Spring has sprung and we're ready for it!

Hello friends,

It's been very busy as always here at Cabiria HQ! With spring in the air and buds on the trees, we've been shipping out dresses like crazy to wonderful customers all over the country. It's really thrilling to see this all flourish. Speaking of which, I'd love to see photos of Cabiria customers in their new dresses! Please send me photos at eden[at]cabiriastyle.com, and I'll happily post them on the website and the blog. For instance, here's Farrah Olieri from her Facebook selfie in Giuseppina in Butterflies:


and Stephanie Sack in her Francesca in Robin's Nest:

and her Sofia in Giant Peony:


In Chicago, Vive La Femme has had Cabiria flying off the shelves, and in St. Paul, Bombshell Boutique has already reordered some of our sexiest dresses. Yay, beautiful Midwestern plus size ladies! Showing the rest of the country what style looks like over a size 12. You ladies in New Orleans also have EXCLUSIVE dresses in The Voluptuous Vixen, here in New York City, Curvaceous K on the Lower East Side is stocked with the fabulous Flaminia in Tropicalia among others, and online, the incredible site Madison Plus Select has been batting it out of the park. Don't forget Pionna.com either. And I'm always looking to get into stores closer to you. Help me help you!

Some of you may know that I'm also a costume designer, and that has paid off with my relationships with other costume designers. Cabiria will be seen on actresses on THREE different television shows if all the pilots who bought from us are picked up - major network exposure here! Also, Danielle MacDonald wore Cabiria's Sofia in Giant Peony to the red carpet premiere of her film "Trust Me" at the TriBeCa Film Festival last week too. Photos to come soon, I promise.

Here's a wonderful first: Michelle Landriault of Affairs Magazine walked into Vive La Femme in Chicago, and fell in love with the Giuseppina in Butterflies dress. She fell in love with it so much, she made it her OOTD for Easter. Then she loved it even harder, and wrote a whole article about Cabiria being her favorite new designer! How thrilling that this customer is also a fan and a great writer. I love our beautiful customers.

On April 10th, we were on New York teevee! WPIX Channel 11 Morning News had a feature with Madison Plus Select and Aimee Cheshire, hosted by Sukanya Krishnan (a hot curvy lady herself) that aired all over the Metro New York area. Aimee wore the Valentina in Orange Floral and one of the models wore Sofia in Black and Ivory Lace print silk jersey. So beautiful! (I promise to have video soon). Also, Madison Plus is about to do a big photoshoot spotlighting Cabiria NEW, AS OF YET UNPHOTOGRAPHED dresses on the stunners Denise Bidot and Ivory May Kalber. Lucky us - lucky you!




And last month, the fabulous Stephanie Sack of Vive La Femme did a fantastic video on her VLFTV Youtube channel featuring the Cabiria dresses in her shop in Chicago! I love her sassy delivery and how well she wears the pieces. Check out her amazing video now, then run down to her store and buy them all out!

It's all great news, and I can't wait to delivery more dresses into stores so you all can play in the sunshine and swing around in pretty clothes. Let me know if you want to play too!

All the best, Eden

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

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86% Funded, New Stores and Stretch Goals!

Hi everyone,

I hope all of you in the Northeast are battening down the hatches in prep for the crazy storm headed our way! I'm trying to think what I can do offline to work on Cabiria if the power goes out. I know it's a little geeky, but I love patternmaking and textile development, so if there's no internet, I might play with Illustrator and Photoshoot to work on new textile artwork for a future printing. If there's no power at all, I might work on some new patterns for Fall/Winter and keep moving forward. I don't sit still well.

We're on Day 5, and we're 86% funded! Thank you so much! There's been activity on the networking front; I went to a great event put on by The Big Girl Blog, and met some wonderfully positive, effusive plus size women, then got and email from Gussied Up, a new plus size boutique in Toronto, and another from Bombshell Boutique in St. Paul, MN interested in potentially carrying the line in their stores. So exciting to possibly have things in brick and mortar independently owned shops!

Several people have pointed out that with the campaign doing so well, I should put out some Stretch Goals. Things that can make Cabiria really fly. I've come up with quite a few, but keep in mind this is not an aggregate total - this is the cost of EACH THING, and they are pretty conservative estimates.:

With $900 I can buy the most amazing Bemberg lining that's in limited supply, but could become a signature look for the company, especially as a finishing trim or full lining.
With $1000 I can buy ad space in Plus Model Magazine, Skorch Magazine, DailyVenusDiva, Just As Beautiful, and a few other plus size fashion online magazines to promote pre-sales and encourage retailer and direct customer interest.
With $1250 I can work with The Apparel Agency or Indie Design Association to streamline production delivery and make sure it's all done according to industry expectations.
With $1750 per location, I can do a trunk show with models and refreshments at a plus size boutique interested in doing pre-sales, for instance in New Orleans, St. Paul, Toronto, and Chicago. (this pays for flight, meals, hotel, car, models, refreshments, signage, gear, etc.)
With $4000 I can pay the models, photographer, locations, makeup artist, hair stylist, and additional crew to shoot a Fall/Winter photoshoot, and for digital photo cleanup.
With $6000 I can hire a part time assistant during the production and delivery cycle.
With $7000 I can expand the product development and include sizes 24 - 30. With $8000 I can rent booth space and show at Women's Wear in Nevada (WWIN)or Pool/Magic Expo trade shows which could potentially get us into large department stores and boost us to the next level.
With $9000 I can have 500 yards of custom printed silk jersey made so there would be no sold out fabric patterns (well, per design) ever again.
With $15,000 I can develop the Fall/Winter 2013/14, and purchase fabrics for production of the second season.

That's only $65,550. We can pull that off, easy! Right? Am I right?

the amazing Bemberg lining I've wanted for ages. I know what shelf it's on and how many yards are waiting for me, quivering with anticipation.:

Every step costs money, and every step is one closer towards making Cabiria something that thrives on it's own. Thank you for believing in this project and pushing it out of the nest.

-Eden