NEWSLETTER

Interview w/ Your Fav Scrunché

This interview was first published in our Winter 2019 newsletter. Subscribe here.

For this quarter, I chatted with Jess + Adri, creators of Your Fav Scrunché. They stayed focused on making sustainable scrunchies and in the process has built a strong community centered on a core mission. I asked them about their story and how that mission has kept them going and growing.

Tell us the story of how you got to where you are today.

As a big contextual piece, this whole scrunchie hoopla started a year ago in our living room (yes, we're roommates and also college besties!). Jessie hosts art night once a month, which is a collaborative space for people to get creative and build community by doing art. She found that typically people don't have space in their everyday life for art and feel more comfortable if they have a prompt or project. So last August, she decided to teach people how to make scrunchies.

Adrienne came to that art night and what started as a fun craft, turned into an idea/joke that we could sell these scrunchies to our friends. Which would've been funny except that our friends kept buying them and encouraged us to actually go for it. After Adrienne's birthday party (November) -- where the name Scrunché was finally decided upon -- there was no turning back. That night, a friend (@kimichantreats, also running a side hustle) asked us to be vendors at her business launch and 2 months, 1 6-day hospital stint (pneumonia for Jess), and 50 scrunchies later, we launched with our good friend Kimi and sold our first scrunchie to a bald man.

Fast forward a year from art night and we have a website and business license; have vended with Frankie and Jo's, Full Moon Market, and Kakáo Café; have made and sold a loooot of scrunchies (over 100 online orders + some key events); but most importantly have connected with and cultivated an incredible community. (See the last question for a look into the people who have helped us get to where we are!) It was kind of a joke (still is?) but now that we've been doing it and refining our process, we're continually surprised that we have something so special.

The nice thing about owning a part-time business is that we were able to take a lot of the summer off to recharge and reconnect individually and also as an entity. We're really excited about the holiday season coming up and the wholesale opportunities connected with that, as well as developing the next Season of Scrunché and all the goodness that will entail

What is the process like, from finding fabric to making the scrunchés?

When Jessie's mom taught her how to sew, it was with scraps and often included making old pieces of clothing into new ones. Even still, Jess has scraps and items to be upcycled intermingled with all her crafts. To save money and to slow the cycle of fast fashion, we decided to use upcycled materials that we had on hand, in our closets, and from friends and thrift stores. Little did we know this would actually improve the quality of our product and open doors to more creative options for our customers (swimsuit turned shower/water-friendly scrunch, velvet dress that never quite fit turned velvet moody scrunch, mom's dress from the 90's turned silky scrunch etc).

With upcycling, each scrunchie's process is a little bit different. It either involves a trip to the thrift store or a friend dropping some clothes off to us. We then wash the fabric or garment, cut it into strips (which is surprisingly difficult depending on the shape and material of the garment), and start sewing. We use a sewing machine for the majority of the process and hand sew the last seam. Once the scrunch is done (one of our favorite parts!), we name it. Depending on the mood of the scrunchie (material, color, pattern, etc), each scrunch is named thoughtfully because they are truly one of a kind -- we can only make a limited amount of scrunchies from each garment and once it's gone, it's gone.

In launching new scrunchies, we use episodes and seasons as markers (like your fave reality TV show). We were trying to think of a creative way to title our scrunchies, and we thought it would be fun for each one to take on a story of its own within our larger narrative. Before we officially launched we had what we called pilot episodes which were sewn a little bit differently than how we sew them now. Still super cute but our quality has definitely improved -- like many shows that go further than the pilot!! So far, we are still in Szn One and have released sixteen regular episodes (a very looong szn). We sometimes throw in mini-episodes if a scrap of fabric is too small to make a decent amount of scrunchies. We will be releasing Szn Two when we up-level the next generation of scrunchés, which will likely be another sewing process/quality innovation coming very soon.

How do you stay focused on the core mission of your business?

One huge piece that helps us stay focused is to come from an abundance vs. scarcity mentally. Oftentimes when we feel too strapped for time or unsure if we have the bandwidth to pull off another collaboration, we have to check ourselves to see if it's fear or "not enough" talking. When we trust that there is enough and actually more than enough, we've been able to enjoy the process so much more. Obviously, we also think practically and know that if we are operating out of this mindset, saying "no" will actually lead to an overflow of abundance and goodness in the areas we say "yes" to.

That being said, we have a few core pillars that ground our business: sustainability, accessibility, fun, & community.

Sustainability is close to both of our hearts - Adrienne studied global development, and Jessie has nightmares of global warming. But really. One thing we hope people experience when they encounter our brand is being invited into the story themselves. Even in our own lives, it can sometimes feel difficult to live sustainably. For us, it's not really even about customers buying our scrunchies. More than that, we hope people can see how easy it is to recreate something special from the items they already have. Little and big picture, we envision Scrunché helping communities live into this sustainable living cultural shift that we are in the midst of. Practically, we upcycle our fabrics and save all of our scraps (Jess has made herself a climbing chalk bag already, pillow stuffing could be the next project...to reiterate, we've thrown no sewing materials away!). We are hoping to work on sourcing upcycled or more sustainable elastic and thread next.

Accessibility is another major focus for us. As young professionals in the service and caring industries (with many friends in similar places), we wanted to make our product something our friends would and could buy. Price-wise, we try to keep our scrunch bbz as close to $10 as possible and encourage our wholesale partners to do the same. We are also super excited about the sizes and fabric selections we offer so that folks with any type of hair can enjoy some upcycled goodness. From each garment, we make smalls, mediums, and larges for finer or thicker/natural hair. Lately, we've spent more time with our silk offerings for natural hair.

Fun has been apart of our business from the beginning. "Are we having fun?" has been our guiding mantra when new opportunities, big decisions, and even small ones (should we scrunch for another hour or grab croissants? (today's problem)) arise. The reality is we both work full time and have other commitments to our friend, hobby, and faith communities. Running Scrunché in our free time is a privilege but isn't always glamorous. However, we truly do have a lot of fun!!

Community is our last pillar. Along the way we've been inspired by those around us with their affirmation, questions, advice, and love. We couldn't have gotten started without the talents and encouragement of our friends. Our logo was made by Jessie's friend (@chaicreates), Adri's dad's business (Ready Stamps) made the stamps that we use for packaging, Jessie's brother printed our business cards and vinyl banner (and he's working on another special project for us!), Adri's boyfriend (@babes.93) has taken a lot of our pictures, and our good pal (@smalleah) traded us real scrunchies for stick and poke tattoo scrunchies (yes we have matching tattoos). We also have a great partnership with our friend (@primelinkconsulting) who does business development and became connected initially as Adri's Lyft driver. Other than these fine folk, we have loved getting to know other creatives, collaborators, and customers at events and through social media. We also love our broader community and have channels for friends to choose orgs (Casa Latina so far) to financially support when they give us fabric to be upcycled

You can drop us a line at hello@yourfavscrunche.com -- we are super here for all the synergistic connections/collabs!! (You can find more of them on their website and Instagram for when their next episodes drop.)