Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust: an Interview with Maya
[UNPUBLISHED:] Introduce yourself, give us a little background into who you guys are.
[MAYA:] I'm Maya, I just turned 21 in February. My friend Collin is the same age and we live in Dallas, Texas. We got bored one day and we were like, “Let's just start a Depop and see where it goes, because we have a bunch of clothes and we really enjoy thrifting.” He's a drag queen so he has fun and exciting pieces. We just really want to support sustainable fashion and people who like a creative way to dress instead of just going to the mall.
[UNPUBLISHED:] How do you think apps like Depop or Poshmark helped sustainable fashion become more popular?
[MAYA:] They help with not supporting fast fashion. I know Zaful is really popular but it is a fast fashion brand and not all the things that they do are supportive of the ecosystem. It's nice whenever people can go to Depop or Poshmark or Thread Up and buy things for cheap. I try to price everything lower, I know a lot of people price stuff high but there's a lot of shops out there who have really affordable options. I think it's great that we can all do that and support each other and buy cute clothes for cheap prices.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Who inspired you guys to start selling clothing?
[MAYA:] Everybody knows who Internet Girl is, or iGirl. I started watching some of her YouTube videos and I was like, “I love doing these things, I want to try that.” Then I showed her to my friend and he was like, “Yeah, we should totally try that.” My mom, she's a personal business owner, she has her own company. She was like, “I'll help you out and show you the ropes. You can try it out for yourself.” My mom and Internet Girl are really inspirational to me. They helped me.
[UNPUBLISHED:] How would you describe the items that you sell?
[MAYA:] Our brand name is the Pretty Pixies Club and I want it to be a place for everybody, not just super high fashion. It's for people who want to try something a little bit different, not so much basics. There's a few basics, but mostly original stuff. I enjoy making t-shirts and using spray paint. I had a pair of pants that I designed and painted on and so now they're original. I want people to find original things that they can add to their wardrobe and closet and have fun and express themselves. My friend feels the same way, he's very expressive in his fashion. We just want to support fun, funky clothing items.
[UNPUBLISHED:] How do you think selling your own stuff on Depop affected your guys's own individual fashion sense?
[MAYA:] Whenever I try to find things for our shop or make things, they're all things that I would want to wear or my friend would want to wear. I just pick out things that I think are cute and hope that other people think they're cute too.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Do you guys make the clothes that you sell or do you guys alter them? Do you customize them yourself?
[MAYA:] We usually upcycle them to make them a little bit more personalized. We've been experimenting with a lot of tie dyes lately and I like to spray paint. We usually try to alter the clothes and make them more unique so it's not like you can get it anywhere.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Can you talk about the brand name? How did you come up with the Pretty Pixies Club?
[MAYA:] I was trying to find a name, my friend helped me with the process. He was like, “I don't know if we should do that one because it sounds like a kid's brand” and I was like, “No, I don't want it to be kid sounding, I want it to be fun and I don’t want it to be specific to anything.” This is terrible, but we have a joke, my best friend, he's gay and he always jokes about being a fairy and I'm like, “You're a little Pixie.” We have a little Pretty Pixies Club for the gays and the girls.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What is the end goal? What do you guys hope to achieve or get out of this?
[MAYA:] I hope to build a big client base. We just hit over 100 followers, which is not a lot but it's pretty exciting because we just started this last month. I hope to reach out to more people and just inspire people to dress to express because where I'm from, people don't really dress up, they don't express themselves through fashion, they just go through trends or what everybody else is wearing. I think it's much more exciting whenever people dress how they feel and express themselves.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Why do you think sustainable fashion is important?
[MAYA:] I know it's talked about a little but not as much as it should be: fast fashion is definitely a big part in the global warming problem right now. Whenever people just throw away their clothes, it goes to landfills and they don't break down easily and it can get into our ecosystem like the ocean and it's dangerous for all the animals. So whenever people donate to thrift stores and then people buy from other stores, it's really good in encouraging to help the ecosystem, which is why I think the thrift store movement is great. Everyone’s really into it and I think everyone should keep going for it but not everybody has the patience to do it, which I understand. I think it's nice that I can pick out some cute things and hopefully show it to people and they can find their stuff easier. In a lot of the fast fashion industries, they don't treat their workers very well or they don't pay them enough so I think it's important to try to not shop from them as much as we can, just to help. Local businesses and small businesses are great places to score.
[UNPUBLISHED:] How has quarantine affected you guys selling stuff on Depop?
[MAYA:] It's definitely given me a lot of time. I've been thinking about starting a Depop for a long time but school and work always made it hard to make room for it. Then all of a sudden my life was flipped around and I had to do school online and then my hours got cut back so I was like “What do I do now with all my time?” I had piles of clothes I was going to take to Buffalo Exchange, which is a clothing store that you can trade your clothes into, and I was like, “Well, I was gonna take these but now I can't because all the stores are closed so why don't I take some pictures and spruce them up a little and see what happens.” It kind of worked out great.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What advice would you give someone wanting to get into fashion sustainability and learn more about it?
[MAYA:] I would say, don't be scared. Go for it. Just jump in. Don't hold back. Always try something new. I think sizes for clothing is dumb, you could wear whatever you want. I love wearing extra big jeans and kids shirts. I think people should not be afraid to try new things, they should take a leap and if they like it then they like it and if they don't, they can always resell it.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Do you think you have your own style or do you think it's always evolving?
[MAYA:] I don't have a specific style, I think I dress more in a mood, how I'm feeling that day. Our store has a variety of different things, there's not a specific style. It's not preppy or streetwear, it's more just like a bunch of variety pieces and you can mix and match them. It's based on feeling which is how I like to describe the fashion and style that we have. It's just whatever you want to wear that's what you want to wear or whatever you want to be that day, you can be cute and goth or you can be a skater girl.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Do you guys have any fashion icons or people who inspire you fashion wise?
[MAYA:] I know my friend has tons, he's very influenced by local drag queens that are in our area. I know one of their names is Blue Valentine, she's a drag queen. I love Betsey Johnson, she's a fashion designer. I draw inspiration from TV shows, I've been into the 90’s Charmed, there’s very cute clothes on there.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Where do you hope to see yourself in five years?
[MAYA:] I hope that our business grows enough to where we can make our own things. I'd really love to design t-shirts or jewelry. There's a website right now that we're working on. It's in Shopify and you can create your own designs and they can put it on shoes, you could even design your own shoes. We're hoping to get that going soon, but there’s technical difficulties we have to work through. We hope to design our own stuff and not only just get things from thrift stores but also create our own stuff.
