Production in the Year 2025

It’s hard to know what to say. The world’s news is so much all at once in an onslaught. 

We’ve got this unbelievably ever-changing landscape. Will there be tariffs? Maybe! Are we going to have to protect our friends who are being targeted for their identity? Probably. Are we horrified? Yes. Are we thinking it might be nice to move to another country? Yes, but what about all our friends? The lives we’ve built? Our families, our business? 

The factory in New York that we work with is changing hands. Again. 
The woman who runs it is leaving the country. She’s Taiwanese and has family in Taiwan. I don’t know if she’s leaving because the factory is not profitable or because she does not want to be part of however this next chapter of history plays out. She’s selling and leaving. I don’t blame her. 

So maybe our NYC factory is closing? Slowing down? Maybe there’s a 10% tariff on products from China? Maybe 25% from Mexico? How is that all supposed to work? Might make things a lot harder. I can’t even really sink my teeth into these problems because they don’t seem like they will stick or if they do, they will stick for everyone and it’ll be a shitshow. So then I go back to what we might eat for dinner. Let’s just do pasta for the 4th time this week. It’s reliable (meaning my two year old toddlers will usually eat it) and probably good with asparagus and…? Canelini beans? 

My brain doesn’t want to stick to the hard questions, like how do we make our product in so much uncertainty, it just slides off them like a Teflon pan. I wake up at 3am and worry on them, when nobody else is awake. Or maybe lots of people are… wondering how we navigate. Wondering how we protect our children, or how we talk to that neighbor or parent, or how we re-teach the country how to have empathy, or whether it might be smarter to run away and live somewhere that is less busted. But then it seems like anywhere we go we will have some other problem. 

Not exactly comparable, but the gaming industry is doing dramatic and not very creative things (at least the big corpo dudes). I know this because David is always listening to YouTubers say it. I don’t know who the YouTubers are, but they make good points. A lot of what we do is collaborate with other companies and try to make something exciting for specific licenses and fandoms. 

On all sides, it looks like we’re on a downswing. How do we as a small business navigate? How can we stabilize our costs in the rollercoaster of international politics? How are we supposed to be strong and give people room to feel extraordinary when we are profoundly afraid? 

Ok so we are afraid. So now what? How do we move forward? We may not want to be afraid, but we are. I am. Pretending otherwise won’t change a thing. 

Hope (as defined by Brene Brown) is the feeling of possibility based on the experience of overcoming past hardships plus a plan, or something actionable that you can do. 

So, what can I do?

I am parting ways with hopelessness. And I am going to try and notice my overwhelm. Overwhelm is a very reasonable reaction, I’ll tell myself. Take it slow. Make a cup of tea, keep calm and carry on. Do the next right thing, even if that thing is a single email or a load of laundry. 

What single small thing can I do today to move the dial for myself, for my community, for my kiddos, or my household, or for my business? 

Our mission is to make people feel extraordinary. 

People count. This is one of our core values. Meaning we really mean it. Self Expression and how we dress is simply an extension of making room for people to count. People in all their multitudinous complexity belong here. We would love to show more genders and colors than we currently do. If you don’t see yourself on our website, we would love to photograph you and make space for you. It’s always been a resource issue. 95% of the photos on our site are people who worked at or currently work at Volante Design because they are easily coordinated. 

We have some other core values, but this one feels important to say loudly right now. 

You count, you are already extraordinary. We’re here to help you dress for the version of yourself that you can believe in. Feeling powerful or strong is not so easy. If we can help you feel 1% more like the main character in your life, we are succeeding. 

One day at a time. We are not alone. You are not alone. What’s the next right thing?