Brand Interview with Sister Katie Founder, Katie Roach
By Ella Hackworth
All Images sourced from Sister Katie
Sister Katie is everything we want in clothing - comfortable, refined, effortlessly “cool”, good for the planet, and easy to wear at home or out and about. And Katie Roach is everything we love to see in a founder - she’s creative, charming, honest, cares about the earth, and embraces imperfect progress. She creates clothes that you never want to take off, that make every day feel special. I can speak from personal experience that once that organic cotton touches your skin, you’ll never go back. Sister Katie is where “laid-back California minimalism meets 90s Greenwich Village'“. She loves to tell stories through her clothes, inspired by characters in television and film as well as real iconic women we can all relate to. Read along to learn more about Katie, her journey as a founder, and Sister Katie’s sustainability efforts.
What inspired Sister Katie?
Sister Katie was a long time coming. Throughout my career pre-Sister Katie, I always felt like something was missing. I felt a big pull to do something creative. On a personal level, I’ve always loved clothes so it was somewhat of a natural segue.
I daydreamed a lot about having my own business. I would get super inspired by one thing, run with it for a few weeks and then the passion would fizzle out. I had the idea to open a nail salon that had a focus on a beautiful space with an upscale experience and clean products – until I realized my dream was already a reality at Olive + June in LA. Ha! In the fall of 2017 I was working at a startup in San Francisco that I had been at for three and a half years. I loved my colleagues but was incredibly unmotivated by the job and saw no future at the company - the feeling was definitely mutual. We parted ways and I decided to dive head first into creating my own business. Around the same time, one of my best friends had her first daughter (Hi Lucy!). I bought her an adorable tank/bloomer set in a beautiful muted blush cotton gauze. I remember staring at it and thinking: I want to wear something like this. Things spiraled really quickly from there. Originally, the idea for Sister Katie was to create an at-home uniform. Clothes you’d want to change into the second you walked in the door. While ultimately, we do create clothes you want to put on the second you get home, I realized throughout the first sampling process that these clothes were too good to only wear at home. They were clothes to live in, whatever you were doing, wherever you were doing it. The first year was a ton of high highs and low lows. I guess it still is. There’s always lots of excitement, some disappointments, lots of learning, some pivoting, and somehow, some way, we’re still in it. It really has been very fun and rewarding!
Was sustainability important to you from the beginning?
Yes and no. I have notes about sustainability in my first ever pages of notes I scribbled about Sister Katie. It was something that was always in the back of my head but also something I found super overwhelming to navigate. Ultimately, my first run of shirts that I produced in Los Angeles were not made at a factory that checked the boxes of what is important to our brand and we moved on to new partners overseas.
What are the current sustainability efforts?
When it comes to my sustainability efforts, I am definitely not perfect and I do not claim to be an expert. I’ve found that when the goal becomes too extreme (in any direction), I've already set myself up for failure. The fashion industry is inherently unsustainable but here we are anyway. So… at Sister Katie, and in my household, our sustainability goal is to always learn, try to do better, and to also cut ourselves some slack because no one is (or should be) asking us to be perfect.
That said, we have made great efforts and progress towards being a more sustainable business. It has taken a lot of time and effort to find factory partners that we can feel confident about - both in terms of the quality of goods, sustainability practices, and company ethos.
Our factory in Portugal runs on 100% renewable energy. They have an AENOR green energy certificate and their solar panels give them 100% of their energy needs. They are GOTS certified and OEKO-TEX class I. They provide above minimum wage and better conditions for their lowest-level workers and all employees get morning and afternoon breaks “on the house”. employees have free transportation to and from work - including a mid-day transport that allows them to have lunch with their families if they so choose. all employees have health insurance with entrance into the best private hospitals in their city.
Our partners in Lima are a fair trade knitwear development and production company. They are woman-run and produce garments using zero-waste methods. They work with local artisans and weavers to create consciously and sustainably made textiles.
In addition to our factory partners, we are working hard to make our full process as sustainable as possible. This is always a work in progress and we welcome feedback on how we can do better. When you receive orders from us, you will notice that we ship with very minimal fluff. Our packaging is compostable and we do not include unnecessary wrapping, baggies, tags, order information, etc. We send you the bare minimum since we know everything else just ends up in the trash! The poly bags that your clothes arrive in are the original bags utilized by our factories - they are necessary in order to keep your items from getting damaged in transit. Although they may not seem “eco-friendly”, what’s worse than using them would be to transport an item only to have it damaged along the way. We are working towards more environmentally friendly poly bag options.
We keep our collections very small on purpose. We do not want to produce excess inventory from the onset. We keep the inventory small so that we are making things for people who actually want them versus forcing finding a home for the goods on consumers who ultimately end up with unwanted items. We all know where those end up… When we introduce a pre-order structure for a product, which we do from time to time, each item is made to order. Made to order products help to cut down on waste since we are only manufacturing items that have already been claimed by a customer.
We are also about to launch our very own resale market. The fashion industry has a tremendous impact on the environment as most of us know at this point. Outside of living in our birthday suits, the most sustainable and high impact decisions we can make when choosing what we wear is to buy pre-loved and sustainably-made clothing. We’re calling the resale market “hand me downs” and you can find out lots more information about it on our new site (launching Wednesday, April 7th). Briefly, “hand me downs” is a sister-to-sister resale marketplace. You can sell and buy all your favorite pre-loved Sister Katie pieces right on our website. By doing so, you are helping to keep timeless Sister Katie pieces in circulation and out of the landfill and you get paid. Think of it like shopping your sister’s closet -- except this time, you have her permission!
It’s a very important and also tricky time to be exploring ways in which to be more “sustainable” and “green”. There is so much greenwashing that is taking place within the industry and there is also a ton of pressure (albeit, mostly good) from the customer to operate our brands in certain ways. I’m extremely proud of our progress and look forward to continuing to do better
What is your greatest challenge/success with owning a brand?
I really struggle with the mental and literal juggling of being committed to building my business while also wanting to be full time with my daughter. My biggest success is that I am still trying to make it all work!
How do you hope that these pieces will serve your customers?
Oh, I have so many hopes! I hope the stories we tell with our clothes evoke a sense of nostalgia. I'm a very nostalgic person in general. I hope our clothes make people feel as good as they look - I really believe in dressing comfortably while also looking put together and feeling good in what you’re wearing. And I hope that our tiny little brand, even in the smallest of ways, brings a little joy to our customers!
Do you have any long-term goals set for Sister Katie?
I’m not a long-term goal type of person. I guess I have that luxury since I own my company with my husband and don’t have to answer to investors, etc. Both in terms of business and personal life, I try to live more in the moment. Of course, within the industry that I operate, we’re typically working a few seasons ahead, but you get what I mean. I am gearing up to launch my Spring Collection at the beginning of April, we’re designing for Fall and I am also getting ready to have my second child. Right now the goal is to get Spring launched, survive the summer and create an amazing collection for Fall. We’ll figure it out as we go!
How is owning a business and having a family different or similar than what you expected?
I’m not sure I had clear expectations of what either would be. I kind of just went for both of them. Sister Katie has come to take up quite a bit more energy and time than I ever could have anticipated. This is a good problem to have, of course. Being a mother is a million times more challenging and rewarding than I ever could have been prepared for. It’s a struggle but one that I’m so lucky to navigate through.
How do you set boundaries for yourself?
Not well!
Do you play favorites with any of the Sister Katie pieces?
Oh come on! That’s like picking a favorite child… Just kidding - the honest answer: it really just depends. Right now I’d say the gillian pants and the anna pullover (new this spring!). But of course, I really love everything we make since I design pretty much everything for myself!
Describe the core inspiration of the Sister Katie style.
Sister Katie is the epitome of my personal style and uniform. Over the years, I’ve definitely become a uniform dresser- I like investing in great pieces and wearing them to death! I love a lived in look so the more life I get out of an item, the more I end up loving it anyway. I don’t think you should have to sacrifice comfort for style and vice versa. I’ve definitely pushed my boundaries a bit with a few colors and items within my collections (ie, I’m not a huge shorts gal, but we made a pair of shorts for Spring that I even love to wear!) to give the people what they want!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ella Hackworth is a Brand Account Manager and Contributing Writer for SISTAIN and has a background in design, dance, and visual arts. She celebrates her love of nature, beauty, and connection through her passion for living mindfully and sustainably.
