Interview: Dara Page, sustainable fashion designer/producer

Excited to have a new interview/profile to share, of another creative who's pivoted into making PPE during the pandemic! Today's subject is Dara Page, co-owner and principal designer at Haus Page.

A few of the cool masks made by Haus Page.

Tell us about what Haus Page is/does in non-pandemic times, and how has that changed with the coronovirus pandemic?

Haus Page is a luxury tomboy clothing brand that produces two sustainable North Carolina collections a year.

Normally, our wholesale womenswear line is in 200+ retail locations plus several pop-up venues during the year. This spring/summer is interesting as our industry has lots of closings, canceling, and fall rescheduling due to COVID-19. At time of writing most domestic fashion businesses have either converted to PPE production like us, or shuttered. 90% just declared bankruptcy last week, and the rest of us are drawing from cash reserves. Some are doing a hybrid approach.

For customer safety, all of our March through July pop-up events have been rescheduled and we converted our current shop production just to people doing PPE for now dependent on government reopening guidelines.

Our spring collection--Steampunk Pirates--was slated to be in a dozen venues including headlining at the first NC Fashion Conference at the NC Museum of History in June, but keeping the people in our community safe was more important to us. We're working on turning Steampunk Pirates into an artbook and buyers still like the collection, so perhaps delayed delivery dates will be good for everyone. Strange times. 

What sorts of projects would you be working on, were we living in normal times?

Steampunk Pirates would have been opening at Animazement and the NC Fashion Conference in 2 weeks. My friend Kirsten Leder, a photographer, and I had plans to do a bunch of fashion editorial shoots at NC textile locations to talk up local fashion brands; right now that's delayed currently which is definitely stretching budgets.

What spurred you to start sewing masks?

My husband and Haus Page co-owner, Nash Page, is immuno-compromised, a fancy way of saying diabetic. Like many people, I didn't initially realize COVID-19 was serious until several nurses from local hospitals visited and were crying in our driveway because of the nationwide PPE shortage. Then UNC [Hospitals] posted their mask requests. We started getting the news from Italy's death toll.

Nash is a sewing machine mechanic and normally hosts quarterly "Sewing Acts of Kindness" bees for the community where we use the deadstock and donated fabric to make free items for the local community through the Raleigh Chapter of the American Sewing Guild, so we had a closet of fabric available and a network of 200+ local home stitchers who are already accustomed to making items for the local charity. As a domestic fashion brand, it felt like this was something we were actually uniquely set-up to be able to do.

You mentioned prepping kits, can you explain that part as well?

In addition to sewing fabric face masks and headbands in our shop, we also made 25 piece pre-cut kits for home sewers and distribute them curbside and via mail at Craft Habit Raleigh and Edge of Urge which has been extremely successful. Nash has experience preparing and cutting kits from when we worked for menswear fashion brands like Stitch Golf a decade ago. Pre-cut kits are traditionally how successful NC piece -ate sewing production is done for small indy fashion brands wanting to scale. If you're studying fashion in NC and want to learn more, I recommend taking some online or weekend classes at the Carolina Textile District..  

For whom do you make your PPE and how are they distributed?

In the last month, the group made over 40,000+ free fabric face masks before we ran out of deadstock on-hand which we distributed through weneedmasks.org and community requests.

Currently, Haus Page is continuing to sew a limited number of free masks for essential service workers and we've had a number of wholesale requests for masks for schools and businesses who've seen the masks locally and wish to purchase their own, which is helping keep us afloat which we are really grateful for.

Masks can be purchased either individually for $12/each or in $75/15-pack for small organizations or families who need multiples at wholesale prices. Email me at dara@hauspage.com.

You mentioned hearing back from recipients with some of their stories, can you share one or two of those? (anonymously if needed)

Sure, we've gotten around 200+ thank-you notes from local hospitals, essential service workers, and businesses in the past month and they are continuing to come in.

Rex Hospital sent me pictures of medical staff wearing our headbands doing hand-hearts after a nurse said the masks they have to wear all day hurt their ears.

Another great experience was a big Raleigh service-worker run which included the Amtrak station. This was really meaningful for me as I rode the train a lot growing up after my parents got divorced, the conductors and staff were always great to my brother and I. It was cool to give them masks on a personal level.

The Guild also released our newsletter with Sewing Acts of Kindness and I got to read all the stories from group members sewing adventures.

Thank you for making space in your day for this interview. I appreciate your valuable time.