Turning disillusionment into Joy

Soraya Hamdan – Head of Social Impact and Operations, Susan Alexandra, New York City, NY

Feature | 02 December 2020
The Susan Alexandra company, an independent fashion brand in New York City, has developed a model of economic empowerment for skilled migrant women. Photo by Ji Ou for Susan Alexandra.
“Upon arriving in New York City, immigrants are often disillusioned with the job market,” stated Soraya Hamdan.

Speaking from experience about the hardships she faced migrating to the US, Soraya vowed to “include a social impact component to my work and help economically empower female immigrants.”

Ms. Hamdan is the Head of Social Impact and Operations at Susan Alexandra, an independent and self-funded fashion brand in New York City (NYC). As a resident and big supporter of her newly adopted home of NYC, Soraya wanted to “showcase that the American dream can be a positive reality, not a nightmarish experience.”

Since its inception, Susan Alexandra has been building a network of female migrants across the five boroughs of NYC as a central part of the brand’s social impact and supply chain initiatives. The effort consists of connecting communities of migrant women in Queens and Chinatown to hand manufacture Susan Alexandra’s accessory line.

This social impact initiative seeks to bring a sense of “inclusion, open conversation, and advocacy” to migrant women and has received praise across the fashion industry. The fashion sector has faced severe challenges globally in ending exploitation of workers by introducing improved auditing processes and instilling a greater ethical and environmental awareness into its production.

Setting up an operation in NYC is not easy given the lack of affordable business space. However, this challenge gave the company the opportunity to reinvent itself and create access to decent jobs for dozens of female migrants to transform factory work into permanent remote work.

“Shedding a light on individuals’ craftsmanship skills over impersonal mass production not only humanizes the supply chain process but also ensures dignity at work” says Soraya with great pride in this approach.

With the help of in-house technology and strong multilingual research resources, the brand identified female migrants in Queens and Chinatown with demonstrated skills seeking job opportunities in the manufacturing sector to work for Susan Alexandra.

Women often face many challenges in today’s job market including childcare responsibilities, wage inequalities, multiple forms of discrimination. Susan Alexandra has developed a new and dynamic model for workers in the fashion industry. Photo by Ji Ou for Susan Alexandra.
From the start, some of the women expressed their individual challenges in considering work at a factory. Issues such as childcare responsibilities and the ability to commute to a factory were main obstacles. This helped strengthen the company’s goal of ensuring economic empowerment through quality jobs for female migrants while meeting the brand’s manufacturing needs. This would not have been possible through a standard factory model of production.

“The solution was to implement a remote work strategy based on vocational and management training”, explains Soraya, highlighting the prosperity of remote manufacturing work as a sustainable supply chain alternative.

Although workers are assigned projects and deadlines, work schedules would be flexible in order to prioritize childcare duties. Recruitment of additional manufacturing workers and organization of the workers would be intracommunal. The appointment of team leaders would help motivate other workers to see the value in and strive for promotion in the company.

Ms. Hamdan stated that “the strategy not only facilitated access to decent employment within communities of immigrants of color but also increased their economic power.”

Some team leaders gathered the information and financial capital to create their own manufacturing company, working as an exclusive third-party contractor for Susan Alexandra. “As of today, two female migrant-owned businesses were launched and over 65 jobs were created in NYC in accordance with ILO recommendations on decent work.”

Soraya has drawn many important lessons from of this initiative noting the satisfaction for all parties involved, including the brand, the workers, and the customers. “Our customers have strong beliefs over Fast Fashion. There is a collective fatigue regarding mass production and the mistreatment of factory workers.”

Remote work as a replacement of factory work has not only provided operational efficiency it has also has provided workers with full control over their work conditions and scheduling which has removed the risk of exploitation.

“The auditing of work conditions has also been streamlined and simplified,” Soraya stated. Through direct communication and accessibility to each female worker and team leader, the company can visit or call them weekly to solicit their feedback on ways to optimize the process.

“They can talk to us freely, without fear of retaliation from a factory owner. Not only do we treat them as our viable partners, but we also have become friends over time,” Soraya said with a smile.

With a deliberate strategy of community building and fraternal support among women workers, the company takes great pride in witnessing their economic empowerment. The increase of their buying power has doubled through the elimination of childcare concerns, the time and cost of long crowded commutes, and lunch expenses compared to working at a distant factory location.

“Combining social impact and supply chain roles has created a space for female migrant workers in the city to obtain and maintain decent jobs aligned with their skill-set and without having to compromise on their family life,” says Soraya. The company believes it has set a precedent for a positive immigrant experience in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world.

Susan Korn, designer and founder. Photo by Sarah Schecker for Susan Alexandra.
The world of work is being reshaped and redefined by smart initiatives like the one developed by the Susan Alexandra company. By connecting people, who have shared experiences migrating to a new country and a large bustling city, they have created unique opportunities and helped build a resilient community.

“We will always face challenges as the market changes but reinventing the workplace, especially in a labor market hindered by today’s COVID-19 disruptions, is both necessary and constructive”, concludes Soraya.

She believes that this model “can accelerate connectivity and force us to change our notions of how work should be done and what workplace efficiency means.”

Soraya believes that this focus on community and contributing to women’s empowerment gives the fashion industry a greater purpose, focused on the dignity of workers that is adapted to the future of work. “I am proud to say that we turn disillusion into joy.”

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Editor’s Note:
Soraya Hamdan, shortly after graduating from the International Relations MA program at New York University, interned at the ILO Office for the United Nations. Soraya stated that her work at the UN on the decent work agenda inspired her incorporate these principles into her professional work at Susan Alexandra. She is appreciative of the brand's founder, Susan Korn, for creating a space beneficial to immigrant women. Her bold vision has brought joy to her customers through her beautiful creations and to her workers through this job initiative.