I had so much fun giving everyone a tour of the KOCH House! To me the space is part joy love club and part innovation lab and it is definitely an idea testing ground. I always say at the office harkness table throw out as many ideas as possible and out of 30- 40 bad ideas (a lot of them mine) we always come up with one synthesized great one!  Anytime anyone wants to come visit us please stop by and we will give you an in person tour and you can pin up what brings you joy and what risk you want to take on our walls. (I pinned up a program at Stanford) My hope is that everyone that walks in, walks out feeling good and that you feel good because of something other than buying clothing! I have talked about walking into too many stores and the experience not making me feel good when I walked out or owners of the store making me feel diminished for not buying more or buying something at all. To me this seems like an archaic way of behaving. 

It is not just a store experience but any experience in life. When you get home you should ask yourself, how did that make me feel?  Not every experience is supposed to be fun but it should bring you joy or laughter, or challenge your thinking or your body or stretch your imagination, or be on the other side of hard work or be connective and the sooner you identify things that bring you true joy and eliminate the ones that don’t the quicker you will be on your way to a more purposeful life. 

You also asked about fast fashion and my thoughts on clothing made in the USA or overseas. 

I am proud that KOCH is made in the USA and I wanted to build a company that had a mission behind it, a mission to help girls make their mark on the world through joymaking and risktaking, We believe in our product but we believe in the girl wearing the product more.

I also wanted to be connected to our community though the manufacturing component. The people who make our product are part of the ethos of our company and I love that we can be in the workrooms daily with them.  It helps us co-create with you. We can have an instagram live hear your ideas and feedback and go into the workroom and get them going the next day. It connects all of us in the creative process and in the act of making something together. We could not do this if we manufactured overseas.  We could not have limited edition monthly deliveries that are relevant and fresh.

Fast Fashion has come under a lot of criticism because of the working conditions, wages, and hours. In addition the quality and longevity of the product is under scrutiny. There is a lot of information you can find on the subject and it’s worth a look online! I love that young women are asking these great questions! 

We also talked about the tik tok contest. Don’t forget to enter. I had to do mine over several times but it sure was more fun than watching Netflix.  The idea behind doing it was to try something new, something fun, something that makes you a little uncomfortable and connects you to other people through laughter, music and dancing! We will announce the winner on Wednesday’s Instagram live. The winner gets a $1500 online shopping spree! 

We are looking for our next contest idea and lots of you suggested that we should do another coloring contest designing an Erica print!  I LOVE this idea.  So lookout for the announcement.

Next week you suggested we giveaway a pink Erica and an orange cece top so that’s what we will do! 

Here are a few places you suggested we open another KOCH House

Austin 

NYC

Ft. Worth

Memphis

Charleston

Nashville

Aspen 

Atlanta

Telluride

Charlotte

Malibu

The last question was what made me want to study literature and name our items after authors an writers. I explained that what I love about great literature is that regardless of the advances we have made in technology the same things connect us today as they did in the 1800’s when books were written: joy, courage, happiness, loneliness, fear, love.  It is still the same and everyone has a story. 

You also suggested butterfly phone cases which we are so excited to be doing!  So stay tuned!!!

Another suggestion was a moon Erica and a rainbow Erica. 

And we talked about the book, “Bird by Bird”

Which is used in our house as an instruction manual when you are feeling like you can’t accomplish something or its overwhelming to take it bird by bird or in other words bit by bit until it doesn’t feel so overwhelming. 

Remember anytime you come to the KOCH house and I am there you can challenge me in Ping Pong and if you win you get a joymaker shirt! 

Don’t forget our blue wall in the backyard to take photos, just ask us and we will take you back there!

Quote of the week 

“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”

Podcast of the week 

Joe Rogan and Elon Musk

Song of the Week

Good Grief Bastille