Study NY

Study NY is an ethical contemporary womenswear brand based in New York City that produces seasonless clothing with sustainably sourced materials through ethical production. Passionate about transparency, the Study NY website provides full sourcing maps and shares the story of how each item is made, with the belief that the hands that manipulate the materials are just as important as the quality and sustainability of those materials. Most recently, Study NY has begun global collaborations with designers and artisan groups that share the belief that clothes should be well-made using quality materials.

Tara St James, founder and designer, was born and raised in Montreal where she dreamt of becoming the first female Prime Minister of Canada. But then she attended a technical design school where she fell in love with menswear tailoring. After spending 6 years in the denim industry, she moved to New York and co-founded an eco-friendly mass-consumer line in Canada called Covet. Determined to apply her vast knowledge of production and textile sourcing to a larger market, Tara started Study NY in 2009 with a focus on no-waste patternmaking and open sourcing materials. Supportive of the burgeoning sustainable design community in her new found home, in 2010 she launched Study Hall, a small design-focused incubator that saw young designers developing, producing and selling their own sustainable mini collections. After winning the Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation award in 2011, Tara served as mentor at the Awamaki Lab, a program that fosters cross-cultural partnerships between young designers and Peru's Awamaki indigenous weaver collective. These created a foundation of collaboration and mutual learning that has become a cornerstone of Study NY and the ever-evolving cross-cultural collaborations that share sustainable best-practices with fellow artisan and designers.