Greetings Beloved SistArs,
I am SO excited to tell you about the birth of my latest creation, Divine Flow Designs!
Divine Flow Designs was born out of so many loves and has woven together so many threads, I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming it all up!
My story
The seed of Divine Flow Designs sprouted in my childhood, when I spent countless hours playing dress-up. I loved the way donning a magical gown could quickly transport me to another place within my imagination. I loved dresses so much as a young girl that I exclusively wore them until I was about eight years old! I remember hiding under the clothing racks in the store when my mom asked me if I wanted to try on pants. Tears were streaming down my face pant leg by pant leg in the dressing room. Clearly dresses left quite an impression on my inner child, so much so, that pants became a source of trauma.
Playing dress-up evolved into movement and performing ballet and tap dance onstage. I loved everything about dance costumes from my Siamese cat outfit and tutu to the magenta pink ruffles and lace for samba. I loved movement, color, adornment, and the art of performance. I loved dancing it out onstage with my sisters. I loved it all (except for maybe the blue eyeshadow and red lipstick stage makeup combo).
As a teenager, my friends and I scoured local thrift stores far and wide and would ride the train into Chicago to hunt for vintage treasures. We read Sassy magazine for inspiration and created editorial shoots and zines with our backyards as the location. I delved more into writing and became the feature editor of my school newspaper and was given scholarships to pursue journalism and envisioned myself living in New York and writing about the fashion, art, and music scene. When I entered college, I majored in advertising (everyone told me writers can’t make ends meet) and convinced myself that fashion was vain and not a noble pursuit. I desperately wanted to work to make the world a better place. I couldn’t see myself tricking people into buying products they didn’t need for the sake of capitalism. There had to be a better way to use my creativity. I gave up an opportunity to go to college in New York City to study journalism and advertising and traded it for the granola scene in Colorado where I would pursue Environmental Studies and History.
I continued my stint as a hippie and attended as many Phish and Dead shows as possible (secretly appreciating the bohemian fashion) and worked as a National Park Ranger , advocating for our wild treasures and deepening my connection to the Earth and wild places.
In my 29th year (my Saturn return), I was living in a victorian in San Francisco working as an elementary school teacher. I had everything materially a woman could want, but I had an unsettling feeling that I was not living the life of my dreams. I was deeply unhappy, insecure, and afraid to leave my relationship. I left my stable career, my marriage, and my worldly possessions behind in search of rediscovering myself. I bought a one-way ticket to Cambodia and traveled solo throughout North America, Asia, the Middle East, Northern Africa, and Central America.
This decision led to the opportunity to co-found a completely free creative space in the bohemian (bobeaux) neighborhood of Canal Saint Martin in Paris, France (we got the space for free!). I signed up for ballet classes in the Marais, found the perfect cafè with a view of the Eiffel Tower to write poetry and read Sartre, shopped in the French flea markets for wardrobe treasures, met outrageously amazing people, and finally allowed all of the dreams of my inner child to be free from the shackles of adulthood! My biggest lifetime dream (that I never thought could actually happen) had come true - I was living as an artist in Paris! I finally allowed myself to experience all the dreams that my ego said were too scary, too difficult, not practical, or not responsible! I published my first photograph and poem and read my work to audiences. It was absolutely the best year of my life and culminated in our whole Parisian l’equipe (team) that worked to build [Freespace] being gifted tickets to Burning Man!
After my life in Paris, I had convinced myself that there really are no limitations in this lifetime besides those that we create in our own minds. Everyone had said creating a “Freespace” in Paris was impossible. “You will never find a free space in Paris, “ they remarked. That’s when I learned it doesn’t matter what other people think, you just have to follow your own heart, trust, and keep moving forward in the direction of your dreams! I felt reborn into this world after my Parisian dreams came true and renamed myself Èlisa in honor of this chance at rebirth.
After my second Burning Man experience, (got gifted a flight and a ticket again!) I met the man of my dreams at the Los Angeles Burning Man Decompression event when I least expected it. We fell in love at first sight and have traveled around the world together several times over! I knew I wanted to wait to meet my life partner before traveling to Bharat (India) and he wanted to take me. It was truly magical. We currently spend winters living in Thailand on a rose quartz island called Koh Phangan and spend the other half of the winter in Bharat because we both fell in love with its vibrant festivals, warm people, colorful arts, music, architecture, nature, spices, spirituality, and the practice of yoga. It inspires us more than any other place.
We prefer to use Bharat instead of “India” because we do not want to contribute to colonialism. In my travels to Bharat, I shared a cable car up a mountain at sunset with a local woman who told me that native people do not use the term India because the English gave the country that name during colonization. Before that, the Indian subcontinent was not united, it was just a loosely affiliated grouping of very different tribes. Bharat is the indigenous name and we’d like to pay homage to the indigenous people of this magical land and bless the place and the people.
I have thought a lot about cultural appropriation and what it means to sell the work of artisans from Bharat. I like to think of it more as cultural appreciation - sharing something with the world that I think is absolutely beautiful! I have always felt deeply connected and attracted to Bharat and after exploring this connection more, I have found that Sanskrit is very closely related to my maternal ancestral language, Lithuanian. The ancient pagan religion of Lithuania called Romuva has many parallels to the Vedic one.
I have had a similar attraction to many other places in the world and have found so many connections between cultures. I remember eating at my friend Ran’s mother’s house on Shabbat in Israel and noticing that the food was almost identical to some of the dishes my Sicilian grandmother makes! I truly believe we are all so intricately connected and that we all originate from the same Source. We are all one! Another time, a friend in Costa Rica told me he thought I was Jewish in a past life which is why the title of my first book is “Sababa.” Who is to say we haven’t lived a million past lives in a million bodies in a million places? I believe in following the blueprints of our hearts and souls.
Our designs
My hope is that these designs will bring out the inner child in you. When we were children, our bodies and our movements were a source of joy. We want our designs to make you feel more alive, want to move, and reconnect with the magic of life, the magic we experienced so freely as children. The magic of being in the moment, of being in our flow, a space without resistance that embraces life. For me, dance is an expression of pure love, of joy, of the divine- a following of our inner muse. It is the medium of our aliveness! Through my yoga training, I have learned that movement helps us clear trauma from the body, shaking free all that which does not serve us, (or it gets stored in the body as dis-ease) it can transport us to new levels of ecstasy! Even more reasons to dance!
When you wear Divine Flow Designs, I hope you feel free, beautiful, wild, limitless, like the goddess that you are. We want you to feel empowered by your wardrobe. I have struggled with body dysmorphia and accepting and loving my miraculous body. Throughout my life, I have witnessed my fellow sisters struggling with eating disorders and waging wars against their bodies. We live in a culture that thrives on body shame and then sells us a product based on that shame. Loving our bodies is truly an act of rebellion! We want to promote radical self love and embrace all types of bodies. Our silk dresses fit size 0-16 and can evolve with you as your body ebbs and flows, so you don’t have to worry about selecting the wrong size or buying special clothing for maternity. Our dresses can be worn 6 different ways, so they are the ultimate versatile travel companion and really do suit any body type! Adorning your body is a form of self-love!
I hope our designs transport you to a dreamscape and some of the most ecstatic places on Earth - either real or imagined. My wish for you is that you travel to the places that your heart desires. Our silks are built for equatorial climates and are perfect for a windy beach, a hot, humid tropical climate, or for basking in the desert sun. You will feel as if you are wearing nothing at all! They are sturdy enough to hold up through backpacking, motorbiking, the back of tuk tuks, planes, trains, bicycles, and automobiles, even dromedaries, yet still look incredibly elegant! (I’ve tried it all) I promise you will want to fill your whole suitcase with them (and you will still be under-weight with TSA)! They can be dressed up or down for any occasion and are promised to flow seamlessly with you wherever you go!
The vibrant colors are colorfast and will stay true through regular washings! Our dresses are created by artisans in Southern India and the colors are sourced from vegetable dyes. Did you know that the majority of fast fashion garments are soaked in formaldehyde before they are shipped overseas to prevent pests from eating the fabric? Imagine draping your body in formaldehyde!
We are big believers in the aesthetic, beauty, functionality, and health benefits that come with wearing natural fibers and dyes. I fell in love with this process when I first visited the Hmong tribe in Northern Vietnam and watched the harvesting of indigo, the giant vats, and witnessed the women’s beautiful blue-stained hands. This started my adventure into the world of natural dyes and textiles which I developed through study with the Spirit Weavers Community who taught me the myriad ways to work with plant spirits and botanical dyes. Bharat has been developing the use of natural dyes for over four thousand years! From the Holi Festival to the rose-petal lined streets, Bharat is truly a visual feast and no one does color better!
Did you know that fast fashion is the tenth biggest polluting industry in the world? The fashion industry emits more carbon than international flights and maritime shipping combined.
Just another reason to wear natural fibers, according to globalcitizen.org, “every time a piece of clothing made with plastic goes through washing and drying cycles, it sheds tens of thousands of microplastics into wastewater and through exhaust fumes. The average citizen in the US and Canada releases 533 million microfibers of plastic into the environment each year!” Researchers have found “pervasive” amounts of microplastic, particularly polyester fibers, in samples taken from 71 different sites in the Arctic Ocean! These plastic fibers can improve the flexibility and comfort of clothing, while also making them more affordable, but those savings are mostly offset to the environment.
In addition to clothing manufacturers polluting water sources and the air and consuming enormous amounts of fossil fuels, garments made with plastic fibers break down quickly and are hard to recycle. As a result, they mostly get sent to landfills or incinerators when people try to recycle them. These microplastics are carried into rivers and along currents of air, where they contaminate land and marine ecosystems, endangering wildlife in the process. Microplastics have been found in the most remote regions of the planet and pervade the food and water we consume on a daily basis.
Microplastics found in the Arctic Ocean Ice
Scientists have found up to 12,000 particles per liter, photo source Reuters
The presence of so many microplastics in the Arctic shows the scope of global contamination. It’s unclear what effect microplastic pollution has on humans, but it’s been shown to cause illness and contribute to death in animals.
(Read more here https://ecocult.com/now-know-fashion-5th-polluting-industry-equal-livestock/)
At Divine Flow Designs, as minimalists and nomads (traveling slowly with the change of seasons-very different than jet setting), we honor Pacha Mama and want to contribute to a brighter future for everyone. All of our designs are made from recycled sari fabric and are reimagined into beautiful one of kind pieces as unique as you are. Each one is truly a work of art. We hope you will love your special piece so much that you will want to mend it. We advocate a zero waste lifestyle and encourage you to pass it to another sister when you are done with it, or repurpose it into something else! Did you know that 85 % of our clothing goes to landfill each year?
Each dress undergoes a special clearing, smudging, and is energized by the full moon and reiki so it is ready to empower you energetically.
Our Raison d’Être
Divine Flow Designs is the product of sisterhood and all the women in my life who have inspired and supported me, including my mother who has always championed any wild and crazy idea my heart has dreamed up. Also giving big thanks to my ancestral realm, and all my spirit guides who have given me strength, connection, and support, specifically my protector spirit, my grandfather, Salvatore and my maternal grandmother, Angeline. Infinite gratitude to my yoga shakti sisters who encouraged me to start this business and helped me with my very first shoot in Koh Phangan, Thailand and supported me to feel more embodied and who inspire me endlessly. Big love to my women’s circle who helped me reclaim my voice and my power and helped me to believe in myself and the courage to present my vision to the world and so many others…. nothing is ever created alone!
Sisterhood is a big part of Divine Flow Designs and I would like to gift the power of sisterhood as medicine around the world and will be working with organizations that support women’s development including heart, womb healing, yoga, and voice work around the world. Real success is shared! We will be donating ten percent of our profits to organizations that are in alignment with our service and vision. This was the impetus for our project- empowering women to create heart-centered businesses around the world that heal ourselves, our sisters, and our world. Please reach out if you are an organization that aligns with us!
We rise by lifting others!
Celebrating you, sisters!
So much love, gratitude,
and many blessings,
Élisa-Beth
P.S. We’d love to see where these silks take you, please share your pictures with us!
Join the radical self love movement!