Rejecting Big Business and Fast Fashion

By Joelle Pacheco

Sibling duo Nicole and Jordan Haddad are fighting fast fashion one stitch at a time.

In February, the two recently opened Lobo Mau, a slow fashion store located at 6th and Bainbridge streets.

In Portuguese, “lobo mau” translates to “bad wolf,” which was the name of Nicole’s favorite story when she was a little kid. This became the store’s logo and came to embody being bold with your style.

“Lately, it has become our mascot for fighting fast fashion,” said Nicole, the store’s creative director and designer.

Haddad knew she wanted to be a designer from a young age, but she never thought she would be able to make a career out of it.

“My grandmother and my great grandmother are fashion designers so I grew up going to my grandmother’s shop where she did bridal and evening wear,” Nicole said. “I learned how to sew from a young age so it was always interesting to me.”

Haddad spent two years as a studio art major and two years as an art history major at Skidmore College before deciding to fully pursue fashion after graduation. She had a longing inside of her that knew she needed to be creative, and that’s how she decided to make the switch and follow her passion.

After getting her bachelor’s, Nicole went to Drexel University where she found further direction in her career path and graduated in 2008 with a master’s degree in fashion design.

“The whole time I was there it just felt right so I knew I had found the right way,” she said.

Creating a clothing line from the ground up takes way more behind-the-scenes effort than expected.

“I was using my student loan money to buy things like dress forms and industrial machines and fabric,” Nicole said.

All Nicole had to begin creating her line was a five thousand dollar loan from a friend, but she pushed her way through and found sustainable ways to start creating while also being cost-effective.

“I would buy deadstock from companies, which is what fabric was leftover at the end of a season,” she said. “I’m able to buy the high-end fabrics although at the same time you don’t really know where they came from, so there’s that aspect but it’s better than it ending up in a landfill.”

Nicole knew from the beginning that she wanted to create a line that was sustainable and unique.

“I was always passionate about slow fashion and making it in the United States,” she said. “Slow fashion is giving you a garment that will last longer, that’s better made, and that has not exploited people along the way so that’s why we feel very strongly about what we do.”

She teamed up with someone from the Fabric Workshop Museum and started working on putting his artwork on fabric so she would have her own textiles for the knitwear she was creating.

“Things kind of happen because you’re short on money, you don’t have many resources, you have to make it work, and all of those things come into play,” she said.

Owner and CEO Jordan Haddad went to Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for a liberal arts education with a major in English and a minor in economics.

Before joining his sister, his career path was in the realm of business development for engineering and manufacturing. Now, he manages and improves their company’s internal processes and business development, steering the company to grow while keeping true to the values shared by him and Nicole.

“I joined Lobo Mau when I left the corporate world in search of new meaning. I was starting to think about what I actually, truly wanted to do with my life,” Jordan said.

Jordan didn’t join the team until about three years ago, but his business background made the process of running a business much easier for Nicole.

“My brother joining the business has been the best thing to happen to it because before I was doing everything like the business, the bookkeeping, all the running around, the marketing, everything. I’m really proud that since he’s joined we’ve grown almost 70%,” Nicole said.

Although running a business with his sister wasn’t something Jordan thought would happen in his career, it seemed natural, as their parents are musicians and business partners.

“There are definitely moments that we pinch ourselves,” Jordan said. “While it’s hard to take time and smell the roses when you’re in the thick of everything, it’s so important to enjoy the moment; find joy in the victories, big and small.”

Lobo Mau’s goal is to become as zero waste as possible. To do so, they’ve saved every scrap from this past year of production.

“I started realizing I had all these scraps left at the end of the season, bags of fabric, we were just throwing it in the trash and then we realized fabric can’t go in the trash. We started developing ways to utilize our scraps and repurposing them into things like accessories,” Nicole said.

With those scraps, they’re now creating accessories like headbands and neckties.

“I’m proud that we’ve been able to do something in an ever-changing landscape. Running a small business is a daunting thing, and the competition is vicious. Sometimes it feels the odds are stacked against you, but making your own path is rewarding through success and failures alike,” Jordan said.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated Lobo Mau was located in the Bok Building. The store is located at 6th and Bainbridge streets. Lobo Mau’s studio can be found at the Bok.