The Crux: upgrade your scarf

upgrade your scarf

Starkweather Outerwear is purposeful outerwear for uncompromising women and men living in cities.

At the gap between activewear function and designer level prices, Starkweather blends style and function to create layering pieces that work for more weather, throughout more of the year.

While Starkweather is an outerwear brand with year-round offerings in the pipeline, we are going to market in Fall 2018 with the Liner, and the Crux, because they will help you get more out of the existing outerwear in your closets. 

By adding these strategic, and versatile layering pieces to your wardrobe, you'll multiply the looks and variety from the clothes you already own. That is value add!

Starkweather at the Lost Labs Showcase

On Friday, April 13, Starkweather, along with four other Chicago startups, presented to a room of 100+ individuals in an old warehouse building on Goose Island. The event was the culmination of three months of incubation through the first Lost Labs program. Run by Charles Adler, co-founder of Kickstarter and founder of Lost Arts, Lost Labs is an opportunity to "[apply] ambition, to explore the potential of curiosity," for "anyone with a tenacious creative spirit." 

As part of the first cohort, there was a loose framework for us to structure our goals and a timeline to achieve it. I found myself motivated to challenge myself and reach higher than I had initially outlined. The result for Starkweather was a full-on new business plan and pitch that has been updated to reflect all the lessons learned, all the new resources that are available, and the forecast of where the industry and consumer behavior is going in the future. 

The capstone event gave me a platform to share those organized thoughts to a group of intelligent, curious professionals who then had an opportunity to come speak with the founder (myself), see the products, try them on, and share their feedback. I walked away inspired with new ideas, and excited to get the product into waiting customers' hands. That excitement will serve me well, as motivation and foundation to overcome the challenges to come. Truth: the hard work begins now.

Writing this on a 30º day in mid-April, I know even as I wait for the warm weather to come, that getting cold-weather product to market for fall 2018 will keep me occupied until the weather turns cold again. 

Over the next several months, I will be getting the word out, taking lots of meetings and copious notes, and building out the resources to make the Fall's launch a catalyst for Starkweather's future success. 

Thank you to Charles and Elizabeth @LostArts, and to the rest of the cohort founders.

2018/1 Cohort Companies:

CoLab
Founded by Louis Vowell, CoLab is an online collaboration platform that connects artists and alumni from different art universities across the country. CoLab was created to alleviate post-graduation isolation, with the aim of facilitating cross-campus communication and producing collaborative artworks.

Fertile Design
Fertile Design is a biodegradable plastic, partially made of food waste, that is chemically balanced to feed the soil when it is discarded in the ground. This product, which can replace traditional plastics, is the creation of Jessica Gorse.

Fossick
For the artistically inspired, Fossick is a homewares and accessories company with an ethical and sustainable twist. Cate Breasley started the company to a range of uniquely designed, one-off pieces in vibrant colors and patterns that celebrate individuality, creativity, and hidden potential. 

Sojourn Fare
Roman Titus founded Sojourn Fare to make the mushrooms (and their medicinal and culinary potential) more prevalent in the world. The company builds farm-tech software that empowers growers to control, monitor and optimize mushroom cultivation.

Starkweather
Starkweather creates outerwear for urban environments, combining low and high-tech solutions to design products that marry technology, function and aesthetics. Lee Anderson created Starkweather to provide an alternative for people who wish to wear something other than the ubiquitous black puffy jacket all winter, while maintaining warmth and functionality.

Starkweather Founder Talks Fashion and Space with Chicago Tribune Business

Starkweather founder, Lee Anderson, was featured in this Sunday's Chicago Tribune, discussing the commercial space industry in Chicago. Here are some highlights from the story, reported by the Tribune's Ally Marroti:

Jose M. Osorio for the Chicago Tribune

" Picture people living in outer space, breathing inside helmets, going about their daily activities. What are they wearing? At a cosmic cocktail party, are they drinking champagne? Lee Anderson needed to know.

The Chicago-based fashion designer keeps a sketch pad full of fashion astronauts, as she calls them, in which she explores the idea of what an average person would wear in an otherworldly atmosphere.

It’s the intersection of fashion and space — something the founder of outerwear design company Starkweather has thought about a lot. As the space industry develops, Anderson wants her company to link the creative and scientific sides.

Anderson’s not the only entrepreneur looking toward the stars. From one- to two-person startups to Fortune 500 companies, firms throughout the Chicago area are eyeing outer space as their next market. The city may not end up with a rocket launching pad, for example, but Chicago has a role to play in the uncharted industry, some business leaders say, and companies are eager to start braving the final frontier.

Some have already begun.

Space program veterans Boeing and Caterpillar are continuing work to get their technology into the cosmos. There’s a startup looking to elevate planes into orbit, another company that’s aiming to build infrastructure in space, and at least one local law firm that wants to represent companies like them.

To be sure, the capital-intensive industry is still niche, one expert said, and expectations continue to outpace reality. So far, it has been a playground for billionaires like tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Virgin Group’s Richard Branson, who recently announced that Virgin Galactic plans to take tourists into space by the end of next year.

But overall, the economy of space isn’t science fiction anymore.

The global space economy totaled $329 billion in 2016, up from $323 billion the year prior, according to a report from the Space Foundation, a Colorado-based advocacy organization. That includes NASA and military space spending, hardware manufacturing, telecommunications, broadcasting, and other industries.

“There are people interested in space in all of the industries, like myself in fashion,” said Anderson, who also founded FAAR, short for Fashion + Aerospace, an organization focused on education and building a network between the fashion and aerospace industries. “Even if just those people start to become aware of how they might get their foot in the door, we’ll all be better off.” "

Jose M. Osorio for the Chicago Tribune

" Anderson’s Starkweather is another example. The fashion company, which sells most of its products through trunk shows and custom orders, focuses on outerwear for urban environments. But Anderson and her New York-based partner’s approach is one that could apply to space-wear design.

“You design for what you want it to look like, then you find the technology and functional components to make it possible,” she said.

A long-term personal goal is designing spacesuits, Anderson said. Hence the sketch pad, full of far-flung musings.

There’s the Blackhawks fan in space, foam finger and all; the cocktail party attendee with a straw leading from her champagne flute up into her spherical helmet; and the fashionista in a gown, her bracelet shining through the protective sheer membrane that envelops her.

“It’s kind of ridiculous to be making these drawings,” Anderson said, sorting through the sketches. “(But) we have no idea what it’s going to be like, so why not?” "

Page 1 of the business section on Sunday, October 15

Research Library: Celebrating Denim

Here are some of the highlights from our August reference library theme: Denim. 

If you don't already follow our Instagram account, you can find us @starkweatherouterwear

Mood Boards for brand ethos: 2018-2019

CHANEL Drops The Space Theme Down A Notch

Must say it's a bit of a bummer:

From the rocket launch at the Fall/Winter 2017 show to the ad campaign, the space theme was carried through only in prints on sweatshirts...more wearable than the rocket ship, but still. 

Probably a smart marketing decision, knowing their audience. But still...