Calling All Models!

We are looking for models in the immediate RDU area for a photo shoot with Brooklyn-based photographer Stephen Hurst! 

The photo shoot is scheduled for the following days and times.  If interested you must be available for at least two of the time frames below.

Tuesday, April 10th: 6:00-11:30am; 1:00-7:30pm
Wednesday, April 11th: 6:00-11:30am; 1:00-7:30pm
Thursday, April 12th: 6:00-11:30am; 1:00-7:30pm

Who:

We are looking for female models who are at least 5’4″, 18-25 years old, and have transportation to and from our Durham office.

No previous modeling experience is required and ethnicity/diversity is encouraged!

When:

The casting call is this Friday March 23rd from 12pm-5pm.

Where:

Our lovely Durham, NC office

407A North Mangum Street

Durham, North Carolina

Click here to view map

What to Expect at the Casting Call:

All models will be photographed by our team during the casting call! Please be prepared to take the following photos

A full length standing photo
A full length profile
A waist up image
A head and shoulders picture

What to Expect at the Photo Shoot:

 We will provide meals/refreshments, makeup, hair and styling.

Please be prepared to bring your own personal items to assist in the shoot, such as footwear, extra jeans, accessories, makeup, etc.

If interested please come by our office this Friday between 12pm and 5pm! For ideas of photo shoots we’ve done in the past check out our flickr page! For more info and directions visit our Casting Call Event on Facebook.

Model creates socially-conscious jewelry

Designer Spotlight: Pippa Small

I’m loving London-based jeweler Pippa Small‘s oversized, colorful jewelry. After working under Tom Ford at Gucci and Phoebe Philo at Chloe, she has a fantastic design eye for what’s going to work with a dressed down frock, smart denims and a white tee, or even with a more polished jacket-and-skirt ensemble. Smalls’ new online shop means that her designs are now easily available to anyone with an Internet connection, though her jewelry is available at all sorts of boutiques and is featured on net-a-porter too.

And the designer doesn’t just have an eye for style, she works with what is the world’s 1st registered Fairtrade gold mine in Bolivia, and partnered with Afghanistan-based charity Turtle Mountain, which is working to regenerate the country’s traditional arts. She also produced a collection with the Fairtrade company MADE based in Kibera, a slum area in Nairobi. Read more about these various projects here.

“Pippa believes the art of jewelry making can enhance life and help alleviate poverty and protect precious traditions, helping to grow the confidence of crafts people around the world and reverse the tradition of exploitation associated with the gem industry over the centuries. Her jewelry is collected and coveted by many who appreciate the rough organic, hand made feel of the jewelry.”

Check out the original article on Pippa Small here.

Girl Crush: Jessica Alba

I don’t often gush about celebrities. Of course, that doesn’t mean I don’t watch E! News occasionally or get sucked into a particularly crazy/weird/outrageous celeb headline. But for the most part, I’ve never really found myself obsessing over movie stars or artists. In fact, most of the time I prefer things just the way they are: them in the spotlight, far from my purvey or happy corner of the earth. And I really don’t even like celebrity encounters. The times I’ve been in front of my favorite artist, musician or author, I tend to stay away from the autograph frenzy. I like their music and I like what they do, but it feels like meeting them would spoil things for me, or them, or both of us. Perhaps that’s because we build up these ideas of what the person is like and acts like over time that facing the reality would just be weird. However, as of late, I’ve found myself pretty enamored with Jessica Alba.

Jessica is no doubt a) gorgeous, b) has incredible style and c) has starred in movies great and not so great. Most people see her as a style icon, a mom and an all around good celeb. She’s not posing for Playboy or getting arrested. She’s charitable and comes off as kind, but what I really admire about her is that she’s starting her own business, and the business has a great cause.

Despite the fact that using celebrity for charitable purposes is inherently good, I always feel a little chagrined when a celeb puts their face to a cause but seems totally unrelated to what they truly care about. But starting a business that is inherently good, with your own capital, and building it from scratch? That’s commendable.

Jessica’s company, The Honest Company, makes chemical-free earth-friendly baby and family products. She and her team have been blogging and promoting the process of the company and what they do via Facebook, and I have to admit I’m surprised and impressed by her investment in this company. It feels real, and it feels like she’s tackling a problem by starting with a solution and following through on it. She could obviously be the face of another company or find another way to accomplish her mission without taking the entrepreneurial route, but because she is, and because she’s backing a cause unrelated to clothing lines or perfume, it just feels good. Yep, I have a girl crush on Jessica Alba.

Who’s  your celeb crush? Would you buy goods from The Honest Company?

New Year, New School House

Ok, we’re reeling a bit from an amazing day yesterday. After our CEO and COO unveiled our 2012 collection to Barnes & Noble College (and received rave reviews!), we’re so excited to share our Fall line with you over the next couple of weeks.

The inspiration for this collection spurred out of many amazing conversations and months of soul searching. But in the end, we decided to let our mantra, American Collegiate Craftsmanship, lead the way. Our amazing designer, Emily, alongside Rachel and Susan put together a set of trend boards and hand-crafted designs (literally, she sketches amazing things for us just in her free time!) that are so truly special. Today, I just have to share a snippet of what we’re talking about, so without ado, here’s our inspiration – enjoy!

When I first met Charles Carroll, I could hardly believe there were still people making sweaters in the United States.  Like most young people in my generation, the labels in my closet are like sashes in a Miss Universe pageant: Mexico, China, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Jordan.  Charles, however, has spent the past forty years making clothing in America, and, as I soon discovered, had more than a thing or two to teach us about making garments the old fashioned way.

School House’s fall 2012 collection features the very best collegiate fashion our team has created with our local factory partners.  What started as an effort to bring our t-shirt and hoodie line from Sri Lanka to the United States, evolved into a soul-searching opportunity to elevate our entire brand.  Our mantra—American Collegiate Craftsmanship—speaks to the journey we’ve been on and the products we believe in.

Here, you’ll find oxford shirts crafted in a historic factory in Garland, North Carolina, updated for the college girl of 2012, as well as covetable, cozy knits made by a worker-owned sewing cooperative in the Appalachains.  We even branched into accessories this season, bringing American made school spirit tights and a chunky, irresistable infinity scarf to the line.  Our favorite pieces, however, are Charles’ sweaters—the perfect pairing of our team’s trademark collegiate fashion sense with his old school approach to quality and construction.  The result?  A collection that’s both youthful and classic, modern and vintage, rooted in the legacy of American manufacturing but inspired by 21^stcentury fashion.  We hope you love it.

Thank you, as always, for shopping School House!

xoxo

Rachel

An Ode to Casual Style

I’ve never been over the top in my style. It’s not that I don’t watch Sex in the City and wish I could dress like SJP everyday, but when I think about what I actually wear, feel comfortable in and what makes me feel good, it’s never an over the top dress or heels. I like simplicity, and I like to express myself in different ways than cheetah print and leather. I love refined style – the idea that you can dress up or down an outfit with a good accessory or unexpected twist. And while I find myself following the latest trends and obsessing over the latest runway looks, I think most of the time it’s more authentic to be casual.

Perhaps this is why I always feel myself being drawn to  stripes, earth tones, solids, and the occasional plaid.

I love my heels, but an ideal day is one spent in a beautiful pair of flats, driving mocs or wedge ankle boots.

Accessories are bold and beautiful without being oversized, chunky, in the way or outrageous.

Nothing is better than a v-neck tee, a pair of worn in jeans, riding boots and a beautiful jacket.

Scarves are really a girls best friend – casual, comfortable and at times oh so dressy.

And who could resist a good braid, high ponytail or loose waves to pull off the look.

If you’re anything like me, I think you’re style is perfect. Because at the end of the day, style should be functional, never fussy and leave you feeling ready tackle whatever the day throws at you!

Office Thursdays: Opportunity Threads + School House

Meet Opportunity Threads, School House’s new cut and sew partner. Opportunity Threads is a worker-owned, cut and sew cooperative based in nearby Morganton, NC. Theirs is a company with an emphasis on both fair labor and sustainable environmental practices, buzzwords that here at School House are enough to fill our hearts with joy.

In the not-too-distant past, North Carolina was a powerhouse in the textile and apparel industry. Unfortunately, trends toward outsourcing and a service-based U.S. economy have contributed to an overall decline in North Carolina’s textile and apparel industry, which has traditionally played a fundamental role in providing jobs and revenue for the state.

Enter Opportunity Threads. Founder Molly Hemstreet recognized the need for a new model of labor organizing in the South. Her idea was to take the pieces of this declining infrastructure that has long been a part of North Carolina history and to put the pieces back together in a more sustainable way.

Molly got in touch with worker-ownership pioneer Frank Adams and Maggie’s Functional Organics, a worker-owned sewing cooperative in Nicaragua, to work on the idea of bringing the model of worker-ownership back to the U.S., specifically to an area that has been hit by job loss in the apparel industry. The connection was then made to workers in Morganton, NC, a rural county with high unemployment but two critical resources: manufacturing mills and talented ex-apparel workers.

And so Opportunity Threads was born. Its principles? Dignity for workers, fair wages and worker-ownership, quality and sustainable production. The goal? Not only to recreate textile work in Southern Appalachia in order to change the lives of many workers, but also to build upon this industry by emphasizing fair trade and sustainability.

We at School House are proud to be partnering with Opportunity Threads. We appreciate a company that puts workers at the heart of its business. In this way, their goals align well with our own: to support the sustainable industry at the local level. As Molly says, it’s “not just an idealistic thing, but a way to do good business.”

Mitts Nitts + Our T-shirt Cardigan

Meet Emily. Emily is our (gorgeous) fashion designer. While she may have joined us not so long ago, she will be the lady responsible for bringing you some of our best spring collections (hello neon, americana), and she’s a rock star.

Now, meet our striped t-shirt cardigan. This beauty, which arrived at the office one day after we requested a sample from our knit partner Mitts Nitts, it appeared at School House HQ and we fell in love. It’s so soft. It’s fitted. It’s jersey. The stripes align perfectly. The patch, our TCU one-of-a-kind, is oh so aptly sewn on the pocket. And it has gorgeous gold buttons.

We cannot go any further without paying tribute to Charles and his team at Mitts Nitts, who just so happen to manufacture down the road from our offices in Durham, NC. Did we mention this was produced for us in just one day while they were making other beautiful sweaters and cardigans? Charles is proud of it, and we are, too! We cannot wait to grow our relationship with Mitts Nitts and bring you beautiful t-shirt cardigans like this throughout Spring 2012.

Goodbye Summer, Goodbye Interns

We recently said goodbye to our super talented group of summer interns. As back-to-school approaches and we look to land a new round of fall interns, we pay tribute to our summer trio. Thanks ladies, we miss you already!

Rebekah Felts

Wearing our School House FIT pocket tee & Duke skirt.

“Working at School House this summer has been such an amazing opportunity and learning experience. I was able to explore many different components of the fashion industry including manufacturing, researching and retailing. I was given an interesting insight into the growing college apparel industry. This opportunity has allowed me to grow as a person by teaching me the importance of patience and understanding, and as a professional by allowing me to explore the options available in the fashion job market. I have so much respect for Rachel and her team as they develop School Houses’ ethical standards, and I will miss everyone.”

Sara Gates

Wearing the School House Duke touchdown tee.

“My favorite part about being a School House intern was getting to know the entire School House team. I loved that the office environment was one in which people worked extremely hard but could also have fun while doing so. I also feel lucky to have gotten a different viewpoint of the industry by working in the factory. I had no idea how the manufacturing process worked before interning at School House, and now I feel as though I have a good grasp on it. Working for School House was an amazing experience that will undoubtedly help me in future professional endeavors.”

Jess Hetzel

Wearing our varsity cardigan and School House tee.

“Interning at School House was a wonderful experience. Working in production, I was exposed to a side of the fashion industry that few see. I now have an appreciation for each garment in my closet and the process that went into producing it. I loved each and every member of the School House team and am so thankful for the opportunity!”

Just a Couple of Yalies…

“The Jessicas” (Jessica Simpson & Jessica Alba) were spotted out for a stroll at Yale’s campus for their beaus’ class reunions. We love their laid-back campus style, but think the ladies would feel right at home with some School House Yale merchandise.

Yale T-shirt Dress, $42.98, http://bit.ly/oeKmNH

Yale Pinstripe Pullover Hoodie, $64, http://bit.ly/pp5AYV