Meghan Cashman Sebold

While studying abroad in Ghana in 2006 during undergrad at the University of San Francisco, I did a research project on Ghana’s textile industry - a once major GDP-driver that has been decimated by imported cheap imitation prints and second-hand clothing; resulting in a loss of tens of thousands of jobs along the supply chain and a pirated cultural staple. Only a few cotton wax print manufacturers remain in Ghana today.

I returned from Ghana with a love of cotton wax prints, batik, and kente - and a new wardrobe of custom pieces made by abundantly skilled tailors and seamstresses.

After several years of media and communications work in New York, I returned to Ghana in 2011. Sourcing only cotton wax printed in Ghana and artisan-made Batik, I worked with a women’s sewing collective in Kpando and a woman-run factory in Accra to produce a women’s apparel line named AFIA, which means “born on Friday” in the Twi language of the Ashanti. Ghanaians thought I was hysterical for naming something such a common name.

The first collection of AFIA sold out in three months, won a showcase at New York Fashion Week, and was awarded the Innovation USA by the Ethical Fashion Forum.

At that time, though thankfully no longer a novel concept, showing the humanness and transparency behind products was radical. Our small sustainable fashion community in New York had planted a consideration of labor rights, regenerative textiles, chemical-free dyes, and circular life cycles. In a global market where fast fashion is king and corners are cut to maximize profits, having truly sustainable products - both in their social and environmental impacts - requires innovation and integration at the very core of the business model, government regulation as guardrails, and relentless consumer advocacy.

Didn’t someone say, “if you want to change the world, start at home” or something like that? Well I did that by ideating and producing sustainable arts and wellness workshops out of my two-room home in Topanga Canyon under the alias Wild Mesa workshops.

Wild Mesa workshops were led by primarily women experts of sustainable arts and product design. In a time of ready-made conveniences and never ending "stuff," Wild Mesa attempted to create instead of consume using thoughtful processes. Our maker workshops reset our brains from the instant gratification of pressing the checkout button to a deeper engagement of tracing a physical thing back to its beginning and connection to nature, experimenting and developing skills and craft along the way.

From 2016-2019 until I moved from Topanga, Wild Mesa effectively built community and catalyzed local economic growth.