Award-winning author and journalist, Alden Wickler, interviews Alix Vasquez of Herderin for Ecocult

I get pitches from small new brands all the time. I usually decline, because I want to see how the brand does before featuring them. Does it survive for more than one season, and does it have more than five pieces?

But then I got a pitch from an experienced designer who has a recently-relaunched her brand Herderin as “length-conscious” for tall women. Alix Vasquez is an adjunct professor of sociology at the University of San Francisco examining “how material resources—clothing, design objects, aesthetic presentation—become essential infrastructure for professional identity under precarious capitalism.”

“The 25 million U.S. women over 5’9” face an impossible choice,” she wrote. “Sustainable fashion brands—the ones more likely to avoid the petroleum-based dyes and unregulated finishes you document—rarely offer tall sizing. Meanwhile, fast fashion dominates tall sizing precisely because its industrial scale and cost-cutting make size inclusivity financially viable. This means tall women are systematically pushed toward the most chemically problematic segment of the industry. We can’t “vote with our dollars” for non-toxic fashion if no one makes it in our size.

“I spent seven years developing Herderin specifically to address this gap—using Climate Beneficial certified fibers and plant-based dyes from Fibershed‘s network. But I’ve hit against every challenge you’d expect: plant-based dyes are inconsistent, more expensive, require different expertise, and test the limits of what small-scale manufacturing can achieve for an underserved market.”

Her ideas and her experience in designing and sourcing sustainable materials were so compelling, that I had to find out more. (Even though I’m 5’2”!) No matter your height or size, I think you will find it a really interesting conversation about body image, natural fibers, and pursuing our dreams, especially for those of you in the fashion industry. What follows is our conversation, edited for length and clarity.

Alden: Okay, so let’s just start with the basics. How did you get started in fashion design?

Alix: I have been making clothing since 2012, when I started my PhD in sociology at Brandeis University in Boston. With Harvard nearby, the academic environment there was very stressful. Coming from Virginia, I was like, Oh, you have to dress like a PhD student. I knew of a girl who was like 5’7” who had a personal stylist from J Crew. I’m six feet tall, almost 6’1”. And I remember going shopping and I couldn’t find things that really fit me. I think I found, like, one top with a Peter Pan collar that was wool. I thought it made me look smart, but all of my pants were too short. I remember having to go to this British fast fashion brand, Top Shop. The pants were made out of, like, acrylic, polyester. And I just thought, whatever, they fit me.

Alden: What size body is the standard fashion made for?

Alix: The industry standard for making pants starts at the 5’4” frame. If you have a tall inclusive line, like The Gap or Banana Republic, you would then adapt that pattern to elongate it. You would make the inseam longer, but not the waist. They don’t account for the fact that there’s so many parts of the body—the shoulders, the arm length, the torso, the back width, the chest width—it should start from a whole different pattern altogether for tall sizing.

My partner at the time got me my first sewing machine. So that first semester, I started making my own clothes. There’s a whole story there: learning about my body and being comfortable in my body as a tall woman, and big in general. So I had a lot of healing around how I show up in the world and not wanting to stand out.

I’m from California. I grew up in the Bay Area. I’ve always been into nutrition and food and Alice Waters. Something kind of transitioned for me where I was like, well, I don’t want to make just the same pant I’m buying. I’d rather make something I really want to wear. I’d rather make something that moves with my body. So I started to make wrap pants. It doesn’t make you have to fit into any size, it’s flexible. We have different aspects of our body that change throughout the lifetime that aren’t necessarily honored when we’re replicating a male trouser. What does it mean to start from defining what it means to have a body that can be dressed for its own uniqueness?

That’s what got people really interested in my clothing. I think 2016 is when I started to dabble with selling it to other people.

Alden: Other tall people, like yourself?

Alix: Any height. There were some tall people, but mostly people I was friends with. I was living in New Hampshire and Vermont, in the mountains in a cabin. I was finding ways to source organic fabric and dye it myself. People were asking me about the clothing I was making and whether they could have access to it.

When I moved back to California, in San Francisco, I did this show called West Coast Craft. It’s this really crowded, shoulder-to-shoulder show. I would learn like, oh, this one influencer wore this top, so people want to buy it. I should make more of this top. I started to get into this mindset of supply and demand.

One of the things that I sold the most of was really surprising to me, that influencers wore. It was this slubby, hand woven fabric. I can’t really stand behind it, because I swear it will fall apart after a few washes. But it would sell out every time I did a market.

Alden: Why do you think that is? Is it like influencer culture where they’re not actually wearing the products that they’re excited about?

Alix: I think there’s that. But I think that it started to represent a feeling, a type of aesthetic, this Joshua Tree, natural-tones vibe that a couple of influencers had. There are people who live that authentic life, and there’s also this manufactured idea of what it means to live a natural-tone life. Like the mood board of it, or something. People wanted to be like the people in the clothes. As a sociologist, as someone very curious about social dynamics, that’s what I picked up on. Someone doesn’t feel like that’s their life, but maybe they get to have some sense of it if they have the items that that person is wearing or using.

Alden: I wonder if we’ve moved past that as a society. Maybe it’s just because I’m not plugged into influencers or fashion right now.

Alix: I mean, I try to stay away from it. I can’t spend my life on Instagram.

Alden: Did you ever hear from anybody who had bought the top being like, hey, this fell apart? Because I’m sure it wasn’t super cheap.

Alix: I never heard anything. All I would hear is, like, it’s their favorite thing. I hated making it. It wasn’t Fibershed certified. Yes, it was organic cotton. Every time I got an order, I was like, another one? It took me about two years to finally say I’m going to not sell that anymore.

In probably 2024, I had this photo shoot where I had about eight or nine models, different gender identities, different heights. I had one or two women who were over five nine. And in the photos I could see for one of the women who was about 5’11” that they were just so short on her.

I just thought, and I am not happy with the fact that I can’t shop my own clothing line, a small clothing brand, an intentional clothing brand. The only clothes that I am wearing are the ones that I don’t make for everyone else, I would just make a special one-off pair for myself. I have to figure out what I’m doing, because something is not working for me.

I have a girlfriend, who is 6’2”, and she goes, “You should just buy your clothes at American Tall.” I started to look up the whole industry. I went on r/TallGirls on Reddit. I said, “Can you name a brand that’s sustainable and tall?” Nobody could. There are a lot of us—20% of American women are over 5’9”. They have had to actually change the way that they dress, if they really want to choose their values. So many women I know have adapted by wearing shorter pants, and even in the winter, they choose what kind of socks they want to wear, because their socks are going to be showing.

I decided to make it myself. 2025, I stopped all of my sales. I just started to focus on: how do I make clothing for myself again, and center the fact that, yes, I am tall. I took the whole year of 2025 to figure out what I was doing. By then, I had been discovered by a very celebrity-status sales agent. She said, “I think you should do tall inclusive, because you’re going to leave out so many people who would want this.” And I was like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I still sat with it for a few months.

I went through the process of making the clothes longer. It felt very uncomfortable because I myself wasn’t used to wearing clothes that fit, that were also made in natural regenerative materials and plant dyed and all of that. So when I first put on the clothes for the first time, which was not even until December of 2025, I felt almost undeserving. I still am trying to process how I feel wearing it, because it’s so nice to have everything I want in this garment.

And then I thought, if I’m not going to be making it myself, I’m going to move production to be sewn in San Francisco, where I live. How am I going to account for different heights, with small batch production?

Alden: Was it too complicated to think about doing size inclusive as a small brand?

Alix: I mean, it can be done. But I’ve gone inclusive. I tried to design for everyone: all genders, non-binary, everything. And I designed myself out of it. The question of: Does the world need another clothing brand? always comes up for me. There’s no tall-centered regenerative clothing brand. One of my professors in sociology said, “If you’re gonna write a paper, be bold with your findings. And I just thought, like, what if I’m not for everyone? I just thought, I just have to do it.

It answered the question for me, does the world need another clothing brand, and in this case, I could finally say for myself, yeah, actually.

Alden: When you emailed me, you were talking about the difficulties with sourcing sustainably and naturally for a brand such as this. Can you talk to me about that?

Alix: You know, it’s taken me a really long time, and now people ask me about how I can help them with their sourcing. When I lived in Vermont, I used to buy fabric from Hemp Traders or Dharma Trading. I would try and find organic fabric. When I moved back to California, it’s gotten a little better, but I really couldn’t find a way to source fabric that was as regional as possible to where I live—grown there and whatnot. And that’s the reason why Fibershed was created. Rebecca Burgess was like, how would I, if I wanted to make a garment and everything was sourced within a 50-miles radius from where I live?

Alden: I visited the farm when I was in California a couple of years ago. It’s amazing.

Alix: It’s awesome. It’s not far from where I live. So it took a lot of time, years developing relationships with ranchers, with people. It’s not something where you could just go to a website and be like, okay, this is where I’ll source this and that. I think a lot of designers, when they first want to source sustainably, that’s what they’re hoping for.

Alden: What kind of fabrics are you sourcing?

Alix: Climate Beneficial cotton that’s grown in the Central Valley. Not only is it sequestering carbon and restoring soil health, but it’s actually really great for the livelihood of the workers and the farmers. Also Climate Beneficial wool. And then I source merino wool through Nativa from ranches throughout the Rocky Mountain region. They are using essentially the same carbon sequestering process with their wool. And then I buy cotton through a co-op of family farms in Texas, where the cotton is grown organically and gets 70% of its sustenance from rain water. It’s milled in North Carolina. Except for silk, I focus on specifically sourcing domestically. The silk comes actually from China. China has a very rich history of silk. I think it’s really important to honor the fact that silk is not American.

Alden: I very briefly mentioned in an article where I was like, what would I put tariffs on if I were president? And I was like, I wouldn’t put it on silk, because silk is not American. Because my readers are especially focused on toxicity, safety, dying and finishing, can you tell me about how your sourcing addresses those concerns?

Alix: I work with Botanical Colors in Seattle, Kathy Hattori. She is well known for her plant dye process. They have worked with Eileen Fisher. She does my walnut and indigo dyeing, and she will do more as I continue to grow this brand.

And then I’m doing a process from Our Carbon for black. It comes from organic waste, and the only chemical they add is salt. There is an issue where, for some reason, if there’s any oil that doesn’t come off in the washing process, it highlights it, or brings it out. It’s something that we’re trying to educate people who purchase this clothing about. There might be inconsistencies, like a grayish vintage wash to it.

We do have a portion of our clothing that’s Oeko-Tex-certified circular dyed. It’s like 14 miles from our studio in Novato. However, a lot of those rich colors we’re finding that we can get that done with Kathy [of Botanical Colors] on those cottons.

A lot of my friends that have sustainable clothing lines that are doing a really great job, they still use polyester thread, because they say that it doesn’t break. But I use 100% organic cotton thread from India. It comes from a very ethical company where it supports the livelihood of these women who spin it. It’s something I really stand behind. I don’t find an issue with breakage of this thread.

Alden: What I’ve heard is that as you get into more and more industrial sewing machines, that’s where it becomes a problem.

Alix: The Merrow Shell Stitch is one of the most complicated machines out there, and there still hasn’t been any breakage. Another thing is I do garment dye. With organic cotton thread, it’s saturated, it gets dyed the same color. A lot of people are not doing garment dye, and so they’re looking for threads that match the color of the garment. It’s easier to source different colored polyester threads.

And then I think another reason is, a lot of people who design clothes, they might go once or twice to see where their clothes are made, and they might have relationships and talk about it on their website, but they’re not really there. If you’re not there to talk through decisions and be part of the process, they’re like, We will make it for you. This is how much it costs. You’re not going to really push back if they’re like, no, we use this type of thread. I think that’s what happens most of the time to be honest with you.

I want to not just pass it off to you. I want to understand the process. There’s more of being the front-facing owner and designer, with less time, less resources, to be able to really be involved in the production part. That’s how polyester thread basically ends up being used.

Alden: That makes sense. I feel like I have the same sort of process with renovating my old house. If I’m not on site, they’re gonna use vinyl to trim the door. I have to be there to be like, no, what are other options?

Alix: That is a really great parallel example. It’s all the nuance of relationship building.

Alden: Tell me about the research you’re doing.

Alix: The study is called “Clothing the Self”. The first part, I was talking to people about how they dress themselves in the morning. We were trying to understand why people hold on to garments, why they throw them away, what makes them dress in the way that they do. We found some pretty interesting findings and we gave a talk about that at San Francisco Big Brain in November.

The point is, we in sustainability are very focused on the manufacturing processes and the fast fashion. It’s really important to keep focusing on that. And then there’s the aspect of what drives consumption, beyond the dynamics of power and marketing.

We are a conscious species that is an especially individualistic culture very focused on our identity, which has become incredibly complicated. Without identity, we feel a sense of loss. So when we look at clothing and why people would throw something away when it still has plenty of use and value—why would I throw away a perfectly good steak if I haven’t eaten it yet—what we’re finding is that clothing is the daily ritual, the reinforcement of who we are as individuals. When we, for example, decide that we’re changing, we right away go to change our wardrobe. If we are to change the way that people relate to clothing, we have to start thinking about the way that clothing relates to them in terms of identity.