About
When Bonnie Sandy Is described as a BADASSE, it’s not her bold assertive, “we can do this, take no prisoners!” attitude that many are referring to, it is because she challenges and gets independent creatives moving and their businesses on track!
Ms. Sandy explores Business, Apparel, Design, Art, Service, Styling and Eco-Sustainability. Her passion for research consulting and “work” revolves around the art of making, the process of making, the joy of making, the business of making and how emerging technology affects the joy, art, process and business of making!
If the creative can “see what she’s saying,” it’s because Ms. Sandy is a creative whose formal design education at Fashion Institute of Technology informs her work but counts her apprenticeships with dressmakers, designers and boutique owners across the globe as equally important! Growing up; her father, a computer programmer, taught her the tech “vernacular” and her mother, a dressmaker, taught her patternmaking.
She also has 30 years in the creative custom on-demand side of the Fashion Sector and has been involved in the technology of creativity for the last seven years. Her focus is using technology to solve the PLM and business issues faced by the creative design sector! Since 2005 she has walked creative entrepreneurs through the adoption, adaptation and integration of new media and technology. As an “early” adapter she has presented in the NYTech arena on 2d codes; Social media and fashion tech. Preferring the “Open” tech scene, she attended Barcamps and organized Fashioncamp; a fashion and technology “unconference”! Most recently, she has presented at “TV Goes Social” on the impact and opportunity that connected “TV” offers the global independent creative!
As an artist, designer and product developer, that interest has translated into programs that have “tested theories through practice” and led to developing unique creative entrepreneurial training programs that effectively show results.
She planned her first international trade show in Trinidad & Tobago in 86/87 while advocating for fabric and training for the local design sector in T&T! In 1988 she entered FIT and left that phase behind returning in 2003 to help some of her local NY design colleagues. In 2006, she volunteered her training program for the 4W Circle of Arts and Enterprise; a program which was covered by reporters from Crain’s, Forbes and the CBS! That same year she was tapped to design and produce a Fashion Trade show for The Black Church Means Business sponsored by Macy’s that saw more than 6 businesses in 2 years access Macy's buyers!
It was at that point she realized that the issues went way beyond product development and quality control. While production and access to financing kept most designers from pursuing opportunities presented, culturally, many did not serve a community interested in shopping at large retailers…a new platform was needed!
Having moved her program outside the 4W incubator, on a dare she was challenged by one member to “use the technology she was advocating to set up and solve the problems of space.” She began exploring the establishment of Demarketplace and later the 28Squared Artist Collective; a training program was born!
She intends to explore co-working and virtual enterprise networks while assisting designers and creatives across the globe via technology. It quickly became apparent that the need for a platform to show, present and sell was vital and the concept of a “Fashion Film Festival” centered in video and tele-presence was born!
Surprisingly, Ms. Sandy has pursued all these initiatives outside of official funding and with limited resources for these past seven years - a decision that was purposeful! A proponent of lean, experiential and usability design, she believes that in order for the program to work it had to be cognitive of the culture (the way things are done) “naturally” sustainable and shaped by the community involved! The program is built on the belief that Culture +Creativity + Community + Collaboration + Corporation = COMMERCE.
This year she launched www.282ac.com a virtual incubator artist collective and the www.BKfff.com ; the Brooklyn Fashion Film Festival, a proof of concept phase as an online platform for international designers to show and sell their products to the New York Market, but, hopes to expand!
Always one to share her knowledge and experience she has also partnered with other creatives to explore the technology in their niche.
For the past 2 years she has had an independent collaboration with one of NY’s leading distribution businesses - providing communication, distribution and marketing media strategy - Streets of New York Marketing 411, developing a digital strategy in line with the company’s focus on cultural sensitivity!
She specializes in independent creative entrepreneurial development, project management, technical apparel design, digital media integration, product development and creative cultural marketing! As a designer she’s exploring open design and trying to actively incorporate some of the new technology into her own work, or at least she keeps promising to do so.
Ms. Sandy welcomes networking with colleagues in Fashion, Tech, Creative Enterprise development & marketing.
About All Projects with links Call me 1-646 736 2984 (Leave a clear VM & contact! Get Social With Me
