Day: June 10, 2020

June 10, 2020 at 10:38PM Born from its founder’s innate wanderlust, Malvados — the Vancouver-based brand that recently launched an e-commerce platform — is poised to make a lasting impression on the footwear industry thanks to its offering of stylish sandals and flipflops. Owner Jen Rainnie was a competitive windsurfer in her youth, traveling and living out of a retrofitted van while competing in an Ontario sport event circuit. That sense of adventure remains with Rainnie, who has managed to merge her passion for the outdoors, athletics and travel with her acumen in the fashion industry. She worked as a sales rep for brands like Roxy and Quicksilver before forging her own path as a distributor for surf-focused lines. “My passion was really in swimwear and sandals,” she says. “My background has always been water and beach and tropics related.” Photography courtesy of Malvados. Through running her own company for six years, Rainnie discovered the opportunity within the footwear market for a product like her current wares at Malvados; its range of sandals include styles with plush velvet or metallic straps. “I realized that there wasn’t anything out there in that category that was different,” she says of sandal brands that cater to the athletic crowd, noting at the time that their marketing was heavily geared towards surfers. She saw the potential in fusing fashion-forward inspired pieces with her penchant for sport, and launched her brand four years ago. “We had an immediate buy-in from Canadian outlets,” she says of

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June 10, 2020 at 10:01PM Last week, Canadian designer Aurora James – founder of footwear brand Brother Vellies – launched the 15 Per Cent Pledge, a movement urging major retailers to dedicate 15 per cent of their buying budget to Black-owned businesses. “So many of your businesses are built on Black spending power. So many of your stores are set up in Black communities. So many of your sponsored posts are seen on Black feeds. This is the least you can do for us. We represent 15% of the population and we need to represent 15% of your shelf space,” James wrote in an Instagram post announcing the initiative. View this post on Instagram @wholefoods @target @shopmedmen @walmart @saks @sephora @netaporter @barnesandnoble @homedepot I am asking you to commit to buying 15% of your products from Black owned businesses. . So many of your businesses are built on Black spending power. So many of your stores are set up in Black communities. So many of your sponsored posts are seen on Black feeds. This is the least you can do for us. We represent 15% of the population and we need to represent 15% of your shelf space. . Whole Foods if you were to sign on to this pledge, it could immediately drive much needed support to Black farmers. Banks will be forced to take them seriously because they will be walking in with major purchase orders from Whole Foods. Investors for the very first time will start actively

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June 10, 2020 at 09:04PM Today, 50 Black female activists, scholars, artists and entrepreneurs are taking over the Instagram handles of white celebrities, designers, athletes and others as part of a new social media campaign, #ShareTheMicNow. According to a press release, the campaign’s intention is to “magnify Black women and the important work that they’re doing in order to catalyze the change that will only come when we truly hear each other’s voices. The #ShareTheMicNow campaign was born from relationships and is aimed at encouraging Black and white women in relationship to recreate this action in their own spaces.” Conceived by Endeavor chief marketing officer Bozoma Saint John, author/podcast host Luvvie Ajayi Jones, author Glennon Doyle, and alice + olivia founder Stacey Bendet, the social media movement aims to reach a total audience of 300 million people, introducing Instagram users to accounts and people who may not be on their radar. According to the organizers, the four goals of this movement are: “To form a social media campaign that magnifies Black women’s lives and stories; to form relationships among Black women and white women – so that our future activism is born from relationships; to create a network of disruptors who know and trust each other; and to create action that could make change.” View this post on Instagram When the world listens to women, it listens to white women. For far too long, Black women’s voices have gone unheard, even though they’ve been using their voices loudly for centuries

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