Christopher Zoukis's Blog - Posts Tagged "san-francisco"
San Francisco Book Review Shares its Thoughts on College for Convicts
College for Convicts has been reviewed in the San Francisco Book Review!
Reviewer Stacia Levy gave us a glowing 5/5 review, and we couldn't be more happy!
"This is an amazing work in many ways. The author is, himself, incarcerated, but this book goes beyond the personal argument for prison education, so much so that I was unaware of the author's background until reading his biography."
Read the full review here:
http://sanfranciscobookreview.com/201...
Reviewer Stacia Levy gave us a glowing 5/5 review, and we couldn't be more happy!
"This is an amazing work in many ways. The author is, himself, incarcerated, but this book goes beyond the personal argument for prison education, so much so that I was unaware of the author's background until reading his biography."
Read the full review here:
http://sanfranciscobookreview.com/201...
Poppy von Frohlich
Haute couture is big business in San Francisco, the City by the Bay, a hip and with-it kind of place. Lots of money, lots of well-paid high-tech drones working for start-ups. Still, since haute couture’s business model revolves around super-expensive exclusivity that then trickles down to the masses by way of knock-offs and prêt-à-porter lines, even well-paid techies can’t afford the good stuff. The reigning business model either cuts them out of the running or relegates them to looking just like everyone else. Bummer!
Branding is essential to haute couture’s business model. The more exclusive the brand the more the lumpenproletariat lust for it. Everyone wants to feel special and be perceived as one of the elite. The appeal is emotional, which, as most marketing experts are quick to point out, is why people buy things. It’s what keeps businesses in business. Luxury car makers operate on the same principle – BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, Infiniti, Ferrari, Tesla, ad nauseam. People want what they can’t afford or can’t have. It’s human nature.
This means most people are doomed to unrequited lust. Unless they marry well or happened to invest in Google when it was less than $100 a share, it’s not happening. They should just resign themselves to shopping at Walmart, Target or Forever 21.
Maybe not.
Enter the mistress of mechanical advantage, whose name is Trudy Hodges. Ms. Hodges in not only a sorceress with needle and thread, she also has a happy knack for business. She created a unique business model for her own line of clothing, one that maintains exclusivity but doesn’t require customers to hock their first-born child or make a deal with the Devil or sell their body parts on eBay.
The company is called Poppy von Frohlich. And even though the name sounds like a cross between Pippy Longstocking and the Austrian army, the designs are anything but Teutonic. PvF’s clothing spans the spectrum from avant-garde to retro, including Italian wool coats with cotton flannel or thick satin linings and cotton crochet dresses. But no matter what, it’s just about fashion, always. And it’s green: no muss, no fuss, no waste; it isn’t a line in which half the garments are destined for the dump.
Von Frohlich’s distinctive business model is based on limited exclusivity. Every six weeks Ms. Hodges allows her Muse to envelop her. She designs her offerings and sews samples of them. The designs are posted on her website. One or two orders for each size – from 0 to 12 – are taken. The orders are taken to a local factory, where they are produced. That particular pattern is then retired, never to be produced again. Since each garment is one of, at most, 24 similar items, customers are guaranteed limited exclusivity. And they’re made in the good old U.S.A., in U.S. factories using homegrown labor. No outsourcing of jobs by Poppy von Frohlich.
As Ms. Hodges said, “I specialize in limited edition and quick turn-around times, so this format could only be accomplished by using domestic manufacturing. I enjoy the factories I work with and like to shake the hands of the people making Poppy von Frohlich. Working with factories nearby also makes it possible for me to run my business from home while being a full-time mom.”
The cost of Poppy von Frohlich’s limited editions runs from $90 to $500, with wool coats from $400 to $700. Techies can afford that. Plus, they get to support a local Mom & Pop outfit that invented a successful business model, thumbing its nose at the monoliths of haute couture.
Branding is essential to haute couture’s business model. The more exclusive the brand the more the lumpenproletariat lust for it. Everyone wants to feel special and be perceived as one of the elite. The appeal is emotional, which, as most marketing experts are quick to point out, is why people buy things. It’s what keeps businesses in business. Luxury car makers operate on the same principle – BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, Infiniti, Ferrari, Tesla, ad nauseam. People want what they can’t afford or can’t have. It’s human nature.
This means most people are doomed to unrequited lust. Unless they marry well or happened to invest in Google when it was less than $100 a share, it’s not happening. They should just resign themselves to shopping at Walmart, Target or Forever 21.
Maybe not.
Enter the mistress of mechanical advantage, whose name is Trudy Hodges. Ms. Hodges in not only a sorceress with needle and thread, she also has a happy knack for business. She created a unique business model for her own line of clothing, one that maintains exclusivity but doesn’t require customers to hock their first-born child or make a deal with the Devil or sell their body parts on eBay.
The company is called Poppy von Frohlich. And even though the name sounds like a cross between Pippy Longstocking and the Austrian army, the designs are anything but Teutonic. PvF’s clothing spans the spectrum from avant-garde to retro, including Italian wool coats with cotton flannel or thick satin linings and cotton crochet dresses. But no matter what, it’s just about fashion, always. And it’s green: no muss, no fuss, no waste; it isn’t a line in which half the garments are destined for the dump.
Von Frohlich’s distinctive business model is based on limited exclusivity. Every six weeks Ms. Hodges allows her Muse to envelop her. She designs her offerings and sews samples of them. The designs are posted on her website. One or two orders for each size – from 0 to 12 – are taken. The orders are taken to a local factory, where they are produced. That particular pattern is then retired, never to be produced again. Since each garment is one of, at most, 24 similar items, customers are guaranteed limited exclusivity. And they’re made in the good old U.S.A., in U.S. factories using homegrown labor. No outsourcing of jobs by Poppy von Frohlich.
As Ms. Hodges said, “I specialize in limited edition and quick turn-around times, so this format could only be accomplished by using domestic manufacturing. I enjoy the factories I work with and like to shake the hands of the people making Poppy von Frohlich. Working with factories nearby also makes it possible for me to run my business from home while being a full-time mom.”
The cost of Poppy von Frohlich’s limited editions runs from $90 to $500, with wool coats from $400 to $700. Techies can afford that. Plus, they get to support a local Mom & Pop outfit that invented a successful business model, thumbing its nose at the monoliths of haute couture.
#StandWithHer
A powerful new video has been produced by the Essie Justice Group, a San Francisco-based organization dedicated to supporting women with incarcerated loved ones. The #StandWithHer project highlights the disproportionate impact that mass incarceration (and mandatory minimums which feeds cyclically into incarceration rates) has on women.
When we talk about the impact on the family members left behind when someone enters the penal system, we’re usually speaking in abstractions; the lives we envision are based on some cookie cutter image garnered from snippets of pop culture. But this video, and the #standwithher project, puts real faces to those abstractions, lends voice to their stories.
These women have been made to feel invisible, stigmatized by a society that, more often than not, blames them for their situation. Why does that matter? Because isolation and stigmatization lead to perpetuating cycles of poverty and despair. Beyond the social stigma, visitors are often treated as prisoners themselves, humiliated for their efforts to help connect prisoners with the outside world (a critical element in the rehabilitation process).
Many are under the misapprehension that being imprisoned is a “free ride” for those involved; nothing could be further from the truth. While obviously the state pays for the basics of room and board, families are forced to bear other costs themselves. A simple weekend visit can cost a family thousands. Maintaining the most basic of communication through emails and phone calls quickly adds up. That’s not to mention the fact that many of the most basic personal hygiene products have to be purchased (this has become an increasingly serious issue in women’s prisons, where menstrual products beyond an unhygienic maximum of five per week are only available at a cost); funds to purchase those items come from loved ones outside.
What makes this movement so important, is that it does not simply call on us to reform our penal system (which though the structural dimensions to America’s culture of mass incarceration are a central feature of their mission), but to effect meaningful change designed to ensure that those left behind aren't also punished by the system. I urge you to take a moment to watch and share this video, to help raise the profile of these women so that the we, as a society, can better understand the challenges they face, how we can support them, and how we can create a better future for future generations of women.
When we talk about the impact on the family members left behind when someone enters the penal system, we’re usually speaking in abstractions; the lives we envision are based on some cookie cutter image garnered from snippets of pop culture. But this video, and the #standwithher project, puts real faces to those abstractions, lends voice to their stories.
These women have been made to feel invisible, stigmatized by a society that, more often than not, blames them for their situation. Why does that matter? Because isolation and stigmatization lead to perpetuating cycles of poverty and despair. Beyond the social stigma, visitors are often treated as prisoners themselves, humiliated for their efforts to help connect prisoners with the outside world (a critical element in the rehabilitation process).
Many are under the misapprehension that being imprisoned is a “free ride” for those involved; nothing could be further from the truth. While obviously the state pays for the basics of room and board, families are forced to bear other costs themselves. A simple weekend visit can cost a family thousands. Maintaining the most basic of communication through emails and phone calls quickly adds up. That’s not to mention the fact that many of the most basic personal hygiene products have to be purchased (this has become an increasingly serious issue in women’s prisons, where menstrual products beyond an unhygienic maximum of five per week are only available at a cost); funds to purchase those items come from loved ones outside.
What makes this movement so important, is that it does not simply call on us to reform our penal system (which though the structural dimensions to America’s culture of mass incarceration are a central feature of their mission), but to effect meaningful change designed to ensure that those left behind aren't also punished by the system. I urge you to take a moment to watch and share this video, to help raise the profile of these women so that the we, as a society, can better understand the challenges they face, how we can support them, and how we can create a better future for future generations of women.
