Interview with Suzanne McKenzie with Able Made - The Culture News

Interview with Suzanne McKenzie with Able Made - The Culture News

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Ladies and gentlemen. Good afternoon,Welcome on the Culture News. My name
is David Sterrebro, and I havethe pleasure to have today on iHeartRadio,
on the Culture News and many otherplatforms. The wonderful Susan McKenzie, who
is the CEO of able Made aluxury clothing line inspired by soccer. We

(00:23):
are going to talk about all ofthat right now. Over the phone is
Susan McKenzie. Susan, how areyou today. I'm very good. Thank
you so much for having me.I'm so excited to chat with you.
Oh me too, Thank you somuch for being with us. I really
appreciate that. And I think faithhad it because I connected to your website
and I just got ten percent.So I'm very I'm very happy. So

(00:47):
I'm going to buy a few stuff. I see. I'm going to make
all my friends jealeus So, firstof all, first question, what brought
you to fashion? What brought youto this Able Made a company? Able
Made Shop dot com is the website. You can all check it out.
Denis. Yes, So, Iwas actually a three sport athlete growing up,

(01:08):
and so I have a little bitof a sporty background. I never
went professional, but I played soccerthrough college and my background professionally is in
design and strategy more so on thebrand side, but I've definitely touched fashion.
I've worked on projects for Timberland,Puma, Nike, so I've definitely

(01:29):
touched and dabbled in fashion by wayof you know, events and branding.
And really able Me was born tofund a soccer foundation. I started in
honor of my late husband who passedaway playing the game of some cardiac arrest.
So it was really unexpected and youknow, to get myself through that

(01:49):
terrible time, I started a nonprofitin his honor to outreach in the inner
city youth and lower income families togive them affordable and accessible soccer and health
at education through camps and clinics inBoston, Hartford and coming to New York
City this year. And able Maidis really born to fund the foundation.
So conceptually ties in from you know, a soccer a soccer story and it

(02:14):
is a beautiful, touching, verybeautiful story. So so how do you
now, is go on the technicalaspect, how do you design brand?
You design clothing based on soccer thatcan feed everyone. I would say,
yeah, So I mean a lotof my a lot of my background in

(02:36):
branding and design and graphic design hasreally translated over to fashion. There's so
many you know, different things likecolor theory or sizing and you know,
mechanical work that really carries over.So I do have a design team that
works with me, and we reallystart the process around looking at what's on
the runway. We're we're not atleisure, We're we're trying to elevate a

(03:00):
little bit higher to be more inspiredby what's going on the runway versus something
you'd wear that's nice and cozy athome, although we do have some pieces
like that. So you really startby referencing what's happening in fashion at the
highest of luxury level, and thenwe look to see what's relevant for us
conceptually, like you know, somethingthat ties into soccer a little bit more

(03:23):
and what our own sit on it. And we do have two signatures of
the brand. One is a soccerheart. We have a little soccer heart
and every single piece that we produce. And we also have a signature monogram,
which is a deconstructed, you know, shape of the soccer ball that
we mostly either print or quilt ontoour products. So where the word I

(03:46):
mean, the name of the brandAbel made is from what does it mean?
Well, it was. It's kindof funny. It's a long story
because we had so many different namesto begin and when you name a business,
you have to go through the exercisesmake sure no one else is using
the name. And we also wantedto go through the exercise to conceptually,
you know, be meaningful about empowerment, which is really in the dna of

(04:11):
the brand, like we were reallyborn to, you know, help raise
funds for a nonprofit, a soccernonprofit, and we wanted it to be
strong. We wanted it to kindof speak to, you know, lifting
up communities, and we just thoughtlike the able Maid, like everybody is
able. Everybody you know, nomatter where they're coming from, and their
abilities are are empowered to do whateverthey put their mind to. And the

(04:35):
Maid speaks to how we make youknow, you make your own paths,
you decide your own you know,destiny. But also it kind of nods
to the responsibility that we have interms of the making process of the apparel
and accessories. We are very verydiligent on the factories we choose. We
make sure everybody is getting paid fairly, their own safe work conditions, and

(05:00):
you know, by touching some ofthe fabrics we have, we have certified
organic, so there's no pesticides oranything bad that people would be you know,
touching to get onto their skins.So we're really proud of that too.
So now tell us about what ishappening later at the Soccer Film Festival
in New York, which, firstof all brand new for me to know

(05:20):
that there's a film festival called theSoccer Film Festival. So that's really amazing
and I believe you'd be a speakerthere. Tell us about it. Yeah,
I'm so excited. It's a fourteenthyear of the Kicking and Screening Film
Festival in New York City. It'sgoing to be at this amazing space I
actually did in my walk through ofthe space yesterday in New York City.
It's called the Football Cafe, andit's just going to bring together this amazing

(05:44):
community of like obviously soccer lovers,but also I know some professional players that
are going to be there. Artand culture and influence. It's just going
to be such an amazing group.And I'm really excited to be participating on
a panel discussion. About soccer andcreativity on the opening night, which is
actually now sold out. So I'mvery very excited. A b L E

(06:08):
Made, a Ball Made shop dotcom is the website where you can purchase
all this beautiful piece of clothing,very colorful, very joyful. You can
tell the great quality and definitely ifyou love soccer. It's not just if
you love soccer. You can wearit for every day, you know,

(06:29):
and it's a great brand to supportbut also to wear mostly you know,
it's it's a lot of a greatwebsite with beautiful clothing and you can choose
your color and your size of course, so it's really a great, great,
great website, a great brand.It's a bon made and website is
a ball Made Shops. So rightnow, the CEO of these brands,

(06:56):
Susan McKenzie, what is next foryou? Before we stay goodbye to each
other. So we're really excited thatwe're growing and scaling. So we have
some new products coming out, Wehave some exciting in person activations and real
retail opportunities that are coming up.So a lot's going to be revealed in
the coming months about our next stepsas a brand, and you know,

(07:18):
just getting to know our customers,introducing ourselves to new customers and just you
know, doing that and compelling interestingways. Hopefully that's really engaging in community
buildings. So we're very very excitedabout the year to come. Well,
we'll be definitely there to support you. The wonderful Susan McKenzie, CEO of

(07:40):
a Bone Made luxury closing line inspiredby soccer. She is absolutely wonderful as
you can hear, so is thebrand. So go to check out the
website Abon Made shop dot com.You can see the new collection right now.
More music to follow up on iHeartRadioaging with that