What's Landing on Our Doorsteps

Hello friends!

Just giving you a heads up since our Kickstarter campaign ended. I've been busily writing down all the requests from donors for swag and adding them to the Thank You page on Cabiria's website. If you have not already answered the survey questions from the Kickstarter website, please do as orders need to be placed all at once per vendor.

Some of the swag that's already been placed for delivery to Cabiria HQ are the bistro mugs, which are 16 oz. (not 14 oz. as previously stated), the tote bags, and the DVDs. I'm still waiting on some coffee orders, then that will be ready to place as well. Yum!

Today I went to see Pamela Bartual of Mark Da Grading services, and she should have my pattern pieces ready to go into production very soon. Tomorrow, I meet with her again, and then with the factory right here in New York City, in order to having everything through the workroom as soon as possible. It's really happening, people, thanks to you!

As a matter of fact, because of your largesse, I was out buying more fabric today to fill more orders. I can't even tell you how exciting that is to me - that my storeroom needs to be replenished to meet demand! How COOL is that??

And finally, I was sent the first shipment of business cards and hang tags by Triple Stamp Press. They were printed using a double pass white ink on heavy black stock, and I think they are some of the sexiest hangtags and cards I've ever seen. Hooray!

Thank you for making this happen!

All the best, Eden

The Last Day of the Campaign

Hello, friends!

I want to thank everyone who ran with the banner of the Kickstarter campaign while I was called away. Thank you for the kind words and letters of condolence that you sent, and thank you for not letting the Cabiria campaign fade away so I have great things to look forward to very soon.

My mom had great style in the 70's, and everyone said she looked like a Jewish Sofia Loren. More importantly, she was an incredibly smart woman who fully took up causes relating to women's rights and feminism, and taught me that with diligence, I could become anything I wanted to, regardless of gender. That tenacity and iconoclasm is her legacy to me, and I am a richer person for it.

This photo is me, my mom, and my brother just after my 7th birthday. This is how I remember her best: sitting with her kids, waiting for us to touch one of the animals at the petting zoo, and delighting at our peals of laughter.

The Cabiria campaign is the culmination of my mom teaching me strength and tenacity, and you have shown your support of my dream. Thank you for that, and if there's anyone who hasn't heard about Cabiria's campaign on Kickstarter, please let them know - it's the last 24 hours, and this last push will take us into new, untold heights.

All the best,
Eden

Final week of Kickstarter Campaign and a Call to Action!

Hello, friends!

We are four leaf clovers and unicorns! The incredible blog Envynde, which advocates for emerging designers across all size ranges (fantastic yeoman's work) has written an article about us stating that the rarity of a great, high quality, fashionable plus size line such as Cabiria is like finding four leaf clovers and unicorns. Pretty fantastic! They also wanted to write the article in advance of completion of our Kickstarter campaign so they could brag about the scoop. Well done!

Our Kickstarter campaign was also mentioned quite flatteringly in the "Links:Shopping" on the fantastic DIY design blog Not Martha. She really liked our coloring book incentive as well as the dresses! Her blog makes my home decorating, craft-making fingers itch.

We are now in the final stretch of the Kickstarter campaign. With a little over a week to go, we will be reminding you (again) to make those backing pledges which will bump up our popularity on the Kickstarter website. Kickstarter themselves need to be reminded that our numbers prove that we are a worthwhile project, and they should put their considerable marketing force behind us as well. So far, an astounding 81% of backing has come from word of mouth from friends and allies, known to me and new friends, and only 19% from Kickstarter generated links. Thank you for that, you guys! But the power of a strong platform like Kickstarter is that if they believe that the project is worth boosting in the feed, they can make people pay attention. So I ask you two things:

1. if you have not already backed the project, now is a great time to do it. We have 7 days left and every dollar creates a bump of interest across the platform and
2. write to Kickstarter on their webpage. You will need to scroll to the bottom of the page to the "Contact" link in the footer, but then let them know that you think this is a great project and you want to see it gain recognition in the Kickstarter public arena (their Staff picks, their blog posts, and their emailer to backers internationally. Feel free to point out that we are the MOST SUCCESSFUL plus size project EVER on Kickstarter, and why you think we're worth promoting.

Let's make this a record breaker together!

All the best, Eden

Keeping the ball rolling and finding new audiences

Hello friends,

On October 23rd, Cabiria launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $8,000 towards funding production of the Spring Summer 2013 Collection, and we reached that in just over a week.

Since then, we've become the MOST SUCCESSFUL PLUS SIZE CAMPAIGN EVER on Kickstarter. That is in terms of percentage raised over the initial goal and amount of dollars raised. This is stupendous!

Now, more than ever, I need your help. Any amount you give, from $1 on up, will bounce our analytics higher on Kickstarter. More interest in the campaign means more outside interest from outside our friend circles. More interest creates Staff Picks and Popular placement on the site, introducing the campaign to more people. More interest means more donations and more possibilities for getting more clothing into more hands.

We've gotten great mentions in Plus Fashion Blogs, we were interviewed for a radio podcast broadcasting from New Zealand, and interest from wholesalers from all over North America (I'm including Canada here) from the publicity about this campaign. My alma mater, Pratt, placed the campaign in their Curated Page. It's all great news, but we still have 13 days to go.

If you have not already, please contribute.

If you're involved in Social Justice, Equality, Costume, Fashion, Design, Plus Size, Straight Size, Feminism, Entrepreneurship, Startups, Bootstrappers, Classic Movie Buffs, Europhiles, or just delight in seeing things go viral, you have an audience for Cabiria. Please spread the word and really get this campaign out there, across platforms!

Thank you!

All the best,

Eden

following are: 1. a graph of how we're doing on here and where the funds are coming from (transparency)

2. a wonderful and overdue article on Plus Bloggers and Stylemakers from today's New York Times, and

3. a fascinating article written for Ms. Magazine titled "If the Clothes Fit: A Feminist Takes On Fashion?", which incorporates the social justice part of Cabiria's message.

Featured in Pratt's Curated Pages!

Hello friends,

I'm in a celebratory mood today - first of all, thanks to your continued support, we are now the most successful plus size project EVER on Kickstarter! That's both in terms of percentage raised over initial goal (133% so far) and amount of money raised. Stupendous! Let's smash that record even more, and show those 1000% funded tech projects what for.

Great news today, other than the election of course, is that as a Pratt Institute alumna, our project was chosen to be featured on the Pratt Curated Page here on Kickstarter. It's great to receive that acknowledgment from such an esteemed artistic authority. Check it out by clicking the big yellow "Pratt" button.

And finally, we've been getting a lot of press mentions in fashion and plus size blogs around the internet. I was interviewed for a radio show in New Zealand earlier this week (I'll let you know more details when it becomes available Thursday or Friday), and have been collecting those mentions on our press page on the Cabiria website.

Let's keep the ball rolling - we still have 14 days in the campaign, and there's so much I can do with stretch goal funds. Thank you again, and please spread the word!

All the best, Eden

following is a screen grab from the latest blog to review us, "My Therapist Told Me to Write a Fashion Blog". See more great reviews on our press page.

132% Funded! 16 More Days! And Where Your Money is Going

Hello friends,

First of all, thank you so much for this great momentum we have on Kickstarter. We're 132% funded and still have 16 days left in the campaign! I can't even tell you how exciting this is, and I'm so glad you believe in Cabiria and it's message of social justice through beautiful clothes.

I've been talking to some potential retailers for stocking the line, and potential business backers who want to expand the way we're currently structured (one woman running around like a chicken). I'm a designer. I like to think of myself as a pretty good designer. But in starting a project like this I've had to scale a pretty steep learning curve to become a proficient traditional marketer, social media marketer, public relations person, accountant, photoshoot producer, web developer, tech pack producer, factory production manager, sales rep, and fashion lawyer. Oh yeah, and autodidact MBA. I wouldn't say I'm great at any of these, although I'm not too shabby for an art school graduate (cough). All that said, I'd love to work with people who do these things well and with ease, all in concert to make the end result access to beautiful clothes. Big plans!

In the meantime, the knowledge that I will receive funding from Kickstarter backers at the end of the campaign has allowed me to order beautiful hand screened hang tags and business cards from an independently owned press in Richmond, VA. For a long time I'd been hunting for the perfect hang tag - those heavy cardboard tags that hang off garments to say what brand they are, and that hold the secondary information, price and RFID tags. I obsess about these small details because I really do think that the details are part of what differentiate Cabiria from others out there. All the details, on the clothes and off. I can't wait for them to arrive in the mail so I can show them off!

The funding has allowed me to look at planning a trunk show or three with Bombshell Boutique in St. Paul, MN, Vive la Femme in Chicago, and The Voluptuous Vixen in New Orleans.

The Voluptuous Vixen (and the Head Vixen herself),

Bombshell Boutique,

and Vive la Femme.

The funding allows me to consider making more pieces than the original factory quota that I'd need to meet, so I can have more to sell to more retailers. More access for customers. It also allows me to devote stock to online retailers that we can pair with so there's more ways to get the clothes.

Reaching past the funding goal has allowed me to start conversations with silk mills to make our own production runs of fabric, so we aren't limited to job lot fabrics sourced in the marketplace. Meaning if you want that dress in that print, it's yours. And reorderable.

Every dollar added allows all these possibilities to come together. Thank you for helping me reach these goals and create new opportunities together. As always, please spread the word!

All the best, Eden

please support independent retailers and help them thrive

Moving Forward and Reaching Further

Hi everyone,

Friday was a big day for me. I'm a cancer survivor, and yesterday was the one year anniversary of my very successful surgery. Yay! I'd been planning on launching the Kickstarter campaign almost 2 years ago when Cabiria was a dream and relatively half baked, but then life stuff happened and slowed me down. Well, here I am in 2012, halfway through the campaign and it's a lot more vital a project than it would have been when I first thought of getting it up online.

I've been quiet(er) this week because of Sandy's devastation, but I also have a short window in which to get out the word about Cabiria on Kickstarter. This project was on track waaaay before the storm, and has a set end date of November 21st. I am a fighter and survivor, and don't let things like force majeure take me off track. So there!

Please tell your friends that the campaign is still going and we want to meet those stretch goals. Please spread the word OUTSIDE THE PLUS SIZE COMMUNITY TOO. This is a product for plus size women, but the reasons for it have to do with EQUALITY, SELF LOVE, ART, SOCIAL JUSTICE, and FASHION. The mainstream media still want to have daily interest pieces that aren't all about Sandy's aftermath, and I've got that with a ticking timer.

I've spent this week contacting mainstream fashion bloggers and daily trend reporters like Racked (part of the Curbed Network), Refinery29, Daily Candy, Scoutmob, Yelp, and Marie Claire. If you have any contacts in PR or media, please let me know. I've even written to Beth Ditto. You never know what might stick, right?

Stay safe out there, and think big.

- Eden

following is Allison McGevna and I on the cyc from the collection shoot. Yes, I look silly in my socks, but that's how you keep the white floor clean. And yes, Allison is a gorgeous woman, even when being silly.

A matter of conscience, and how to help with Sandy relief efforts

On October 23rd, Cabiria launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $8,000 towards funding production of the Spring Summer 2013 Collection, and we have in just over a week gotten to over 110%. That covers our original intention, and starts towards our stretch goals. Thank you so very much.

During that week, an unprecedented Superstorm devastated my beloved adopted hometown, and many many people will be effected in the long term. It becomes somewhat of a conflict that I am conducting what could be seen as an unimportant, frivolous personal drive during a time of much greater priorities.

I encourage you to contribute to both.

Everyone pitching in with the existing government infrastructure and NGO relief efforts, as well as personally helping neighbors will bring New York City and it's environs back, like we have before. Contributing to Cabiria helps in small part by building a future that is better socially, reaching outside the scope of our here and now. Cabiria is also on a finite timeline with Kickstarter, and is forced because of the platform's rules to continue despite tasteful prudence, or lose everything we've gained in the week before the storm.

If you haven't become involved already, Red Hook Initiative, LES Recovers, Hoboken's community board, and a number of other community organizations are working hard to get our city back on it's feet. I also encourage you to donate to The American Red Cross today, and earmark it for Sandy recovery.

American Red Cross link
Red Hook [Brooklyn] Initiative link
Lower East Side Recovers link
Hoboken Volunteer board link
Thriive How you can Help link
Time Out NY's How You can Help link

And the Kickstarter Campaign for Cabiria: Get Cabiria funded through Kickstarter link

If you need immediate support due to the storm and it's aftermath, please contact one of the organizations above, or privately contact me and I'll do what I can.

Contribute to human kindness and extend love to everybody.

Thank you!

- Eden