Feral Childe is a womenswear line by bi‐coastal design duo Moriah Carlson (Brooklyn, NY) and Alice Wu (Oakland, CA), who both come from a fine arts background. Each season, Feral Childe's collaborative drawings form the basis of the collection's textile prints, wry construction details, and absurdist accessories. Feral Childe combines thoughtful choice of materials and attention to quality construction to make smart, wearable silhouettes for forward-thinking women. Feral Childe is proudly manufactured in New York City.

History

When Alice and Moriah first met (back in the 20th century), it was over a sink full of broken eggshells they were hired to wash for an art installation. The fast friends imagined creating a compact wardrobe for their new lives in New York. In their next day jobs, each worked in an office and faxed the other drawings and ideas every morning. In their off-hours, the pair scoured downtown for uncommon fabrics, tried their creations on each other, and draped and slashed at the clothes until they were satisfied. Alice and Moriah made up stories to go along with the results of this wild and untamed creative process and called it FERAL CHILDE. Taking their outfits to the streets, passersby stopped them on subways and in stairwells, asking where they could buy such clothes. Feral Childe's playful silhouettes and curiously elegant tailoring gained a devoted following, at home and abroad, among young and old, traditionalists and renegades. Today, Feral Childe is represented by independent-minded stockists who display Feral Childe clothing and accessories among their rarest finds.

Sustainability

Each piece in the collection has been designed with sustainability in mind, from the choice of fabric, printing and dyeing treatments, to details such as buttons and trim. 100% of our styles fulfill at least two or more of these standards:

-use of sustainable fibers, whether chemical-free (such as organically grown cotton or hemp, which requires no pesticides), closed-process (Tencel instead of rayon), upcycled (recycled hemp fibers, batting made from recycled PET soda bottles), or surplus (mill-end designer wool coating, overstock nylon mesh)

-manufacturing locally in New York City. Our clothes are sewn in a sun-filled factory in NYC's Garment Center. The factory is owned by a husband and wife team who oversee healthy working conditions and fair wages for their employees.

-conscientious application of printing and dyeing (less water-intensive digital printing for the silks; water-based silk screening; low-impact dyes; use of domestic printers and dyehouses)

-producing to order, to prevent excess inventory

-responsible disposal of production waste: remnants are sent to a textile recycling facility, donated to crafters and schools, or recycled into accessories and trim for future collections

-use of vintage deadstock buttons or those made from shell or tagua nut

While all cut and sew is done domestically, for the past few seasons we have produced limited editions of knits handmade in Bolivia by a women's cooperative, through Madres y Artesanas. Madres y Artesanas connects designers with women-owned small businesses in South America, providing fair wages, job training and childcare in addition to promoting the traditional skills of knitting, crotcheting and weaving through contracting small production runs with designers from abroad. Whenever possible we use locally-sourced and color-grown baby alpaca yarns.

Feral Childe is committed to ethical business practices, providing transparency about our sourcing and manufacturing techniques upon request to our customers. We limit our use of polybags and plastic hangers, re-using these for future production cycles, and ship with recycled materials whenever possible. We keep printed materials to a minimum; our hangtags are on recycled paperstock avoiding gloss and foil treatments. We support our communities by participating in educational outreach, teaching workshops, and sharing our experiences and resources with other designers; we partner with our retailers to help promote and sell the collection. We value customer feedback and look forward to hearing from you.