Nashville clothing brand Hey Wanderer promotes ethical fashion

Casey Freeman and Savannah McNeill have a specific goal for their year-old Nashville fashion brand Hey Wanderer: to promote conscious consumerism.

Launched as a clothing brand last year with flowy kimonos, Hey Wanderer recently unveiled its new line of printed bell bottoms, tank tops, T-shirts and dresses — all priced under $85.

The brand works to get consumers to move away from fast fashion and to think about where their clothing is produced and under what conditions. The company also donates 10 percent of its profits to an orphanage in Haiti.

Now Freeman and McNeill are trying to take Hey Wanderer to the next level by raising money via crowdfunding website Kickstarter to produce their clothing and fabric on a larger scale at an American manufacturing facility. Eventually, the women hope to help open a Nashville facility to support the city's growing group of clothing producers and to hire refugees to support the local economy.

"From the beginning, we wanted to do everything very ethically, and that has been kind of hard figuring out where you can get printed fabric in America," McNeill said.

Freeman added: "If you can find a manufacturer, most places want to do it on such a large scale and they don't do 50 pieces at a time. The ones that do smaller batch stuff are so booked they can't even give you the time of day."

The business partners first met at a local restaurant and it wasn't long before their shared love of crafts blossomed into a blog in 2011 called Oh So Pretty: the Diaries.

McNeill channeled her creative talent in early 2014 to design and sew a kimono for her mom. From there, the Hey Wanderer fashion brand was born. Freeman and McNeill hosted pop-up shops to sell the kimonos and they attended dozens of festivals in the fall, where demand for the product outpaced their expectations.

"We realized with the kimono that everyone loved it — all ages, all shapes, all sizes. It's because you throw it on and can be wearing a T-shirt and you look put together. You just feel comfortable in it," McNeill said.

Next came bell bottoms, tank tops, T-shirts and dresses.

Unique prints and stretchy material with just the right amount of length and flare is how Freeman described the pants.

Clothing production still takes place out of McNeill's Nashville home. They started making the kimonos with fabrics purchased at secondhand stores, and McNeill also has taken trips to Dallas to stock up on fabric shops' inventory.

As the business grows, so does the need to outsource clothing and fabric manufacturing. Freeman and McNeill want to bring Hey Wanderer to the Bonnaroo music festival in June, but it's a high cost of entry and they will need a large supply of inventory.

Their Kickstarter campaign — which is attempting to raise $20,000 — would give them the funds to produce Hey Wanderer clothes at a U.S. facility, although they estimated it would cost a quarter of the price to manufacture overseas.

"Although it's more expensive, we just want to be able to make sure we can get what we want and know where it came from," McNeill said.

If they don't meet their funding goal, they plan to continue producing clothes by hand and spread awareness of the Hey Wanderer brand at festivals. The eventual goal for the company is to partner with other local producers to open a Nashville apparel factory.

"I discovered that there are a lot of people like us who would love to be able to have their clothing made in Nashville," Freeman said. "The very few people that sew in Nashville are already overworked. Also Nashville has a large population of refugees, and we would love to hire and train refugees to work in our factory."

Reach Lizzy Alfs at 615-726-5948 and on Twitter @lizzyalfs.