Key Insights

• Sustainable Fashion: Cynthia Vincent emphasizes the need for sustainability in fashion, aiming to redefine industry standards.
• Size Inclusivity: BAACAL targets the average American woman, focusing on sizes that were previously overlooked.
• Material Sourcing: Vincent sources materials directly from factories, utilizing leftover fabrics to minimize waste.
• Education Importance: Vincent advocates for increased education on sustainable practices in fashion to drive change.

Sustainable fashion is not a new conversation. In fact, the conversation has been happening for a long, long time, but to Cynthia Vincent, the founder and designer of BAACAL, her approach could be the future of sustainable fashion.

Before starting BAACAL, Vincent was a part of and had her hands in several brands. But like many women, she once had an important event for which her outfit had to be stellar for, but couldn’t find the right look. So she took charge herself and created her own outfit.

“I thought to myself,” Vincent said. “If I, as a creative, who can kind of pull myself together in a thrift store, can’t find anything to wear, what does the average woman do? What does an average fashionable woman do?”

Vincent had created a lot of clothing before BAACAL, but she knew if she was going to re-enter the fashion world, she had to keep sustainability at the forefront, and that’s exactly what she did.

What Led Cynthia Vincent to Create BAACAL?

“I did my research, and I figured out that the average woman in America was a size 16 at the time. So I took a 16 and split the difference, went up and down. That’s why I call it the true size majority because I wanted to go after that missing, ignored woman. My sizing was that; I only offered four sizes when I first started: 1, 2, 3, 4, which were 10/12, 14/16, 18/20, 22/24; and then through time found out that there’s actually a need for 5, which is the 26/28.”

By keeping sustainability at the forefront of BAACAL, she started at 80% sustainable but has since surpassed that.

“I currently do not produce in China. I have maybe one to 2% done in China. So I can say that my number is higher than 80. The sourcing has become the difficulty,” Vincent said. “As a designer, there are certain things I want to make and do; I have this idea and want to create all these ideas but have to go backwards. I source the materials first and then design from what I source.”

“So it’s not that I design and then find all the things or fabrics or start with this amazing fabric I just found; you can order as much as you want. That’s how my life used to be; that’s not how it is now. Direct to the factory; I use their leftovers. I constantly see what they’ve put into development but maybe never produced or if there’s 50 or 100 yards of this. I get swatches; I decide what I want and test as much as I can before purchasing. Then I really have to design into what’s available.”

But her sustainability features for BAACAL went further than clothing. Vincent put just as much effort into getting rid of one-use plastic bags as she did into the clothing that she was adding to this world.

“I made these huge cement bags; I bought these cement bags and sewn them so that they could be reused and renewed and not use single-use plastic. I was trying to eliminate single-use plastic throughout the whole process. But four and a half years later, those bags are lost; they don’t know what happened to them. It’s an ongoing challenge.”

To keep fashion sustainable will take more than BAACAL and more than one designer. Cynthia Vincent hopes to prove through her pieces at BAACAL that sustainable fashion doesn’t have to be “crunchy granola” and it doesn’t have to be scrappy either.

To truly keep fashion sustainable, Vincent believes that more education should exist on this topic.

“I think that being earnest and really wanting change is important. I think we all have to really actually want it personally because the money will come. I think people are afraid to step into it thinking they’re not going to make money or they’re going to lose money. And I can tell you it’s the opposite.”

Cynthia Vincent knows that this can happen; fashion can be sustainable if enough people try and put genuine effort into it. Until then,BAACAL and Vincent will continue to lead the conversation and lead the way.