This blog entry was contributed by: Julie Horowitz Jackson, happily calling Bucktown her home now for fifteen years. Her store, Virtu, celebrated 11 years in business last month. Her husband owns Color Wheel Studio, another Bucktown business, and their son attends Pulaski International Academy, one of Bucktown’s four neighborhood CPS schools. Go goat or go home!
Bucktown & Wicker Park have long been communities of social responsibility.
From local garden clubs to farmer’s markets, green shops and school programs, you don’t have to look very far to see sustainable practices in place in your own neighborhood.
Three local boutiques embrace this concept to the core.
Most recently on the street, children’s boutique The Red Balloon Co. has moved their Bucktown location to bigger digs just down the block to 1940 N Damen Avenue. When conceptualizing the store, owner Jennifer Pope devised a series of displays using upcycled items. Take, for example, the walls themselves. Rather than go with a traditional material like slatwall construction, Ms. Pope sourced reclaimed flooring to build her wall displays racks.
The tiny dressing room features vignettes of pages collected from vintage children’s books. Books for sale are housed in the library built from found crates. Simple statements are made with resources found locally and put to new and inventive uses.
Just up the street at 2064 N Damen sits Virtu, my own store, featuring the work of some of the nation’s finest craft artists. September 11th happened the year that we opened our doors and it became very important to me to support handmade in America. Of utmost importance to so many of our artists is where their raw materials come from.
Consider local stationers, Snow & Graham, who print on FSC certified paper that has been manufactured, in many cases, through natural wind power.
Jennifer Dawes, one of our fine jewelers, launched Sustainably Beautiful, her initiative in creating jewelry in a socially and environmentally responsible way. She only uses recycled gold, conflict free diamonds and responsibly mined stones. "I try to leave as small a footprint on this planet as possible."
Heather Hambrecht of h(om)e, our neighbor to the North, provides us with one of a kind handbags stitched together by hand from entirely reclaimed leathers. As a vegan, she doesn’t want to see the leather “dying in a landfill” so she sources hides
from upholsterers, car manufacturers, boot makers and more.
Further down the block, you will find Stitch at 1723 N Damen. This longtime local lifestyle boutique features a well-edited selection of signature home accessory lines, including furnishing from Gus*. The Gus* philosophy centers around the inspiration of simple forms and honest materials. Each eco-friendly couch, chair, and side table is made from FSC certified woods, kiln fired in their Canadian headquarters.
For all of the residences on our blocks that painted with low or no VOC paints, installed bamboo flooring and sleek stainless steel appliances, I can think of no greater place to sit my tired tush than Stitch’s Richmond Loft bi-sectional couch from Gus*.
The next time that you are making a purchase, consider the socially responsible options you have in your own neighborhood.
Remember that by shopping locally, you have a direct impact on the community in which you live. For every $100 spent in independently local stores, $68 of it returns to the community through taxes, payroll, and other expenditures. In a national chain, only $43 stays here. Spend it online and nothing comes home (as stated by the 3/50 Project website).
Shop small, shop ethically and save the community in which you live. Your neighbors will love you for it!
