Starting a sustainable business: big dreams vs reality | A guest post by Arielle Toelke of Four Rabbit

A guest post by Arielle Toelke of Four Rabbit

Hey, friends! Many of us have dreamed of starting our own business, and if you're reading this blog, it's quite likely that you've hoped that business would be sustainable, fairly made, eco-friendly, or at least made under some sort of ethical ideal. But, while exciting and rewarding, starting a sustainable business can also be intimidating. Luckily my friend Arielle from Four Rabbit is here to tell her story of starting her business, along with a bit of saje advice. Read on to find out more!

Let’s start with a little backstory...and how Four Rabbit came about. I have been a makeup artist for over a decade, and I still love it — and yes, I try to use organic and natural products when I can! And, as fulfilling as it is to work on a tv show, at times it can be creatively limiting, which frustrates me as I am an artist and the need to make and create is what gets me going every day.

Thankfully I was able to utilize my bits and pieces of downtime at work to be creative and take care of daily business. I never go anywhere without my sketchbook. I’m constantly “doodling” and working out ideas. Whether it’s a pattern, thematic ideas for artwork, or the functionality of a piece of clothing. This is where Four Rabbit started. 

I was getting so much positive feedback on my drawings when I showed them to people at work so I thought, why not create something with them? This materialized into my first two multi-function scarves. Then I thought, how can I stand out and do something greater than just make scarves? I’ve always been into sustainability, so it was easy to imbue those sensibilities into my collection.

But this is where my big dreams ran into reality. I don’t have a fashion background, and figuring out where to get my designs printed was a huge challenge. I wanted EVERYTHING to begin with: eco/organic everything, ethical production, minimal impact fabrication. After a bit of research, I had to scale back some of my expectations in order to manufacture within budget and time parameters. I found a local digital printing house and, while I was able to use local ethical labor and could afford printing on cotton, my budget didn’t allow for organic cotton. I was however able to dye the entire collection by hand using natural and organic dyes with minimal water consumption and no harmful chemicals.

So while my dreams were big I had to be realistic about getting my first products made and had to make adjustments to my expectations, and that’s OK. I believe in doing the best we can to be more sustainable — it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Being conscious in both manufacturing and production is a huge step! With each item made moving forward, more sustainable fabrication and construction will be used. For example, using zero-waste pattern techniques as used with our Tsunami Jacket!

And, for me, time only makes my dreams bigger! And making those dreams a reality becomes more and more possible as I learn and experience more about creating sustainable fashion products and get to educate our buyers about the slow fashion movement and the negative environmental impact fast fashion is creating. Learning about my own limitations, how to balance a career and a small business and how to manage expectations means that, in the end, I will be able to do even more because I will have a deeper understanding of what is possible and how to achieve it!

All photos are property of Arielle Toelke.