Another Reason to vote Bloomberg out of office

Everyone knows I like a good rally, so when Celeste Lilore from RESTORE clothing asked for supporters to come rally for "Save the Garment District" I said sure. I wasn't sure what we are rallying for, but I showed up on 39th street and 7th ave and soon found out.

New York City under the Bloomberg admin has been getting re-zoned. We have seen this as hotels popping up all over the city and high rises in neighborhoods that used to have a cap on building height. What that means in the garment district has been sudden death to domestic manufacturing. Buildings that are by law supposed to only rent to garment related businesses at a fixed rent are having a free for all, jacking up the rents and kicking the factories out!

In a time when jobs are few, losing manufacturing in New York means a loss of many jobs. Did you know the garment industry is the 2nd biggest employer in New York?
What this also means is local brands, like Ryann, lose their ability to produce locally and may lose the ability to have a business period!

Bill Thompson came out and spoke in behalf of the garment center and against the hotel developers. Do what you can on election day and make sure you vote to SAVE THE GARMENT DISTRICT!

Pretend You didn't go to Bed at 8pm last night

If you are anything like me you plan on going out most nights, and then some time between, 8:30-10:00 my disco nap turns into morning. But last night I made it out! It was so worth it, what a great night.

I went to Santos and saw the live house music band Tortured Soul with a special performance by the multi-talented Wunmi Girl.
It was a great night with great music. Tortured Soul played a beautiful set of melodic love songs dedicated to various girls one might meet out at a Tortured Soul concert.
Wunmi sang some wonderful songs about consumerism, following your heart and some other deep topics with her famous wide grin on her face.

Check out both of these amazing talents http://www.wunmi.com/
http://www.torturedsoulmusic.com/

Battle Royale Gets a Little Crazy

Performance artist Shaun EL C Leonado likes to shock us with his physical feats. This time I think he may have shocked himself. Look at those crazy pictures! Ryann has worked with Shaun in the past to help him create the characters for this shows. We made a 12 foot long red velvet cape that was worn for a show and then displayed as part of a gallery show.
This time Shaun went up to Toronto Canada and gathered 20 Canadian pro wrestlers, gathered them in a cage, blind folded them and let them rip each other's heads off for hours. Ryann supplied the blind folds for the event, so I guess we are a proud sponsor.
Check out more about Shaun at http://www.elcleonardo.com/

NOW Tradeshow

Ryann participated in a eco-friendly tradeshow September 20-21 called NOW.

The NOW showcase features the newest in progressive, conscious-minded, independent, locally produced fashion design.
http://nowshowcase.org/

The venue was awesome, it was on the top floor of a building in the city giving us an amazing view of the empire state building that could be better seen on the outdoor patio! There was a great turn out, buyers, shoppers, and just curious on-lookers. There were orders being made and networking happening everywhere so I thin everyone was happy and that in turn made me very happy! The cocktail party was a great success with vegan finger foods from Regal Vegan and organic sangria and different wines.

I thank everyone who came out to support us, and everyone who helped (my wonderful interns Josefina and Sabrielle)!