Time stops when I embroider.

The outside world falls away: no TV, no street noise, no distractions, just me holding my upcycling project in hand, hearing the soft swish of needle and fabric passing through fabric. It didn’t always used to be this way.

My name is Ceci Cholst Zeichner. I’m a fashion designer from New York City, so hustle and bustle is not new to me. Over the last few years, though, I felt that I just could not adjust to the industry, where last-minute changes jump out at you from behind the bushes like a wild animal and managers, who are forever trying to squeeze blood from stones, employ one person to do the work of two or three people until that person burns out and the manager can hire someone at a lower salary.

Throwaway culture doesn’t just apply to fashion designers, it also applies to the product we make. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (link opens in new tab) over 720 million pounds of new textiles are made exclusively for the fashion industry every year and about ¾ of those textiles end up rotting away in landfill as customers are pushed to buy more and more new clothing at faster rates. This mindless consumption is a waste of resources, a waste of labor and skill, and a waste of time.

Like so many others during the 2020 lockdowns, I picked up a pandemic hobby: embroidery. I also decided to take classes in sustainable fabric and design to pad out my resume. Pretty soon I realized I could combine my two new interests and Pochoir.NYC was born: a company that helps people unleash their creativity, cultivate sustainable practices, appreciate the labor that goes into our clothes, and create mindful moments every day.

Mission

Pochoir.NYC’s mission is to help busy working people form a community of fellow upcyclers to turn their work wardrobe into customized masterpieces and increase ownership of their clothes through the art of embroidery. We sell kits and pre-embroidered upcycled plus size clothing in sizes L-5X.

Our aesthetic is eclectic, mixing Japanese-inspired embroidery techniques with Art Deco design motifs.

We are here to show that sustainable fashion isn’t expensive, inaccessible, or crunchy but polished, affordable, and easy to create on your own. 

Our aim is to produce a fashion collection without ever making a new stitch of clothing. We want our customers to use our pochoirs (stencils) to embroider their clothes with their own stories.

Values

Kindness: Creating a workplace and virtual community that values experimentation, collaboration and connection as we cherish the diversity and inclusion of all people.

Education: Knowledge is power, and we always encourage our employees and customers to be curious and ready to learn new things.

Care and Preservation: Preserving and conserving our planet, our culture, our textiles, our clothing, and our crafts through recycling, upcycling, repair, reselling, or disposing of products in a way that honors the labor involved and keeps the earth healthy.

Integrity: We strive to uphold transparent and ethical labor practices and we strive to create an amazing experience for our customers and vendors in every way possible.

Accessibility: We take care to design products that are affordable and accessible to those with different abilities. We are committed to providing an American With Disabilities Act-compliant website and product, with instructions offered in written text and subtitled videos to help people with different learning experiences.

Our Promise

We promise to always value and treat our customers with the utmost respect, no matter their perceived gender, race, ability, sexuality, or immigration status. We promise only to deliver the most thoughtful and elegant products to aid in our customers' self-expression and desire to live a more sustainable life. We promise to make all of our products in an ethical, fair, and environmentally friendly way and ensure that our employees and the craftspeople we work with are treated with the same respect that our customers receive.

What Does Pochoir Mean?

Our name is French for “stencil,” referring to an old method of illustration where Pochoiristes, predominantly women artists, used stencils to meticulously hand color black and white fashion illustrations, resulting in images that were at once mass produced yet one of a kind. These illustrations were then bound into limited-edition fashion magazines for the elite.

Pochoir.NYC provides stencils for your creativity. We may send you all of the supplies and colors you need but it is up to you to design your piece and fill it in with your colors, your personality. Turn your mass produced wardrobe into works of art.