Newnan native and fashion designer Christina Yother grew up seeing her grandmother create matching dresses that she and her dolls could wear. With that inspiration, at age 12, Yother taught herself how to use a hand-me-down sewing machine.

“I've always been interested in sewing and fashion and creating pretty much anything,” she says.

Yother attended the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), in Atlanta, where she studied fashion design. She had dreamed of starting her own business and, after graduation, showed her first collection at Vancouver Fashion Week in 2018. The positive response there motivated her to focus on her brand.

Yother began transitioning her hobby into an official fashion line while working for a children’s clothing company in Atlanta and teaching virtual fashion design software classes at SCAD. She started by utilizing the popular crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, a website where budding entrepreneurs with creative ideas can launch their business or product through pre-orders.

Sustainability is a large part of her brand, according to Yother. She wants to avoid overproduction, which she considers a huge contributor to waste in the fashion industry. When she hit her preorder goal on Kickstarter, she placed her first production order with the factory she had worked with in New Orleans.

“All of my fabrics are sustainable or eco-friendly,” Yother says. Her designs incorporate MicroModal, a soft fabric made from beechwood pulp. She also uses recycled jersey, silk and Cupro, a product created with leftover fibers from the cotton production process.

 She recycles her excess fabric into accessories with profits from accessory sales donated to the Atlanta Mission's women's shelter, My Sister's House, to aid women and children faced with homelessness.

Yother’s spring items are inspired by the yoga quote, "Yoga is a dance between control and surrender," and are available for preorder on her website christinayotherdesigns.com. Yother says she plans to share her designs in pop-up shops at local stores later this year.

When Art Meets Technology

Fashion design as an art form depends on technology, and Yother has been educating students and professors alike in virtual classes on fashion design software at SCAD. Virtual fashion design software is a new and innovative technology that numerous brands are adopting due to the sustainability benefits, allowing companies to create a sample or design on the computer in 3D. This technological advance in fashion design significantly reduces the waste previously produced during development.

“Huge brands and small designers like me are starting to use it,” says Yother. “It’s pretty new, so I’m teaching that at SCAD, and I use it in my designs and also for this collection.”

She also can create virtual fittings in varying sizes on models in the design software, a perk for women who want to see how items will look on their form more accurately. This has become more of a necessity since online shopping habits have increased, especially since COVID-19 hit a year ago.

Meet Mollie Burch

Another artist whose work relies heavily on technology is Newnan native Mollie Burch, owner of Crosby, an Atlanta-based women’s clothing line that she founded in 2015 with her business partner, Taylor Montes de Oca.

“Pretty much all of the design happens in the computer,” says Burch. “I’ll usually start my print design by hand just because I think that there is something about an actual touch of a hand-done work, but it always ends up going into the computer and that’s how I tweak and play with colors and finalize designs. I also have to put every print into repeat, which happens in the computer, and then all of the body designs happen in Illustrator, so we use a lot of Adobe programs.”

Working via computer with their manufacturing plant helps Burch and staff communicate quickly with the women-owned production facility in China that they have been working with since founding CROSBY. This saves money and resources as they work on samples digitally, instead of physically, thus eliminating waste from the production phase of clothing design, according to Burch.

“Another big part of our brand is our social mission,” she says. “From the start, we have partnered with an organization based in Atlanta called Wellspring Living.”

Wellspring Living is an Atlanta-based nonprofit that provides at-risk and domestic sex trafficking victims with residential and community-based programs that aid in their recovery. Twice a year, Burch designs a print inspired by a Wellspring Living client, and proceeds from sales of those pieces are donated to Wellspring.

Fashion and social media sites like Instagram go hand-in-hand to showcase work and win new customers and fans.

“I think social media is a very important part of any business right now, especially with COVID and everything going digital, so we’re usually posting there every day,” Burch says.

Appreciative of the support she receives from her hometown of Newnan, Burch promises: “Lots of fun, new, happy things will be coming out soon. Essentially in 2021, we’ll be launching a new collection of goods each month from January to May, so there will be lots of new stuff.”

NCM