F L Y I N G T H E N E S T

by Ella Rudisill

Charlotte von Meister and Danielle Sturm founded The Nest, a sustainable fashion collective in Providence, RI, with the intention of fighting overconsumption and textile waste through decluttering services, establishing a secondhand store, and hosting community events such as sewing and knitting workshops, tailoring services, and clothing swaps. Coming from different backgrounds and educational pursuits (Danielle graduated from Johnson and Wales University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Sports, Entertainment, and Event Management and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration, and Charlotte holds a degree in fashion marketing and management from Savannah College of Art and Design and is KonMari method certified), the two provide unique insight to managing and developing The Nest. I reached out to Charlotte and Danielle to talk about their business model as well as what they see as the salient issues involved in the future of fashion.

Ella Rudisill: Could you start by outlining the goals that you had in mind when you started The Nest, and what you were aiming for in your business model?

Danielle Sturm: I think what comes to mind is just community first, and when we started I think that was one of the first things we wanted: to find our own community and to bring people together around a sustainable cause. So we’ve always been community first, through our marketing and the events we host. They may not generate revenue, but the fact that we’ve been able to cultivate this community and hear feedback from them and mold the business model into things people actually need, that was the goal first. And then, I would say about a year in, we just used all the feedback from that first year to really hone in on what our business was, but it was really just community driven.

Charlotte von Meister: Yeah, and there’s this great sense of eagerness to learn, like Danielle and I, when we first were starting The Nest, we were like, “We want to learn how to sew our own clothes and reupholster furniture,” and this sense of wanting to learn but not knowing how to do everything. Putting community first lets us cultivate a community of people who have these technical skills, and we can all teach and learn from each other… Another goal of ours was just to make a sustainable impact, and to be totally honest, we knew what we were doing was going to have an impact, but I think we’ve really been able to look at what our impact is and what kind of metrics we base ourselves off of, and you can see that in the metrics report we put out about two months ago. But still, that’s ever-changing, so we are still trying to pinpoint exactly the impact we are having. What we’ve found is that it’s really hard to do because no one’s doing this work or caring about textile waste. So, we’ve done so much research over these past few months talking to waste management, the state, and the Rhode Island Resource Recovery who is supposed to manage textile recycling. We found out that they don’t manage it at all. We see that as an opportunity for us to move into that space and figure out how we can quantify what we’re doing because we all know it’s making an impact, and we all know we need to change the fact that it’s not being recorded and monitored. What we’ve found in our research is the organization that has been hired by the state is just selling it off to third parties like Goodwill or Savers which then is ultimately shipped overseas and flooding other foreign landfills. It’s not like our textile waste is being broken down or dealt with here; it’s all just being punted to other countries to ultimately become their problem.

Danielle: That’s where, full circle, The Nest comes in… educating people on how to buy, giving them resources to upcycle their clothes or swap them within the community, hitting all the pinpoints along the way, and lessening the number of textiles going overseas and then coming in and filling that last gap.

Charlotte: In our journey from where we started to where we are now, we’ve educated ourselves on the end of a life of a garment: ways to consume less, make a garment last as long as possible, make your own clothes, and educate people on where your clothes are going after it’s done living in your closet.

Ella: How do you acquire pieces that you have in store, and how do you balance curating the store towards your typical clientele without creating additional textile waste?

Charlotte: That’s honestly the reason why our community has grown so much; we keep our selection highly curated. It’s not your typical thrift shop experience because the pieces are handpicked, so it’s not like you have to spend hours digging through to find a good piece. You come in here, and you will absolutely find something that fits your style. Our inventory is sourced through several local vendors, some are upcycled designers or vintage resellers who curate their own collections. I’m also a certified professional organizer. We offer decluttering services, so when you hire us to do decluttering we will go through your closet and consign anything you’re discarding that is sellable and ultimately sell those pieces here. We’ve also cultivated a partnership with a textile recycling center in Massachusetts and we’ve gone through and been able to source pieces from them.

Danielle: Something else cool about our decluttering services is that we get a lot of our personal products from those clients. That type of service is something a lot of people need but don’t know they need. Not only does Charlotte come in and curate your closet but she also takes your discards, and we try really hard not to donate to a Goodwill or Savers. We’ll donate to local nonprofits, homeless shelters, and women’s shelters so that they are actually being used here. And then if things are baggy or damaged we take them to the textile recycler.

Charlotte: I’ve found that often the reason I’m hired is that people don’t know where to discard all the excess. At the end of the day, they don’t want to deal with their discards, so I go in, and we talk about their closet, personal style, and consumption habits including how and where they shop. Usually there is so much stuff that they get rid of that there is a sense of shock from how much they discard that they end up being more conscious consumers. Then I take on the responsibility of their discards, redistributing them to the proper channels.

Ella: Where are you donating them?

Charlotte: Recently, we partnered up with Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Rhode Island, so after decluttering sessions and clothing swaps that’s where all of our donations are going. We’ve found that they are the best local partners because, with the work that they do, they keep it in our community.

Ella: Would they accept donations from the general public as well?

Danielle: Yes. There are bins in any state. You can find them on their website-- where you can drop off clothes for Big Brothers and Big Sisters.

Ella: What kind of questions are you asking a client during a session, and what should people be asking themselves if they don’t necessarily have the resources to book a full session but want to get started on the process of decluttering?

Charlotte: Every client reaches out for a different reason, but I would just say, talk out loud to yourself if you’re going to declutter on your own. I find that in my sessions my clients get rid of a lot more than they anticipated and a lot more than they would if they tried to declutter on their own because when you choose to keep something, if you’re keeping it within your internal monologue, you make up a lot of reasons as to why you can’t let go of something.

Also, go through your underwear and sock drawer. It’s our most utilized and least appreciated drawer.

Ella: How do you balance advertising and being a profitable business while also avoiding promoting overconsumption?

Danielle: I think that’s something we’ve thought a lot about from the beginning and, honestly, it was really hard for us to start putting up products on our Instagram because we’d be like, “Don’t buy! Don’t buy!” We’re at a point where we are okay with telling people that if you are a part of our community, want to be a part of our community, support what we are doing, or shop with us then you are supporting our education and community-first style of marketing. The only way we can continue going is if people support us. We’re not a nonprofit; we sell a product and also sell a product on behalf of other community members. I think it just goes into this whole story of supporting a small business: liking their mission, what they’re doing, and how transparent they are.

Charlotte: I feel that all we’re doing is offering a sustainable alternative to buying new, so we’re not just a store. We have workshops and events, and we offer decluttering services, so any way you want to participate in our community is great, and all we’re doing is offering alternatives. You can shop our curated secondhand collection or take a sewing class to learn how to make it yourself, join our knitting club to knit it yourself, and generally encourage people to be more sustainably minded when they approach their closet.

Danielle: We’re getting to a point where we’re very transparent that all of our sales go back into creating new workshops, paying the people that we need to come in and do research and development in creating these new workshops and creating these services that go back into the community.

Charlotte: And all the revenue that we’ve generated so far, we just keep putting it back into the business and have a bigger reach to push the business and mission forward.

If you want to learn more about The Nest and Danielle and Charlotte’s future endeavors, you can visit The Nest at 1155 Westminster Street in Providence. They are located on the second floor of the mill building next to Ogie’s Trailer Park. You can also follow them on Instagram @the_nest_ pvd or visit their growing e-commerce site thenestpvd.com. Also on the website, you can access their Impact Report for 2022, blog, decluttering services booking, and calendar of community events for the upcoming month.