One day I woke up with a great idea in my head. I thought, “I know, I’ll start an organic clothing eco-friendly business in Chile!”
I’m constantly whining about how I can’t find sustainable businesses or organic products here, so it occurred to me that maybe I should get off my butt and do something about it!
My first step was researching. I know next to nothing about being a businesswoman, but if there’s one thing that my daddy taught me, it’s that if you want a bank to give you money you must have a business plan. To draw up one of those, I needed to figure out really complicated things like income projection, taxes and target market.
I began searching and searching to find out if anyone had done anything similar. I’ve been living in this country for over three years now and I hadn’t heard of any organic clothing stores, but I’m not Pinochet — leaves can fall in this country and I may not know about them.
My Internet searches, with the help of a cool Web startup called Needish, found one store in Santiago that sells eco-clothing. I also talked to a Chilean design student who seemed rather puzzled by my question as to whether she would be willing to make clothes out of solely sustainable materials. She wanted to know why we would limit ourselves to those fabrics when there’s so much more out there to work with, and who would buy these sure-to-be-expensive outfits.
I explained the concept in my imagination — the store would be the heart of Providencia or Bellas Artes, both young, hip neighborhoods in Santiago. We would be marketing to trendy young adults who care about the environment and have the money to put where their mouth is. The facility could also be a café, selling clothes and organic wines at the same time. I mean, seriously, who doesn’t like to drink and shop at the same time? We would have bike parking outside, and if people came on foot or bicycle they would receive a discount on their clothing purchase. Our online store would require you to purchase a carbon offset for delivery.
The more I pondered the idea, the more genius I thought it was — that is, until the cold hard facts started to get me down. To import organic fabrics from other countries would be insanely expensive, not to mention that shipping things from far-off lands sort of defeats the purpose of a sustainable business. I couldn’t find any organic textiles produced in Chile. Clothing production also has crazy high costs, which is why most businesses import from China or Brazil. Customs fees are fairly inflated as well.
My heart really was in the right place, and with more time and money to make it happen, I still think that the concept is magnificent. The market is ripe for a business like this to take Santiago by storm and lead the way in the eco-friendly charge down in these parts of the world.
For once, I wanted to stop wishing there was an organic clothing store here and just make it happen. Mahatma Gandhi said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
To him I reply, “Well then you try and open an organic clothing store in Santiago, Chile!”
