In God We Trust

Shana Tabor is owner and founder of Brooklyn-based label In God We Trust. She's funny, down-to-earth and talented - and maybe the first person I've ever wanted to legitimately describe as "rad."

After buying one of the brand's shirts (seen here in last week's outfit post) and talking a little bit to the sales staff about its 'Made in the USA' tag, I decided to set up a tour of the IGWT studio. Because if this blog is about anything, aside from pushing my gaymo agenda, it's about pushing my liberal hipster agenda where I shop locally and try to convince you to do the same or else all the whales will die. Shana was obliging enough to let me stop by her label's Greenpoint, Brooklyn storefront-cum-studio to find out how it all gets done, who's behind it and what's in a name.

Shana went to school for jewelry design and used to work as a wholesaler. In a sort of "reverse-scaling" move, she started In God We Trust small - really small. “I’d make like, three of one dress and when we sold one I’d replace it.” That's changed now, but the company still produces on a tiny scale relative to the production standards most of us are used to.

"In the garment district, in New York anyways, it's still kinda hard to find people that will work with small runs," says Shana. "To go overseas to do production you need huge quantities...so I knew that wasn't even a possibility." All of IGWT's materials are sourced in the city, and all of the metals used for castings are recycled. They work with different sources in New York to find textiles and have everything that's not produced in Greenpoint produced in the garment district.

Click through to continue reading PLUS there's a video!

BIG APPLE BROOKLYN

Just a little taste of life in the big apple...mostly Brooklyn, though. This is the last from my batch of $1 disposable cameras, *tear* - check out the other roll of film here.

spatial relations

I have this dream that apartamento will ask me to write one of the introspective essays that opens their magazine, but I'm not holding my breath for that to happen anytime soon and so I wrote this for *fruitpunch, maybe you've heard of it, possibly you're reading it right now (meta).

It's hard to pick a starting point for this post, a lifestyle post when my lifestyle has so drastically changed. You might think it should be easy, as I'm beginning a new life here in New York, but I find myself looking back on my former living situation (and its style) and feel in limbo. I am enjoying a borrowed space that cannot and won't be mine, though I've come to find much contentment here. Knowing that my enjoyment of this place has an expiration date hasn't diminished the pleasure of folding myself into that Eames lounger with a book of Wendell Berry essays, nor can I truthfully say that it has made me put any extra effort into savoring every minute that I can pretend this is all mine. Really I'm just ignoring the fact that this is another man's home; that outside the frames of these artfully cropped and filtered photos there is art that I don't understand, records I didn't collect and books I've never read. I am a transplant, continually adjusting and reorienting to my surroundings. This room is another man's canvas and I am lucky to feel at home here (noted: good taste is good taste).

I thought I had found my next step here, for about a day. The woman renting out the extra room in her Brooklyn two-bedroom was the definition of my definition of a cool roommate and I even liked her dog. I'd planned out the post introducing my new space and everything - her pug would've been in the photos and it would've been so cute you could just throw yourself off a rooftop garden. But, alas, it was not meant to be...but, really...I just want a clean white room where I can light a candle and sleep on a pile of my clothes, is that so much to ask for? I'll let you know if I find out...

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