource, so it's easy to connect with them and finally let them know about the work that I'M doing. I've been blessed to have already received some amazing press for my business, thanks to my hard work helping others. I've also taken the time to team up with other local like-minded crafty entrepreneurs. My time with the New Orleans Craft Mafia has been a big help. We have an amazing network of support, and we've been able to do things as a team we never could have achieved alone.

Where would you like to see yourself in the next 5 years?
I'm currently working to develop my online shop into a full-blow brick and mortar retail boutique, hopefully here in the French Quarter of New Orleans. I want to continue to promote other handmade artisans and let shoppers and tourists know that there is this whole other world out there that is an alternative to Wal-mart and the suburban mall-sprawl. So hopefully in the next five years I'll have a regular location where you can come and visit me when you're in New Orleans!

Also, I am currently donating a percentage of all sales (both online & in person events) to help with cleanup efforts related to the recent Gulf of Mexico BP oil spill disaster.