Kyle
Duke University Alum Rachel Weeks set out on a mission to create a line of fashion apparel that’s socially conscious. School House started when Weeks went to Sri Lanka in 2007 on a mission to build a socially responsible clothing company. She was able to do that with her first college t-shirt from her alma mater Duke University.
The first School House line was manufactured in Sri Lanka and it helped support a living wage factory there. While she was maintaining an ethically social responsible clothing line while using a living wage factory in Sri Lanka she found the opportunity to come full circle in 2011 and brought her clothing line back home to North Carolina, but that wasn’t before Weeks was able to triple the wages in that Sri Lankan factory.
While Weeks felt great about what she was doing for the Sri Lankan factory she found out later on that the factory had taken on more and more orders from other companies and the School House orders were getting pushed to the back. With an angel investment Weeks was able to hire textile and apparel expert Susan Williams who had over 25 years of experience with brands like Jockey, Levi Strauss and the Gap. The two of them together did a cost analysis and decided that home was where School House needed to be.
More after the break
School House CEO Rachel Weeks (L) and designer Colleen McCann observe a photo shoot (photo: Duke Magazine)
Her U.S. operations grew quickly. American Express’ Open Forum reports that Weeks currently has three factories, one in North Carolina, one in Georgia and one in Los Angeles. She’s brought her social mission home by helping to keep American factory workers employed. It’s also benefit the business greatly as her sweater factory is five minutes from her office.
In September of this year Weeks won the highly coveted “Outstanding Woman Owned Small Business Award” from the SCORE foundation and presented by Constant Contact.
Today School House has over 100 colleges and universities as customers. Her designs are great and we liken them to the trendy and hip collegiate brand Jack Wills. Their lines are affordable for college students and still have an equally as important (if not even more important) social conscious to them by being not just a woman owned business but keeping everything in the United States.
Weeks reported that School House posted $790,000 in revenues in 2011 and is on pace to reach $1.8 million in 2012.
“I could not have anticipated this in a million years, but we’ve started hearing from customers that they’re with us because of our social mission, which has evolved into Made in America,” says Weeks told the American Express Open Forum. “People are so excited about buying domestic.
Source: AmEx Open Forum
Visit School House here
