Randi Ponce of Suite Stitch: The Beauty of Slow Fashion

Meeting Randi

I discovered Randi Ponce of Suite Stitch at a local women’s networking group meeting, and I immediately knew I wanted to share her story with you. Randi is on a mission to change how we look at and use fashion to a more conscience and deliberate approach that is better for people and the planet.

A Passion for Fashion

When talking to Randi, I felt her love for fashion. In fact, she says she has loved fashion for a long time. And her passion centers around two main areas:

• Creating apparel and fashion for all ages with the idea of interchangeable fashion.
• Changing the impact of the fashion industry – in other words, to design for sustainability and for people, to reduce the supply chain, and to make fashion socially responsible.

Rethinking Fashion

Even though Randi started her journey with Suite Stitch 6 years ago, she has been working in the fashion industry longer than that. She studied fashion design at Oregon State. After college she worked in the fashion industry.

While she liked the industry, she started thinking about how “there’s a lot of different impacts that the fashion industry has, whether it’s on people, in the supply chain, or the environment, and kind of the different aspects of the fashion, industry, and how we can make it better.”

She also worked in corporate social responsibility for many years. She ultimately decided to combine her passions for fashion and social responsibility together, and so Suite Stitch was born.

Leaning Into Slow and Intentional Fashion with Suite Stitch

In short, Randi’s purpose behind Suite Stitch is to design timeless, responsible, slow fashion, as an alternative to fast fashion.

So what does Randi Ponce mean by slow and intentional fashion?

Randi describes it like this:

• Design and produce fashion in a slower cycle and in a more sustainable process, with new products launching 2 – 3 times a year.
• Fashion that takes longer to produce, but lasts longer.
• A fashion industry that supports workers at all levels of production.
• Focusing on Intentional Design, which is designing with purpose and making deliberate choices about the design, such as creating garments that are interchangeable and can serve multiple purposes.
• While slow fashion is more expensive, you can wear what you have a lot longer.

Wear What You Have

All of these ideas work together to design and produce fashion in a more sustainable and socially responsible way. But she’s not advocating for people to just take all their fast fashion and throw it away. It’s more than that. Slow fashion is the opposite.

As Randi points out, “the most sustainable thing that you can do is wear what you already have,” even if it’s not slow fashion.

How Fast Fashion Works

In contrast to slow fashion, fast fashion operates in an entirely different way. Randi describes it as follows:

• Fast fashion operates with a fast production cycle. Everything goes to market quickly.
• It operates under the idea of people buying lots of clothes that turn over quickly.
• The designs are trendy so you always need something new.
• Fast fashion is much harder on environment.
• Fast fashion is also much harder on workers, who are mostly paid very little and work in terrible working conditions.
• The quality of the products it poor, which also requires you to buy more products more often.

While Randi says that fast fashion isn’t inherently bad, it does use more materials, generates more waste, and pollutes water at a faster rate.

It Starts With Sustainable and Resourceful Sourcing

Randi is definitely creative and resourceful. In fact, she sources by herself all of the material and labor used to produce her garments.

For example, her fabric comes from a women-owned and operated mill in Los Angeles. They produce custom fabric made from a bamboo and polyester mix that comes with the Tencel Certification.

Randi also located a women-owned factory with co-owners in Colorado and Guatemala. Randi creates the designs, sources, the materials, and then she sends everything to the factory to produce.

Suite Stitch’s Offering

Currently, you can find Suite Stitch products online in the USA. Suite Stitch has two styles available:

1. There’s the Jill Dress, which you can wear two different ways. The design uses discrete zippers at the waist to transform the dress into a blouse.
2. There’s the Joyful Reversible Crop Blouse. You can also wear this garment two ways by changing the neckline from scoop to square.

The Conscious Closet

Suite Stitch also features products from other artisans. Randi wants to curate and highlight products and artisans with similar values, such as fighting human trafficking. Long term, Randi would like Suite Stitch to transition to a resource hub for sustainable fashion and as an avenue for creating a conscious closet.

Randi says a conscious closet consists of not only clothes you love, but is also about being mindful and aware about the clothes you put into the closet.

Smart Advice from Suite Stitch

I asked Randi what advice she would give to new entrepreneurs. She had some really great insights.

1. Figure out your why. Understand why you do what you do to give purpose to your work.
2. Recognize your own capacity. This means accepting how much time you have and how many other resources you have and need. Then, set reasonable goals based on that.
3. Don’t compare yourself to others. You’re on your own path.
4. Seek resources to help you and collaborate with others.

Finding Joy in Fashion

Randi really is passionate about what she’s doing with Suite Stitch. When I asked where she finds joy in her work, she mentioned two specific parts she really loves.

First, she loves the first half of the process – the design and sourcing for the clothes. She said this is the creative part of the process.

But, she also loves the backend of the process. This is when she gets to give back to the community and donate to local organizations. For example, she’s donated her dress and blouse to the Rose Haven women’s shelter, and she has partnered with the YWCA. In fact, she was in their 2024 impact report for products that empower women.

Join the Slow Fashion Movement

Not unlike a lot of artists and creatives, Randi says marketing is the hardest part of her work. So let’s help her, check out the links below and get the word out about what she does!

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**Photos used in this story are by Outlive Creative.**