Fyne Chats: Kicking off with KeiSei Magazine
We're kicking off February 1st with our very first Fyne Chats: an interview series of Female Founders who are inspiring us through their sustainability efforts and consciously led lifestyles. Our selection of Female leaders will be sharing insights into their ethical businesses, why sustainability is important to them and top tips to making more Earth-friendly choices. Enjoy!
Our first guest of honour on our Fyne Chats Series is Noemi Plaza, Founder of KeiSei Magazine - a digital destination for sustainable fashion and lifestyle. Noemi aims to make sustainability a more accessible concept by providing easily digestible information on fashion brands, lifestyle guidance and mindfulness.
Read on to find out what Noemi has to say about her business journey, her sources of inspiration and her favourite sustainability tips.
Photo Credit | Noemie Plaza via Instagram
Introduce yourself and tell us what do you do.
I am the founder of KeiSei Magazine, a digital destination for fashion, beauty and lifestyle inspiration.
My work with KeiSei is very diverse, I run the editorial, but I also work on the curation of brands and stories, run interviews, look after the marketing and social media, contributors, partnerships, etc.
My days are pretty busy, but I love my team of contributors, what I am doing, and the reason why we are doing it. Provide useful, educational and entertaining content. Present information based on your product offering and customers’ problems or needs.
What prompted you to start KeiSei?
Everything started with a documentary about the reality behind the fashion industry by Stacey Dooley. I was very shocked about it, the way the industry and our behaviours were affecting vulnerable communities and the planet. This was an inflection point for me, and so I started doing lots of research, trying to find brands that aligned with my values, etc.
Back in 2017/18 you really needed to dig to get information, especially from brands, and I realised that not everyone has the time or the will to do all this research, so this brought me to the desire to make sustainable fashion more accessible and desirable to others.
It is then when I decided to create a platform where information about sustainable fashion and living in general will be easily digestible, where we can talk about the different issues from a positive place, and offer a curation of brands that align with our values and aesthetics.
"I wanted to facilitate the convenience around sustainable fashion, and prove that you don’t have to compromise on style or aesthetics. Aesthetics are very important, people need to love what they own."
Why is sustainability important to you?
I think sustainability should be important to everyone, applying sustainable principles in our lifestyle, the way we do business, the way the world operates, etc. it’s the only way we can sustain our world and ourselves.
However sustainability is also such a complex concept, and can feel daunting for so many or hard to understand.
I like to simplify concepts, and so I try to describe such a complex world in one, which is "respect". For me sustainability is doing things with respect for the nature and others. I believe that when you do things intentionally in balance with nature and people, you will find the answer to do them sustainably, or at least the most sustainable way possible that it can be done.
I actually chose KeiSei as a name exactly because of that, it stands for Respect (Kei) and Purity (Sei).
What inspires you and keeps you motivated?
People are my biggest source of inspiration, my contributors, my friends, business owners that are challenging the status quo, people who are using their voices to inspire others (in a positive way of course), artists, a person’s story, kids playing in the street. I visited Cuba last year (when travelling was allowed!) And I was tremendously inspired by its people, I saw lots of poverty, but I also saw a lot of happiness and joy, real joy. They were present, and you could also feel the sense of community. We don’t need much to be happy, we just need to be present and appreciate every little thing that surround us.
What keeps me going or motivated is also people, when I have bad days or I feel like ‘What’s the point’… I like to think of the people that are still affected today because of systems that need to change, behaviours and lifestyles that we need to be switched to stop feeding the system.
And so the belief that we are inspiring our readers to be more intentional and mindful, keeps me motivated.
Photo Credit | Brittney Weng on Unsplash
What advice do you have for women if they want to start living more consciously?
Don’t compare to others, don’t seek perfection and don’t feel guilty for old habits or patterns that may not have been sustainable. I think that those feelings can trigger anxiety, or the feeling that you are too small for such a big problem to matter.
Start from where you are, and change habits progressively. I think food is the easiest way to start with because you have to fill your fridge every week, so start supporting local farmers, choose organic, minimise those ingredients that can be more damaging to the planet, etc. and then you can start switching your beauty products for organic, plastic free or natural ones, having a more sustainable approach to clothing, etc, etc.
What's your top tip for choosing ethical and sustainable brands to shop from.
Being inquisitive. Read the labels, explore the website, do your research. Does this brand answer all your questions? If it doesn’t, it’s probably because there is something you will not like. If you really love the brand, then contact them and ask them directly.
I also like to choose local or small businesses that know from A to Z their supply chain, and have values that align with mines.
Finally, what is your favourite Fyne piece?
Thats a difficult one! You have many beautiful designs… If I have to choose one, I will go for the Noor Floating Diamond Necklace.
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