Kami Speer
My name is Kami, which means sacred spirits that take the form of things in the landscape - wind, rain, mountains, trees, rivers, and fertility.
I learned to sew by sitting next to my grandmother when I was 5 years old. I was fascinated watching her hands create garments and I wanted to know how to do it myself. I went on to study Couture Dressmaking at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology. My love for this work led me to spend twenty years working in the fashion industry in New York City. For part of this time I was a member of the design team for Raven & Sparrow by Stephanie Seymour. This lingerie and sleepwear line sold exclusively to Barneys and was featured in multiple television appearances, including The Undoing, in which Nicole Kidman wore several pieces from the line.
Even though I loved my time working in the fashion industry, I also felt hesitation. Many of the practices of fast fashion that are harmful both to the planet and to a consumers’ sense of self love left me longing for a way to create that didn’t cause harm. I became clearer on what my abilities were and how I wanted to share them. I was led to this offering when I began dyeing fabric naturally with plants. The plants informed the process completely and led me in a direction that seems to me now almost magical. They brought me back to a place of pure love for the work and answered the question for me of how to protect, not harm, the wearer and the planet.
I am here to empower women to feel beautiful in their own skin and to provide dresses that enhance who they already are. I hope when we connect that you feel accepted, inspired, and part of the creative process. This offering remembers a time when women made and created garments for other women and members of their family. It was a process informed by need, function, protection and ritual, but also most certainly by love. I look to reclaim the ancient and wise ways in how we dress, what we wear, and why.
My intention is to be a conduit and to listen, and to allow what wants to come through to come through. I now know that the result is far more beautiful than anything I could conjure in my mind alone. I believe by weaving earth elements into a dress, they will offer the wearer all of the beauty and protection that the earth offers us abundantly each day. And that in turn the natural dyes and the slow, handmade process return something to the earth - and mark me and its wearer as ones who were listening.
