Make Good Fashion: A Fashion Business Podcast · Jasmine Rennie

Building a Sustainable Brand Through Media Success with Desiree Gaitan-Buchanan of Poplinen

·53 min·3 clips

Desiree says Poplinen is now officially on Macy’s.com for the foreseeable future.

1. Make Good Fashion: A Fashion Business Podcast focuses on Poplinen, the sustainable fashion brand founded by Desiree Gaitan-Buchanan. 2. Host Jasmine Rennie interviews Desiree, and Desiree matters here because she built Poplinen from an idea into a brand featured by Good Morning America and Harper’s Bazaar. 3. The episode asks how Poplinen used sustainability, community, and media coverage to grow a fashion business. 4. Desiree says Poplinen started when she wanted comfortable clothes for work, travel, home, and the gym. 5. She says sensitive skin and allergies pushed her away from polyester and nylon. 6. Desiree describes experimenting with friends in the industry, including a pattern maker and a sewer, before settling on essentials. 7. She says she wanted plant-based fabrics such as organic cotton, Tencel, Modal, and hemp. 8. Desiree explains that sustainable fabrics were expensive, which shaped her goal of making them more accessible to women. 9. She says inclusivity mattered because she was talking with plus-size friends and hearing that sustainable fashion often felt too expensive. 10. Desiree says sourcing started with online research and then the LA Textile Show, where she met mills, vendors, and fabric reps. 11. She says certification details mattered, including organic cotton, Tencel trademarks, and Ecotech standards for dyeing. 12. Desiree says she does not call Poplinen a fashion company so much as an essentials brand. 13. She says relationships with Shobha from Proclaim, Grace Maid, and other colleagues helped her navigate an isolating industry. 14. Desiree says sharing problems over coffee or happy hour led to better factories, cheaper mills, and practical referrals. 15. She says media outreach worked best when she matched the pitch to the outlet, such as Hispanic heritage, being a Latino woman, and LA-made production for NBC California Live. 16. Desiree says TV coverage brought sales, email signups, social growth, and a path into the Workshop at Macy’s. 17. The conversation has an interview style with practical back-and-forth questions about sourcing, PR, wholesale, and retail strategy. 18. Desiree speaks in a direct, reflective tone and gives detailed examples rather than broad branding advice. 19. People building a sustainable fashion label with limited budget will get the most from this. 20. Listeners wanting celebrity gossip or abstract theory will probably skip it.

As heard by us

A practical founder conversation about making a fashion brand coherent across story, sourcing, and presentation.

Desiree Gaitan-Buchanan treats fashion branding as a discipline of clarity: knowing the customer, tightening the story, and keeping the brand aligned across pitch, visuals, model choices, and media.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a clearer fashion brand story that media can actually latch onto.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Make Good Fashion: A Fashion Business Podcast