Heather Kirk

Dear all, Starting a new project or business is always filled with obstacles and unknowns, and as an entrepreneur, you are never sure whether you are doing it ‘right’. The path is filled with different daily challenges, like building a team, finding customers, developing products and services that people really love, and taking care of all the administration. The challenge is even bigger when you are building a social business – that is, a business that prioritises impact on society…

Next to food, fabrics and clothing are the products that we have our most intimate relationships with. We wrap ourselves in our fabric sheets during the night, we dry ourselves with fabric towels after we shower, and we clothe ourselves in fabric garments that make a personal statement about our identity.  Yet, most of us have lost our connection with how our fabrics are made, where they come from, and who the makers are. Part of our mission at Social…

At Social Fabric we live the term ‘diversity’ – we have a truly intercultural team, and that brings with it many rich opportunities for co-creation and idea exchange. It also brings some challenges that arise from different cultural expectations in the workplace. In order to overcome these challenges, we are having monthly meetings on various different topics, and this month’s meeting was on the theme of ‘giving and receiving feedback’. There were seven of us at the meeting, from seven…

It’s been an exciting and busy autumn, and we would like to celebrate by spending some time with our community. We have two events coming up during the next weeks; first, we are taking a trip to the Landesmuseum on the morning of December 1st. We will meet in the lobby of the Landesmuseum at 10.30. Social Fabric is covering the cost of the tickets for refugee participants and volunteers, and we ask other attendees to cover their own ticket costs…

Starting yesterday, October 29th, the Landesmuseum is selling our refugee-designed t-shirts, convertible rucksacks, and cosmetic cases in the museum boutique. Stop by to visit, and while your there, check out their exhibition on forced migration (‘Flucht’), and also the interesting textile section of their regular exhibition. We also have a pop-up space inside the Circle Sustainable Shop at Brunngasse 3 (just beside Niederdorf) until November 22nd. Start your Christmas shopping early, and have a look at our products, as well as…

This is a little note to thank all of our community members and supporters for supporting our ‘We Aspire’ campaign. Thanks to the support of 243 individuals, we raised more than chf 29 000, which will allow us to offer a work placement to Cisse, a refugee tailor from Ivory Coast, for at least 7 months. The work placement will be paid at a market rate salary of chf 2400 per month for a 60% engagement, and will help us…

2015 was an incredible and busy year. I founded Social Fabric in January, 2015, and since then, we made big steps toward becoming a self-sustaining social enterprise. After piloting the concept from our small shared space close to Sihlcity, we successfully pitched to enter the Innovate4Climate programme in the spring, which is co-run by WWF and Climate KIC.

  On September 13th, we launched a crowdfunding campaign in order to raise money for sewing machines for our new space, and to finance our refugee project. Our campaign ended on Wednesday, and we are thrilled and proud that we surpassed our funding goal. In 45 days, we raised chf 16 690 with the help of 196 backers. This is thanks to all of you for supporting us, and for sharing the project with your networks. We have ordered our industrial…

  When I started Social Fabric last January, I was feeling a bit lost in my scientific career, and I was looking to do something that would create more meaning and a sense of community purpose. Fabrics and clothing are such a big part of our daily lives, and yet, we often don’t really think about what went into our clothes before we put them on each morning. For me, Social Fabric has been about bringing together a group of…

As some of you know, we’ve been searching for a new space for Social Fabric for quite a while. Our beloved atelier on Schulhausstrasse is going to be renovated starting in October/November, and we wanted to find a space that has an equally nice atmosphere, is convenient to reach for our community, and has good lighting for all of our activities. We are happy to be able to confirm that we signed a contract last week for a great space…

We are thrilled with our new website design, which was designed by the wonderful Anja Neumann at laufweite.ch. Anja is particularly interested in working with startups, and working with her has been simply great. We are still putting the final touches on our logo, but we expect that to be finished by the end of the week. We also want to call out to our community for a new programme that we will be piloting in July and August. We are…

Here is our upcoming course schedule at Social Fabric. Of course, don’t forget about our free drop-in sessions on Tuesday evenings and Friday afternoons. Send us a message to sign up! All levels are welcome to sign up for our project workshop on May 13th (19.00 – 22.00, chf 50 each). Bring your own project, and receive coaching from our professional tailor.  For absolute beginners: Sunday April 26th (10am – 1pm; chf 50): making a computer case from felt Sunday May 17th…

Dear all, It’s been a really exciting few weeks at Social Fabric. Mario Puntillo, a local designer who recently gave a course at Social Fabric, decided that he wants to be more involved in our programme in the future. I will meet with him next week, to discuss possibilities. Keep an eye on our workshop schedule during the next weeks, to see what he’ll be offering next. In addition to our upcycling workshop that starts on April 22nd, we are…

Last night we had our first class with local designer Mario Puntillo. We finished taking our measurements, and made a basic pattern for the trousers we’ll be sewing starting from next week. We had a nice group of ladies, and paused now and then for a sip of wine and a good laugh. In the meantime, Social Fabric entered a competition for new entrepreneurs that haven’t actually founded a business yet. If you are curious to learn more about our…

Zürich-based fashion designer Mario Puntillo (www.mariopuntillo.ch) is offering a special deal for an introductory sewing course at Social Fabric. I have met Mario a couple of times now, and he is full of information about the local design scene, clothing construction, and production. The topic of the course will be how to make a simple pair of summer trousers. You will start with a basic pattern, and will learn how to modify this pattern according to your own measurements and…

One of our members took the initiative to organise a pop-up flea market at Social Fabric. We love the idea! The flea market will feature products from a couple of local sustainability-related startups, creations by local designers, as well as many vintage items. There will be food, drinks, and lot of opportunities to chat with interesting people. As usually, drop-in times are Tuesday evening (7 – 10pm), and Friday afternoon (1 – 4pm). Bring your knitting or sewing project, and…