Unshattered: A Catalyst for Life-Changing Opportunities

A plain-looking building in Hopewell Junction, NY hides something very special within its walls.

The front door of a plain-looking building opens into the Unshattered boutique. A sign that greets you reads, “I’m an Ambassador of Possibility.” With that statement, you know you’re entering a special place. Bags and pouches of rich colors, distinctive materials, and unique texture combinations surround you. There is a lot to look at in the boutique, but the atmosphere of the space is calming and comfortable. It’s easy to want to sit and relax. There’s even a comfortable chair where you can take in the vibe of Unshattered. Beyond the boutique is the cutting workstation, surrounded by shelves of colorful rolls of material. Looking a little further down the space, you see sewing stations.

The cutting room has a wide range of donated materials to create the bags and other carry items.

Entering the Unshattered boutique begins a very deep journey. As with all brands and companies, a well-crafted experience can bring people joy, excitement, and relief. It can also solidify connections to a brand’s message. Experiences can also pave the path to opportunities. Unshattered offers all these experiences in a triple bottom line business model. This means the organization is good for people, the planet, and business (“profit” is usually placed here; however, in Unshattered’s case, it’s not about the profit). 

Unshattered is a nonprofit social enterprise located in Hopewell Junction, NY, about 70 miles north of Manhattan. They make luxury soft goods from upcycled materials. What makes Unshattered unique isn’t just the one-of-a-kind bags or the fact that 100% of every dollar spent or donated goes to help women end the addiction-relapse cycle. Unshattered is a business platform that gives women who have struggled with addiction an opportunity to create a new path in life. 

Kelly Lyndgaard founded Unshattered in 2014 (they became a 501c3 in 2016) to help women rebuild lives shattered by drugs and alcohol. Her vision was born of an understanding of the challenges women face in sustaining sobriety after completing residential treatment programs. It wasn’t because they didn't try to stay sober, but that returning to the same unsupportive communities and lives they came from before rehab made it tough. Additionally, the women often lacked the education and job skills to help them move forward. Through these shortcomings in the system, the women would relapse into addiction. Lyndgaard’s goal with Unshattered is to help women succeed with sobriety by offering them opportunities to make good life decisions and thrive. In addition to providing employment, Unshattered helps women find housing, transportation, and, most importantly, a safe and supportive community.

Pouches made from a 1955 Mercedes-Benz Interior.

Every pouch and bag that is created at Unshattered is uniquely different from each other.

The Unshattered x Southwest® "Possibilities Take Flight" Collection is an expansive collection that ranges from pouches, dopp kits, a messenger, a duffle, and a tote.

Creating a Purpose Through Bags

Unshattered offers handbags, makeup and toiletry pouches, totes, backpacks, messenger bags, wallets, wristlets, and keychains. Meticulously crafted using beautiful combinations of colors and luxurious textures, each piece is sophisticated and unique. The team at Unshattered works closely with the Fashion Program at Marist College to design and update their product lines.  Every bag is created using donated materials, including hospitality interiors, Broadway show backdrops, military uniforms, event banners, and even Southwest Airlines seat covers.

Every Unshattered bag has three hidden messages inside each bag.

Every bag has three secrets built into it, making it a physical extension of the maker and the values of Unshattered.

Secret One: A message from the maker to the future owner, written within the lining of each bag. This note could be a poem, words of encouragement, or a tally of the maker’s days of sobriety. The message is hidden and remains part of the bag for its life. 

Secret Two: A card that names someone who is struggling with addiction. This card allows the owner to carry their bag in honor of the women who continue to need help and support. 

Secret Three: A gold seam sewn into each bag. This represents Kintsugi, the Japanese technique of repairing broken pottery with gold lacquer. Kintsugi reflects the idea that flaws and imperfections can be embraced and that repairs create something more beautiful and resilient. Through this gold stitching, the bag becomes a metaphor for the lives of the women who make them.

A Platform for the Possibilities of Life

For Lyndgaard, Unshattered represents the “possibilities of life and the opportunities that are granted when you surround yourself with people who are doing amazing things.” When a community supports you, it raises the bar for you and makes everything possible. Lyndgaard shared a story about how the top stitch of the bags gave them a lot of trouble early on. The makers would work on a bag and then hand it off to an expert to finish the top stitch. They scraped a lot of bags because they couldn’t get it just right. However, everyone at Unshattered learns how to do a top stitch over time. “This shows that when you are around people that prove that something is possible, you just do it; you believe that it’s possible because everyone else can do it. So why can’t you?” This community shows women they can thrive on the other side of addiction. Through the six and a half years since Unshattered became a 501c3 and they began to employ women in recovery, there has only been one employee relapse.

It’s everyone’s understanding at Unshattered that learning is crucial to creating a path to a new life, and this is how the business was built. Over time, Unshattered has built a product photography studio and created systems to track the complicated life cycle of constructing luxury soft goods. This includes design, sewing, manufacturing, operational processes, production tracking, inventory, and marketing. The team members are involved in all aspects of the business. These new skills are largely self-taught by the Unshattered team.

Growth Plans

Lyndgaard has plans to expand the business platform even further. Unshattered has recently moved to a larger space, allowing it to expand its bag and accessory lines. The larger space will also help create new opportunities for more women. Inspired by people’s comfort in the original boutique, Lyndgaard has decided to add a café or a coffee shop. This will create an opportunity for women to learn and practice hospitality skills as another outlet. To help fund the expansion, they have launched a new line – the Unshattered Investment Collection. This specialty line is available to those who wish to donate to help renovate their new space. Additionally, Unshattered has added a couture-level bag to their line-up. The Atelier bag was designed through a collaboration between Unshattered, the Marist College Fashion program director, the former Design Director for Henri Bendel, and the former Vice President of Design for the Ralph Lauren Handbags Division. As with all the Unshattered bags, the Atelier bag is made with upcycled materials.
Although Lyndgaard says that Unshattered isn’t about the bags, the quality and the message of the bags are at the heart of the boutique’s success. “When you have an Unshattered bag, you carry something that matters; you’re making a difference for women and the planet. Unshattered is wrapped around a journey of recovery of a particular set of underserved and under-resourced women.” Lyndgaard adds, “That journey towards wholeness is for all of us. Carrying our bags is a reminder about our own life’s possibilities and an investment in creating possibilities for these women.” The expansion will give the women of Unshattered more learning opportunities, which will ultimately lead to more life possibilities. Unshattered may have started with bags, but the triple bottom line platform will continue to give women a chance to maintain their sobriety and for their lives to thrive. 

Head over to Unshattered to see their full catalog and to learn more about their mission and work. 

The Investment Collection is for those who want to support and invest in the purchase and renovation of the new Unshattered facility.

The Atelier bag is a couture-level bag new to the Unshattered collection.

The boutique is a comfortable room where people sit in the chair to take in the rich vibe of Unshattered.

Unshattered focuses on the endless possibilities that exist for the women when they are able to end the relapse cycle.

How Storytelling and Design Changed the Way We Reacted to COVID-19

The Flatten the Curve infographic is the defining image of the pandemic, and it offers an excellent example of the value of design. Understanding how this is an effective design tool can open up new opportunities for use in other parts of life and business. However, the value and purpose of design continue to be a confusing topic. So, when an instance like the Flatten the Curve graphic comes up, it presents an excellent opportunity to talk about the value of design. 

First, we need to understand; What is design?

There are many definitions for design, but they are too general or outdated. It’s essential to understand what design has evolved into. Through this, we can better see its value to creating human experiences and business strategy. Design is a problem-solving process that creates an engagement system that inspires a new behavior or comprehension that promotes improvement for people or business objectives. Good design accomplishes this through an intentional experience that focuses on the user’s needs. This could be a lifestyle improvement through product design, a user experience on a website, or even marketing and revenue growth through strategic design. 

What makes design such a confusing subject is because it’s both a noun and a verb. If “design” is a noun, it’s the thing that designers make, an object. If “design” is a verb, then it’s the thing that designers do; it’s a process. The noun creates and visualizes a product while design the verb is a creative and strategic process. Designers are experts in facilitating human experiences, and a successful design is one that brings both the noun and verb together using a creative problem-solving process. Creativity is a critical part of the process of finding connections between elements that will build human-centered solutions and business strategy. 

bmwblog

An example of everyday design that we interact with is a car interior. BMW or a Jeep wants you to feel a certain way when you sit in one of their cars. This provides an environment that communicates their brand message and business strategy. The distinct differences between each of the experiences are designed to make the driver feel and behave a certain way. Both examples present a brand design message with a functional purpose that’s specific to the model. These bring together both the noun and the verb of design.

jeep.com

The impact of COVID-19

The initial reaction to the COVID-19 virus in the US exposed all the gaps and challenges in the way we learn and communicate. Mass hysteria, frustration, negativity, and incomplete and misinformation permeated social media and news outlets. What’s real, what’s fake, and how should we feel? It’s become too easy to get “information” from social media headlines and memes. These illicit quick and strong emotional responses, but easily send people down the path of negativity or unconstructive responses and behaviors. 

We have been re-wired to forget that we’re all working towards a bigger picture or goal. We’ve lost sight of the context. The algorithms behind how we learn and communicate only show us the bits that we’re supposed to see. With context and understanding of the higher purpose removed, individual interpretation drive polarized conversations toward group think failure. 

Memes and more memes

The reaction and subsequent bewilderment over toilet paper are a perfect example of where it’s all gone wrong. Memes about hoarding toilet paper flooded social media. Memes are the perfect example of how effective a simple visual story can influence thought, spur action, or create a change in behavior. Through all the meme posts, one visual piece appeared that would change the COVID-19 conversation. 

The value of stories

We needed a way to get people to understand the importance of social distancing to slow the spread of COVID-19 and to avoid overburdening the healthcare system, and this was the Flatten the Curve image. The graphic had a profound effect on the way we discussed and learned how to mitigate and manage the spread of COVID-19. The graphic visualized the inaction and action scenarios in a simple visual format, but also shared the context of the situation. The image presented a comparison between inaction and action and allowed people to understand the directive and outcome. 

The Flatten the Curve meme shared a story of inaction vs. action that connects to our need for optimism and safety. This was all accomplished through a visual narrative that enhanced the understanding of the bigger context. This story had an immediate and powerful connection to people within the context of the pandemic.

COVID-19 created a rapidly evolving environment, where news and information changed so quickly that it was difficult for people to keep pace. It became imperative to focus the conversation that would help drive the next steps. The infographic has existed for several years, but most recently appeared in the Economist. This inspired Dr. Drew Harris, a population health analyst and Assistant Professor and Jefferson College of Population Health, to redraw it and promote it through social media. The graphic, which started as a simple epidemiological tool to present the importance of managing the surge of patients at hospitals, became a powerful tool. 

The New York Times, May 3, 2020

The graphic presented itself as both a noun and a verb. The visualization of the relationship between the curves is the design as a noun part. It was also able to mobilize action through the story it told. With the addition of data to the graph, it became a tool for future presentations of information. This is how it acts as a verb. Most importantly, the infographic’s story and purpose were able to connect to people through a relevant communication or messaging medium.

Since many of us are confined to our homes right now, we can look around for other well-designed experiences. Look around for products, physical or digital that share a story, inspire action, and provides an improvement for the user and the brand. Identify the problems that they solve and the benefits they offer. This could be a well-designed mixer or cooking pot, a TV remote, or a website that you frequent. A smart thermostat or doorbell are examples of good design as well. Lego used the design system to create a business strategy that connects entertainment and education. The best designs are the ones that are so good that they are invisible to the user. They create seamless, meaningful connections and benefits to the user. 

Further reading 

The story behind ‘flatten the curve,’ the defining chart of the coronavirus

Flattening the Coronavirus Curve

Flattening the coronavirus curve goes way beyond science | Expert Opinion

Are you looking for a different way to solve our plastic problem?

Find a new way to frame the problem.

We’ve become addicted to convenience, and it’s killing our planet. Plastics are a critical issue for people and our environment. Solving complex problems requires us to rethink the context of the situation to develop the new questions that we need to ask. A new way to look at these challenges is to focus on the behaviors that we need to change instead of the goals that we want to accomplish.

Our plastic problem
Since the 1950s 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic have been created. 79% of that plastic is in our landfills and the environment. This has caused an existential problem for our planet and the life on it. This isn’t news to anyone. We’re inundated with articles, documentaries, and websites, all presenting the environmental crisis that we are have created. Many governments, national and local, are passing legislation to ban single-use plastic products. Change is happening on the private side as well. Some food markets are allowing customers to purchase goods like pasta and nuts in refillable containers. Tom Szaky, the founder of TerraCycle, a recycling company, recently launched Loop. Loop is a service that delivers consumer products in reusable metal containers. Szaky is focusing Loop on our unconscious behaviors towards the disposable culture. The goal is to help people relearn how to reuse things. These are all steps in the right direction.

Is this enough to make a difference? People are still buying, using, and disposing of single-use plastic products. If all this information and initiatives are not enough to make people stop using single-use plastics, then what is the answer? We need a different way to look at the problem.

The Experience Economy
We’re currently living in what has been labeled as the Experience Economy. This is a term that solely benefits the economic equation. People are the commodity and experiences are designed to capture engagement; to delight people with inspiring experiences. These experiences create engaging connections to people, which generate growth opportunities for companies.

The term “Experience Economy” was first used in 1998 by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore. In their Harvard Business Review article, “Welcome to the Experience Economy.” “An experience occurs when a company intentionally uses services as the stage, and goods as props, to engage individual customers in a way that creates a memorable event.” This was the beginning of the period where companies began to create experiences to help sell services and products. Nike’s Niketown and the theme restaurants like the Hard Rock Café and the House of Blues created “eatertainment” experiences.

That was the beginning; today’s reality has evolved into to more complicated situation. According to the 2018 PWC report, Experience is everything: Here’s How to Get it Right, “The ‘Experience Economy’ has ushered in a new B2C mindset, steering brands beyond emphasizing products and services to selling rich consumer experiences. Our findings quantify the potential ROI on experience investments, upwards of 16%.” A good experience is created by speed, efficiency, convenience, and trust. The key to it all is the immediacy of convenience. The Experience Economy has created a culture that’s rooted in convenience.

Convenience Experience Economy
From the consumer product goods, entertainment, and the gig economy, convenience drives the engagement and economic growth. Convenience experiences have created business growth opportunities that are so powerful that companies like Amazon and Apple are their own economic ecosystems. Companies like Uber and Starbucks provide services that give us what we want when we want it. Netflix, Twitter, and Google allow us to see, say, and get what we want in an instant. We have designed machines and algorithms to provide us with the experiences that shape our existence and how we feel. We have become addicted to these experiences because we cannot imagine a world without these comforts. We then develop more and more machines and products to bring us more conveniences. We are literally existing in the human-powered, machine-controlled universe portrayed in the Matrix movies Trilogy. Since convenience has become such a controlling part of our experiences and our economics, we should rename the Experience Economy as the Convenience Experience Economy. The conversation changes once we begin to focus on convenience.

Convenience is a double-edged sword
In his New York Times piece, titled, “The Tyranny of Convenience,” Tim Woo shares, “As Evan Williams, a co-founder of Twitter, recently put it, ‘Convenience decides everything.’ Convenience seems to make our decisions for us, trumping what we like to imagine are our true preferences. (I prefer to brew my coffee, but Starbucks instant is so convenient I hardly ever do what I ‘prefer.’) Easy is better, easiest is best. Given the growth of convenience — as an ideal, as a value, as a way of life — it is worth asking what our fixation with it is doing to us and to our country. I don’t want to suggest that convenience is a force for evil. Making things easier isn’t wicked. On the contrary, it often opens up possibilities that once seemed too difficult to contemplate, and it typically makes life less arduous, especially for those most vulnerable to life’s drudgeries.”

The comfort that convenience brings us comes at a price. We have been convinced that single-use plastics, inexpensive and unrepairable products, and even our mobile technology are all convenience items. However, our smartphones, once touted by Steve Jobs as the “one device,” brought together communication, the internet, and entertainment together has created an expectation of immediacy. Social media makes it convenient to connect to people and to stay on top of current events, however, it’s also collecting data on every user. It has also been weaponized to spread disingenuous and fake news and to divide groups of people. Our single-use and unrepairable products perpetuate the convenience of a throw-away culture. Finally, the energy that we need to power all these conveniences are provided through non-renewable, carbon footprint intensive processes. In many cases, these processes result in toxic byproducts and greenhouse gases.

A new look at the plastic problem
A friend recently posted the following update on social media.

This statement is true. However, the reality is much more complicated. At the surface, bottled water companies appear to be selling health and wellness. They are promoting a healthy alternative to sugary drinks. However, what they are really selling is convenience. They want people to buy a bottle of water because it’s a healthy beverage alternative, but they are also readily available when we need them. This accessibility brings us comfort. We can have a healthy bottle of water whenever we want to! We are addicted to the convenience of plastic water bottles.

Steps forward are not enough
The bottom line is that we need to address our plastic problem. Recycling which was once promoted as a sustainability solution is really just a smoke and mirror charade. With the changes to China’s recycling policy, the National Sword Policy, the global market for recycling has gone through a drastic shift and exposed the uncomfortable truths about recycling. It’s no longer “convenient” to send our recycling to China or other countries for that matter. Even if recycling is accepted, the quality of the materials is being scrutinized. This means what we send to be recycled must be cleaner and less co-mingled with non-recyclable materials. No longer can we mindlessly place dirty containers and bottles into our blue bins. Non-recyclable materials such as straws and styrofoam cannot be included, and our blue bins must not be used as trash receptacles. Recycling isn’t a convenience anymore. Even our behaviors around recycling are rooted in convenience.

Look for similar situations
If convenience has led us to think of our behaviors as an addiction, then we can look at how other addiction issues have been targeted. Smoking is an interesting comparison to look at. Between the 1940s and the 1970s, the percentage of Americans who smoked was around 45%. Since then, that number has been dropping. In 1980, it was below 30%, and in 2018, the number dropped to 16%.

This decline was promoted by changes in the way people were taught about the tobacco industry’s marketing efforts. People were five times likely to quit if they understood how deceptive marketing strategy was designed to make then want to smoke. Ongoing demarketing strategies promote anti-smoking social norms.

The combination of behavioral understandings and emphasis on social norms, with government regulations, and taxes helped bring the smoking numbers to a historic low in 2018. Smoke-free workplaces, bars, and restaurants create environments that are socially easier for people to quit smoking. The focus of linking marketing and social norms to influence behavioral change is the focus here.

Despite all the work that’s being done to get people to stop smoking, there are 38 million American adults still smoking in 2018. Plastics will not go away either, but we can drastically reduce the amount of plastic that is being used and promote a better understanding of its lifecycle.

Looking at plastic in a different light
If we want to solve our addiction to plastic, we need to change the way we look at convenience. The behaviors around our addiction to convenience are not being addressed. Current climate change and waste management messaging tries to shame us into changing our behaviors. We’re overloaded with pictures of dead whales with their belly full of plastics and beaches covered in plastic products pictures. There’s data about the amount and weight of plastic everywhere. However, this doesn’t seem enough to change people’s behaviors toward single-use plastic products. What do we need to do to ween ourselves away from all the conveniences that plastics bring to us? We need a new way to look at the problem.

We need to design new and different experiences, so we can learn and understand what it means to be addicted to convenience. We know that shaming addicts into change aren’t an effective method to change behaviors. We work to reconnect drug addicts to society, instead of shaming them. This is how we need to treat our addiction to convenience. 

Designers need to lead the path forward. Designers are the ones that create experiences that influence people. They have been an integral part of the process that has created a culture that expects instant gratification and conveniences at all costs. Whether we are calling for an Uber, ordering dinner through Seamless, or looking for something to watch on Netflix, we’re accustomed to being provided an experience that’s designed for our convenience. We treat convenience as an inalienable right, and the economics of the experience economy is more than happy to keep promoting the addiction.

The bottom line: design is a process that influences an intentional behavior change towards a user. If we’re going to change our behaviors towards single-use plastics, we need to design a different way to approach convenience. Our design process needs to focus on being less evil towards people. Maintaining business growth is essential, but designers need to have a better understanding of the unintended consequences of the experiences they are designing.

We’re currently focused on the low hanging fruit to solve the plastic problem. Banning plastic bags and straws are certainly a step forward, but they are a tiny percentage of the problem. In the end, to solve this wicked problem, we need to focus on behaviors that caused it. Marketers, strategist, and educators need to come together with ethnography and psychographic data to create messaging that educates and resonates with people. Business, as usual, will not save us. It’s time to rethink how we perceive and discuss the challenges that we face. A design process that links research with a creative process to formulate new perspectives can change the conversation and spur new ways to think of a problem. In an increasingly complex world, this is the process that we need to keep pace with the speed of change and solve the most wicked problems. Let’s use the design process for good and not evil.