HAPPY HOLIDAYS
Another year has flown by. It’s very likely true that time seems to move faster when you’re busy or having fun. Like much of the world, our weather patterns in Southern California have become increasingly extreme. In January, a series of natural disasters devastated many of our communities. Santa Ana winds exceeding 90 mph contributed to the conditions that launched the Palisades and Altadena fires that destroyed entire neighborhoods. February rains helped douse the fires, but not before many homes, businesses and schools were lost. While Doo Dah Apparel is located just a few blocks from the mandatory evacuation zone in Altadena, we fortunately survived the fire mostly unscathed. Winds blew many of the shingles on our roof to the ground, smoke and ash polluted our air for weeks, then rains filled our hallways with water because it took our landlord time to receive a permit from the City of Pasadena to replace the roof. The year 2025 is a good reminder of why we’re in business at Doo Dah Apparel. Reengineering our economies to manufacture responsibly and with respect for the environment might be our only tool to prevent natural disasters from getting worse. We’re doing our best to support a circular economy one project at a time.
I’m thankful for the talented group of professionals contributing to our goals at Doo Dah Apparel. Patricia Connor and her developers at Crown Design Lane have not only managed our website this year, they’ve done a remarkable job helping to craft The Doo Dah Daily, a monthly digital publication we’re building to communicate with young adults. Amber Ortiz has learned all the ins and outs of Klaviyo to design the newsletter we send out on Fridays, she works on our SEO, and she manages our social media accounts on Instagram, Google, and the campaign we’ll run to advertise The Doo Dah Daily this month on Pinterest. Amber has also written several excellent blogs and articles.
LinkedIn is turning out to be a valuable source of information and a great way to connect with professionals in our field, including writers passionate about circular apparel. Alec Matulka, Lillian Worley, Vanessa Groce, Bella Cammarata, Valentina Clemente, Johanna Hong, Leah March, and Monica G. Parra O. have contributed excellent articles full of useful information, humor, and insight into sustainable apparel practices that enable us to define our values on our website, newsletters, and The Doo Dah Daily. Our writers are providing authentic material with a style all their own, and we’re thrilled with their work. The Doo Dah Daily is an important project for our business. We’ll do our best to continue making it.
Red & Blue Denim here in Los Angeles is in the process of sewing the second sample of our Karma jacket. Karma is a Cone Denim made partially with Tencel Lyocell, a biodegradable fiber made from wood pulp harvested from responsibly managed forests. Logan Taylor and Christian Suh have been patiently managing the project for over a year. Tony Jordan at The First Finish in Lynwood, CA has been washing our samples, a process that is necessary to soften denim after it’s been milled, and Kevin at Calimucho Screen Printing in San Pedro is working on the screen prints. Fiona Davies at Living Ink located in Colorado is supplying algae ink for our prints. Algae is a carbon sink, which means it removes carbon from the environment as it’s growing, making it the perfect sustainable black ink for our logo. Suzanne Hutchison at Clotheswright, LLC has done an excellent job completing our tech pack. It’s amazing how precise Suzanne’s work is. We’re thankful she’s part of this project. Manufacturing a garment involves quite a few moving parts. Ironing out the fit is the last step in the process before ordering materials to begin production. If the jacket fits, we’ll have a good story to tell to help us sell it.
We will be closed for business from December 15th to January 5th for the holidays. From all of us at Doo Dah Apparel, we hope you have a happy holiday and a wonderful New Year!
Brett Bridgman
