Environmentally sound fabrics for everyone! We chat with Michelle Engel-Bencsko and Gina Pantastico – the founders of the organic fabric company Cloud9 about its new venture Cloud9 is one of the leading companies offering organic fabrics – how did it all start for the both of you? GP: Michelle and I both started our careers in the garment industry. In 1996, we started working together at the same company. Michelle was the Design Director and I was the Production Director. While we were responsible for two very different aspects of garment production, there was often times we’d work very closely in order to move the prints and designs from the pre-production stage into mass production. We quickly became good friends, and also respected each other professionally. After working together for eight years, our careers took us in different directions, but we always remained in touch. About five years later, we got talking over bagels at
breakfast. Neither of us was feeling particularity fulfilled professionally, so we decided we were going to start a fabric company.
What made you concentrate on providing organic fabrics? GP: Michelle was already licensing her art with another
fabric company, and I was working as a consultant for companies looking to produce garments in Asia – so between her design background and my production and sourcing background (which often included sales), as well as our mutual profession respect for each other we considered ourselves a dream team and knew we could offer beautiful fabrics in an industry that needed fresh art! Back in 2008 when we started there were no organic fabric options offered to quilters. The only organic options were typically drab, oatmeal colours! We were both new moms so the thought that we could fill a niche to this segment of the market really appealed to us. We knew there was a void that we could fill!
