Amanda Judge Interview (Part Five)

Amanda Judge Interview (Part Five)

By Ariana

The final section of our interview delves into the Shopping for a Change and Faire Collection Nutritional Empowerment Project, the life-changing benefits Amanda provides her artisans and the inspirational story of Olga, a former Faire Collection artisan.

The fabulous Amanda Judge left all of us wowed with her humility, grace, and passion for her work. She has come a long way from her roots as a college student, visiting Ecuador for the sole purpose of writing a strong Master’s Theses on poverty reduction strategies in rural South America. To read about the origins of the Faire collection, visit Eleanor’s earlier post, part one. 

“I’ve read that you provide your artisans with more long term benefits such as scholarship programs, a no-interest loan system, and an emergency relief program along with a trained member to aid artisans in long-term investments in education and technology. Are some artisans hesitant with leaving older values behind or are reactions mostly optimistic?”

Coming from a traditional family myself, it came to me as a little bit of a surprise when Amanda informed me that a good portion of families aren’t reluctant to abandon old customs, such as marrying off young girls without regard to their education. Instead, most artisans are “really excited” to progress towards an improved lifestyle with a stronger chance at an optimistic future. “Fortunately, most artisan families are just really grateful!” exclaims Amanda. 

Ariana models the Playita Neckalce
by the Faire Collection.

From some previous research, I had discovered that the Faire Collection heavily involves artisans from the Kichwa tribe. A little confused, I asked Amanda to help define what the term “Kichwa” really refers to: the culture, the people, the language, or the location? The “Kichwa” is actually more of an umbrella term, it’s a culture that encompasses a variety of groups. Amanda expands, “The Kichwa people that we work with in the Amazon are very different culturally than the Kichwa people we work with in the Andes Mountains, and they’re both called Kichwa. So the location of the tribe really defines the culture...and the language is different.” Out of curiosity, I asked her how she stumbled upon this main group. With her strong connections, a friend was able to inform Amanda about the Kichwa. And she was very glad about it, too, “Our companies to work together on very different aspects to bring holistic improvements to the community.”  Luckily for us, Shopping for a Change and the Faire Collection are working together in the Nutritional Empowerment Project which will commence at the beginning of 2013, and it’s great that the Kichwa are “becoming excited” as they continue learn more about it.

Since Amanda has had so much experience with her artisans, I knew I had to ask about a special success story she’s come across. She smiles as she reminisces, “The story of Olga is really cool, her family was living off of less than one dollar a day, and then in 2010, only 2 years after they started working with us, they were making $26/a day. So they’re income increased dramatically by 200%. She got to the point where we gave her a no-interest loan to start her own store. She actually made the decision to stop working with the Andean [Faire] Collection and just run her store, because we were able to start her. And I love that story because the idea is not for us to entrap artisans in only being able to work for us, but to be able to lift them up to a different level so they can make decisions on about what’s best for them.” Sounds pretty generous to us, what do you think? Leave a comment on your thoughts below!

Hi all! I’m Ariana. Apart from being a junior in high school, I am also an intern at Shopping for a Change this summer. I’ve learned so much about the marketing world and I look forward to the rest of the summer with Stacey and the rest of the interns. I love multicultural food, playing different instruments, and pretty much anything and everything Nintendo! I hope you enjoy reading our blog posts, we’ve definitely enjoyed writing them. 

Amanda Judge Interview (Part Four)

Amanda Judge Interview (Part Four)

By Niki

Amanda Judge, founder of the Faire Collection, an organization that works to raise artisans from poverty through the creation of sustainable jewelry and accessories, reflects upon her overall experience.

Though the Faire Collection has only been operating for five years, the organization already works with artisans across four different countries: Ecuador, Peru, Swaziland, and Vietnam. Awed by the company’s passion and ambition for making a difference through fair trade, I felt excited to discover the thoughts of founder Amanda Judge on her overall experience.

In the five years that you have been in business, what have been your greatest achievements and most difficult challenges?

When Amanda first started the Faire Collection, her greatest goal was to “bring fair trade into the mainstream.” Not only has the Faire Collection successfully accomplished that goal, but Amanda also proudly claims that, “At this point, we’re the largest fair trade accessories company in the U.S.” To top it off, the Faire Collection has worked with “twenty of the largest retailers.” You would think that the Faire Collection has reached the pinnacle of its success, but Amanda and her team still strive to expand and to bring fair trade further into the mainstream by “working with larger retailers.” Wow. 

Tasha models the Tagua Bib Necklace and
the Polished Tagua Bracelet. 

Interestingly, Amanda reflected, “Most of our challenges were not related to fair trade necessarily, but just running business in general. It was a difficult thing to do, having never done it before.” I had expected a response along the lines of gaining the trust of the artisans, or operating a worldwide organization. However, looking back on SFAC’s interview sessions with Katy Leaky and Samantha Morshed, founders of the Leaky Collection and Pebble Child respectively, I realize that they too struggled with the business aspect of running a fair trade organization. Amanda explains that, specifically, she had to deal with “manufacturing on a different level.” But she “learned along the way,” and now the Faire Collection and its workers reap the benefits of her determination and whole-hearted efforts.

Is it harder to work with some countries than others?

Since the Faire Collection is one of the few fair trade organizations operating in multiple countries, I was curious to hear Amanda’s viewpoint on accomplishing this feat. “Well,” she noted, “they’ve all been different. We adapt the model depending on which country we’re in…Ecuador is most extensive, so it’s most difficult, but there’s also most familiarity with it. I just came back from Vietnam, so I have a lot to learn about their culture and lifestyle…but it’s just different.”

Overall, I came out from the interview with Amanda even more impressed than I was originally. She has no regrets, and would do everything similarly if she had the chance to do it all over again. The Faire Collection is true to their words - “With one life to live, we intend to make the most of it and inspire you to do the same.”

Hi, I’m Niki, and I’m an intern this summer at Shopping for a Change! I’m a rising junior in high school, with a passion for singing and playing the piano. So far, I’ve had a great experience working, learning about marketing, reading inspiring stories, conducting interviews, and now blog-writing. Hope you enjoyed reading the installments of the interview!

Amanda Judge Interview (Part Three)

Amanda Judge Interview (Part Three)

by Ilana

In the third installment of our interview with Amanda Judge, Ilana talks to Amanda about the design process behind the creation of the Faire Collection's products.

Recently I had the opportunity to interview with Amanda Judge, Founder & Designer of The Faire Collection (formerly known as The Andean Collection). Wanting to know more about the Artisans and the process of handcrafting goods; my questions for her mainly focused on the company as a whole and the artisans she works with.

Lucy models the Faire Collection's
Accented Tagua Necklace in Lemon. 

The Faire Collection team likes their Artisans to be in charge of purchasing their own supplies to make products. According to Amanda,  "this empowers the artisans to learn how to manage their own business and creates a sense of independence for each artist."

When it comes to design, Amanda says they do so "with a New York customer in mind."  She went on to explain "We only source a few products from other parts of the world. Using mostly local ingredients for our collections, the artisans are able to produce products faster without with hassle of importing goods." 

The process from beginning to end in designing a new piece is fairly simple. First the Faire Collection team looks for inspiration. Gathering ideas from magazines, what they see on the streets, and Ecuadorian nature, they come up with a theme. This theme gets translated into sketches, and once completed they are sent to an artisan to make the first samples. The artisan revises designs and samples based upon the input received and their own capabilities.  Thus giving birth to a new Faire Collection design. 

Hi, My name is Ilana, and I am a senior in high school. My two passions are Fashion and helping others. While interning at Shopping for a Change I have gained insight in marketing , social media, interviewing, and now blogging!

Amanda Judge Interview (Part Two)

Amanda Judge Interview (Part Two)
by Jessica

In the second part of Shopping for a Change’s interview with Amanda Judge, the founder of the Faire Collection, you will learn about the business aspect of managing and expanding the organization.

Before interviewing Amanda, I had already done some research on the Faire Collection. Exploring its products and writing blurbs on various artisan groups had given me a fairly solid sense of what the organization was all about. Founded in 2008, the Faire Collection has come a long way. The organization now works with artisans in Vietnam, Peru, Swaziland and Ecuador, for a total of 225 artisans worldwide. The obvious question to ask was: how did the Faire Collection grow and reach such success so quickly?

To satisfy my curiosity, Amanda had given me some insight on what goes into the business aspect of managing the Faire Collection. Because the organization continues to grow and make new connections, the first task is deciding who to collaborate with next. Amanda chooses the next artisan group by “looking at a collection holistically and deciding what areas we feel are lacking in what our customers wants.” Then she goes looking for “countries and artisans that can produce the products to fill the holes.” In addition, Amanda enjoys taking inspiration from countries she has travelled to. “It’s really a combination of me traveling around the world as well as what’s right for the customers.” 

A stack of the Riverbed Tagua Bracelets by the Faire Collection.

After Amanda identifies with whom she wants to collaborate, she works to bring the first product into the market. This process can take from just 6 months to as long as 2 years. “It depends on if we’re working with artisans that can produce things pretty quickly.” Amanda then needs to determine what the artisans are paid for their work and what to charge the retailers. “We determine the retail price based on what we call “price to market.” Because the markets are always so different, Amanda looks at what similar products are being sold for and compares that price to what she would prefer to sell it for. As far as how she determines what a fair wage is, “all of it is listening to the artisans and respecting their ideas and what they have to say about their income.”

It’s no wonder that the Faire Collection is such a successful organization today. Amanda has done a great job in managing the organization – and it shows. If you want to know more about what goes on behind the scenes of the Faire Collections, read the rest of our interview with Amanda Judge.

Hey guys, my name is Jessica and I'm interning at Shopping for a Change over the summer. I enjoy writing these articles because it allows me to give my own take on conversations with people with fascinating backgrounds. I hope you guys enjoy reading my blog article and learn from it as much as I did!