In honor of the power of smart women leaders, take a look at our 2013 cover story on clothing designer Elaine Fisher.
I’ve known for some time that Elaine Fisher is someone who brings strong values to her business ventures, but she really caught our attention during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, when her company’s headquarters in Irvington, New York, flooded, drastically reducing her year-end business shipments.
Despite hauling out a dozen dumpsters full of $1.5 million worth of damaged equipment from the offices and a nearby lab store, Elaine said at the time, “It was just stuff.”
You can only imagine the emotions a chief executive might feel if he saw his products floating in dirty water. Elaine and her crew didn’t stop there. They quickly mobilized — organizing carpools, quick meeting places, and arranging interest-free loans for staff in need of cash during the crisis. This kind of flexibility and care told us that this was a company with a human face.
Smart leadership matters
A year after Sandy, I was at the (partially) restored Eileen Fisher HQ, learning about how the company takes care of its clothes: from helping a Chinese silk dresser use fewer chemicals and less water to starting a recycled clothing program, where customers return clothes they no longer use, with the proceeds helping to improve girls’ lives. There is a yoga/meditation room. In another room, young women are cutting out pictures from magazines and learning about the stories the media tell about them.
In an industry where fads and heavily marked-up products produced in exotic sweatshops are the norm, Elaine Fisher focuses on the life cycle of a garment, from cradle to grave, as well as the future of those who wear it and those who make it.
