Amber Valletta & Fern Mallis Host Goodwill NYNJ Sustainable Fashion & COVID Fundraising Virtual Event 1/28

The Goodwill Evening of Treasures will also honor Don M. Wilson III for his 20 years of devoted service as member of the Goodwill NYNJ Board of Directors. The event will also feature some of the people Goodwill NYNJ has helped throughout the pandemic.

Revenue from the Goodwill Evening of Treasures, Goodwill stores and ShopGoodwill supports Goodwill NYNJ’s placement, training, on-the-job coaching, and retention services that support individuals with disabilities and other barriers on their journey to employment and a better life for themselves and their families. Goodwill NYNJ also helps individuals with psychiatric disabilities stay healthy and on the job. In 2019, Goodwill NYNJ provided services for over 26,000 people. In the same period, Goodwill NYNJ help nearly 2,000 people get jobs, including close to 800 individuals with disabilities, outside its stores at hospitals and health care centers, tech and accounting firms, and NYC agencies.

While a new movement in sustainable fashion is trying to make changes to the heavy pollution caused by the fashion industry, Goodwill NYNJ has been a sustainable fashion powerhouse for nearly 106 years.

• The fashion industry is the second largest polluter in the world just after the oil industry
• 20% of industrial water pollution comes from textiles treatment and dyes
• The average consumer disposes of 70 pounds of textiles per person per year
• 84% of textile waste is sent to landfills at a cost of $3.7 billion.
• Textiles production also uses around 93 billion cubic meters of water annually, contributing to problems in some water-scarce regions.

In only one year, Goodwill NYNJ helps people re-purpose more than 43 million pounds of clothing and household goods, successfully diverting them from landfills.

According to a survey conducted in April 2020 by McKinsey & Co., two-thirds of surveyed consumers state that it has become even more important to limit impacts on climate change. Additionally, 67 percent consider the use of sustainable materials to be an important purchasing factor and 88 percent of respondents believe that more attention should be paid to reducing pollution.

“I cannot imagine a better way to begin the New Year than by shopping at Goodwill for a good cause – hunting and selecting 32 items and then turning 8 of them into one look for the Evening of Treasures auction on January 28th!” says Yeohlee Teng.

“As the Fashion industry is one of the world’s largest polluters, I believe that the mission of Goodwill NYNJ is more important than ever! Goodwill stores have been recycling clothing long before sustainability became a buzzword in our industry. So I am delighted to co-host this virtual gala with the environmental activist and friend Amber Valletta and to Zoom with 3 sustainably committed designers- my friends Yeohlee Teng, Tracy Reese, and Greg Lauren who all created Good Design’s with Goodwill!” says Fern Mallis.

“I am thrilled to be part of Goodwill NYNJ’s first ever virtual Evening of Treasures raising much needed support for Goodwill’s COVID CRISIS FUND. While Goodwill is best known for the sustainable fashion work they have been doing in their stores for over 100 years, less is known about the work that Goodwill does for thousands of people each year who are unemployed or underemployed, or with mental health issues, or developmental and intellectual disabilities. With this work that is truly life changing, Goodwill NYNJ is giving people, who might not otherwise have the resources they need to live, a chance at more than just survival. Their services are life affirming, especially in these times of COVID, when many people are unemployed and needing them the most. I couldn’t be more pleased that the Evening will celebrate both the power of this work and also sustainable fashion, both of which are close to my heart,” says Amber Valletta.

“Goodwill NYNJ is leading the way to change the cycle of creating new clothes that are later discarded, hurting the environment, with our mission + sustainable double impact. COVID-19 greatly affected our retail business and revenue-funded services, so we are thankful for your generous donations to the Goodwill COVID Crisis Fun to help us provide vital employment and support services to your neighbors during this time of need,”,” says Katy Gaul-Stigge, Goodwill NYNJ President and CEO. “We are grateful to our now lifetime best friends hosts Amber and Fern, guest designers Yeohlee Teng, Tracy Reese, and Greg Lauren, as well as FIT and Parsons design students , some of whom used our textiles for their senior year final project, Isabella Kostrzewa, Jiwon Ra, Bea Atkins, Kessler Vogel, Constanza Orlowskiea, and Ashlyn Simpson for upcycling and donating fabulous pieces for our auction.”

IN addition to treasure hunting at Goodwill stores, customers may shop online from the comfort of their homes at ShopGoodwill.com/NYNJ

About the guest designers and donors:

Yeohlee Teng
Malaysia-born award-winning designer is based in New York City, where she established her house, YEOHLEE Inc. Teng has been incorporating sustainable practices into her work since she launched her own company in 1981. A true pioneer of the movement, Teng is widely known for her signature “zero-waste” philosophy, meaning no scraps of fabric go unused. Teng’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions worldwide and is part of the permanent collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Tracy Reese
American designer whose design philosophy is rooted in a commitment to bringing out the beauty in women of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Reese launched her namesake fashion brand in 1998 in New York City and over the past twenty plus years, she has expanded to include three sub-brands (Plenty, Frock! And Black Label) brick-and-mortar stores in NY and Tokyo and partnerships with stores from Barney’s and Nordstrom to Anthropologie. In 2009, First Lady Michelle Obama wore a custom Tracy Reese gown to the DNC. Tracy Reese is evolving and has pivoted toward a more sustainable path. Reese recently moved her design studio to her hometown, Detroit and continuing her journey into sustainability with her latest Hope for Flowers collection.

Greg Lauren
Pioneer in sustainable fashion. Upcycling was part of Greg Lauren’s repertoire long before we were calling it that. Lauren subverted and recontextualized menswear archetypes, cutting Savile Row suits out of vintage army duffels or tearing apart and reconstructing vintage rowing blazers. Earlier this year, he introduced a new project, GL Scraps, in which his team repurposes all of their leftover fabric bits and pieces; they could be off-cuts of vintage denim, linen, wool, or even fragments of the tents Lauren transforms into parkas. Sometimes the scraps are sewn into patchwork designs on trousers or jackets, or Lauren’s team will arrange them side by side, like puzzle pieces, to create actual bolts of yardage, which they call Scrapwork.

Kerry Irvine
Abstract expressionist painter donated an art piece with recycled fashion.

Allison Ko
FIT student donated an upcycled knitwear piece.

Monica Phromsavanh, CEO and Founder of Equal Hands, a sustainable lifestyle brand, donated an upcycled vintage rugged leopard print jacket with trademark Equal Hands rivets and roped embellishment.

Beth Stankard, Goodwill NYNJ BOD Member, donated a Coach red vintage handbag.

About Goodwill NYNJ: