#ILLUMINATE 03: Purpose & Sustainability with Tiffany of ShopGyal
Tiffany is owner and creative director of Gyal, “a sustainable, ethically focused, and culturally driven” brand with roots in Jamaica and Nigeria.
First things first: how are you? We’re in such a weird time right now so I just want to start there.
I'm blessed I'm good. I was thankful enough to escape to Jamaica for a month to spend with family recently so I got a refresh and I got my mental right. Now I'm back with a more positive attitude.
That’s great to hear. Now let’s talk about Gyal! Who are you and what’s your brand?
I'm Tiffany, and I'm Jamaican, American. I had been looking for a way to help my people-especially right now. Jamaica pretty much operates off of tourism and tourism is barely a thing right now so a lot of the artisans there are struggling. It's just been so nice to find people from my parish, specifically St. Anne, who are super, super talented and give them work. It’s just been such a blessing. I also did the same thing in Nigeria last year, which was amazing.
So yeah, I feel like it's my purpose. My purpose is to help my people.
How do you find these artisans?
I usually find artisans through either word of mouth or walking the markets, which is pretty much what I did in Nigeria. The people are out there and they're ready to work and hustle. It's just a matter of finding them.
How has COVID been with that whole process?
It's been really difficult because of shipping times and it's happening to a lot of small business owners. It's just crazy. I had a shipment of Calabash bags that was shipped to me maybe three months ago and I just received them. Literally just received them. My website has been out of stock for ages.
I’ve been eyeing that white one-shoulder dress!
That one too! Okay, so the yarn is coming from somewhere and then it has to go to Nigeria, and then it's all made by hand, so she has to take time to make it. I'm trying to just prep that dress for next year because I know there's a lot of people that want it.
In Jamaica, my bag maker wasn't able to travel from parish to parish to get the supplies that he needed because the bags are made out of a fruit. So he has to go from his parish to the countryside and go chop down the fruits and he wasn't able to do that. So it took a toll on us all but we're back and we're better and I'm just glad that everybody's safe. I didn't even want them to have to travel during the outbreak, you know? God got me.
Wait, can we pause at the fact that you're saying that the person making these bags is chopping the stuff down from a tree?! It’s coming straight from the source - that’s incredible.
It's a fruit! I always have to stress to people that there are things out in nature that can be useful and even if 30 years from now, if you're done with the bag you can just toss it back into nature and it can sprout into a tree again!
I love that so many places are popping up that are trying to be more sustainable. You can see that with Gyal and its mission.
Sustainability is not easy at all and it can be very expensive so I just commend anybody who's actually trying. I feel like when people hear sustainable they just think of perfection but nobody's perfectly sustainable. Nobody’s perfect, but we all just have to try the best way that we can
On Gyal you feature bags, dresses, and even bowls. It’s like a whole lifestyle brand. How do you decide what you want to feature?
I usually go to the markets and see what people are good at making because I don't want to take an artisan completely out of their comfort zone. And when somebody knows their craft, they KNOW their craft. My bag maker - I saw him and I saw these beautiful bags and I was just like “Wow, that's so cool, can we tweak this, can we tweak that?” And then once I found out what his skills were. I was like, “Okay what else can I make?” Everybody's at home right now, I'm pretty sure a lot of people aren’t going to be traveling, why not make coconut bowls? He was able to do it for me and then I said, “What is going to go with a coconut bowl?” Duh, a wooden spoon! Even though he didn't personally know how to make the wooden spoons, he had somebody who could make them. I just felt so good to give him a job, and then give his friend a job as well. I was just like, “Wow, I feel good right now! I’m helping my people!”