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Repair, Don’t Replace: Upkept.io’s Mission to Transform Fashion’s Environmental Footprint
Episode 335 • 10th November 2025 • I Am Northwest Arkansas® • Randy Wilburn
00:00:00 00:56:24

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About the Show:

"The most sustainable garment is the one that's already in your closet, right?"

       – Robin Wallis Atkinson

This episode of I Am Northwest Arkansas® is part of a special series supported by the Walton Family Foundation. Through its Home Region Program, the Foundation is investing in the people and ideas shaping the future of Northwest Arkansas — from housing and entrepreneurship to transportation, sustainability, and leadership.

In this episode, host Randy Wilburn sits down with Robin Wallis Atkinson, artist, entrepreneur, and founder & CEO of Upkept.io. Together, they dive into the growing challenges of fast fashion, the decline of garment repair skills, and how Upkept is using technology and creativity to make clothing repair simple, accessible, and climate-friendly for everyone.

Robin shares her journey from painter and curator to revitalizing Northwest Arkansas Fashion Week — always searching for what’s missing in the local creative ecosystem. That journey led her to realize how few opportunities exist for people to engage with sustainable fashion or find skilled repair services. With Upkept, she’s changing that — building a future where people can keep their favorite clothes longer, save money, and reduce textile waste.

Perfect for anyone passionate about sustainability, innovation, and creative problem-solving — especially those who love seeing new ideas take root right here in Northwest Arkansas.

Key Takeaways:

  • Repair Revolution: Fast fashion has made it harder to repair clothes, but Upkept aims to make fixing garments as simple as buying new ones.
  • Value What You Own: Repairing clothes you love saves money and the planet—think cost-per-wear and sentimental value!
  • Skilled Trades Matter: The tailoring industry is shrinking, with few young people learning sewing skills. Upkept focuses on training and upholding high-quality standards for repairs.
  • Technology Meets Tradition: Upkept’s platform uses images and (soon) AI to make repairs easy and transparent, letting customers know costs up front.
  • Community and Creativity: Northwest Arkansas’s creative network, entrepreneurial spirit, and focus on supply chain logistics have helped shape Upkept’s growth.
  • Wider Impact: Better repair services can help slow down the fast fashion cycle and dramatically cut the amount of clothing going to landfills.

All this and more on this episode of the I Am Northwest Arkansas® podcast.

Important Links and Mentions on the Show*

Sponsors: This episode is part of a special series supported by the Walton Family Foundation’s Home Region Program, which helps grow work and entrepreneurship, transportation, housing, and community leadership in Northwest Arkansas.

This episode is sponsored by*

FindItNWA.com

Signature Bank of Arkansas "Community Banking at its Best!"

Try ONBoardNWA.com Today!

*Note: some of the resources mentioned may be affiliate links. This means we get paid a commission (at no extra cost to you) if you use that link to make a purchase.

Connect more with I am Northwest Arkansas:

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Transcripts

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Hey folks. Welcome to another special episode of I Am

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Northwest Arkansas, part of our five part series supported by the

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Walton Family Foundation. In this series, we're shining a light on

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the people and projects shaping the future of our region,

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from housing and transportation to entrepreneurship and

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leadership. Today we're joined by Robin Wallis

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Atkinson, an artist, innovator and founder of

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Upkept IO. Robin is no stranger to Northwest

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Arkansas's creative landscape, and in this conversation we

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explore how design, technology and community

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come together in her work and why empowering

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creative professionals is so essential to our region's

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growth. Let's get into it.

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It's time for another episode of I Am Northwest

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Arkansas, the podcast covering the intersection of

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culture, entrepreneurship and life in general here in the

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Ozarks. Whether you are considering a move to this area

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or trying to learn more about the place you call home, we've got

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something special for you. Here's our host,

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Randy Wilbur. Fashion is

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one of the most wasteful industries on the planet, with

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85% of textiles ending up in landfills each year.

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Even though nearly all of them could be reused or recycled

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in the US Repairing clothes has all but disappeared

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from mainstream culture. But what if repair could be just as

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easy, convenient and stylish as buying something

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new? My guest today, Robin Wallis Atkinson, is the

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founder and CEO of upkept, a new digital platform

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that makes garment repair and alterations seamless,

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climate friendly and accessible. We'll talk about her journey from

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the creative world to tech enabled sustainability, why

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now is the right moment for a repair revolution, and how

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she hopes to change the way we all think about the

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clothes in our closet. Without further ado, Robin

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Wallis Atkinson, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so

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much for having me. I am thrilled to be here. Absolutely. Well,

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certainly. And I guess one of the biggest things I should mention is that all

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of this is happening right here in Northwest Arkansas. It is.

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Yeah, absolutely. That's really exciting. So listen, I would love for you just

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to share with our audience because we can't assume that everybody knows who you are.

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I would love to you just, if you can just share a little bit

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about your superhero origin story and your background and

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you know, what led you from creative work to founding

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upcap. Yeah, So I have always

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been involved in sort of scanning the

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landscape, trying to find what's missing

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or you know, what I think where opportunities are

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lacking or like, what would be nice if it were here. But it's not

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here. Right. And when I was young that was really simple

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because it was like my living room. And the answer was paintings. Like, there's no

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paintings in this room. There should be more paintings in this living room. So now

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I'm a painter, right? And I was pretty bad at it. And

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that's okay, because then I started to do art

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shows and provide opportunities for artists because I, you know, it was

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2003 in Northwest Arkansas and there wasn't a ton.

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There were really no galleries. There wasn't a ton of opportunity for

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artists to represent themselves. So that was kind of my

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beginning of my career as a curator. And I was

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a curator for 10 or so years. Got to travel

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the world, was really exciting. Got my master's degree. But along

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the way, kind of felt like I never really

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clicked in international art. It wasn't my

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home for sure. So I came back to Arkansas, fell

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in love, had kids, bought a house, all the beautiful white picket

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fence story. But then again, kind of popped my head up and said, what is

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missing from this ecosystem? And that was 2015.

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20. And having lived in New York and lived in New Orleans

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and lived in lots of different places, one of the things I noticed was that

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northwest Arkansas looked really white, which I knew it

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couldn't be, but in all of the social media

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of the creative enterprises and the boutiques and

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everything, it was really, really homogenous. And

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so when the opportunity to reboot Northwest

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Arkansas Fashion Week landed in my lap, I thought, okay, I have an idea.

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What if we just really lean heavily into

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showcasing all the different kinds of people that are in northwest Arkansas?

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We don't focus only on middle class white women, but we try

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to bring everybody to the table. And I did it kind of secretly. It wasn't

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like we didn't announce that that's what we were doing, but that's what we were

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doing. And people loved it. People felt really seen and they felt

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really like there was opportunity to participate and they wanted to be creative

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with us. And so I did that for close to 10 years. And I

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mean, that evolved a lot over the course

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of that nine year journey. But what it really started as was

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it's really hard to get involved in fashion in Northwest Arkansas. Northwest

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Arkansas looks really homogenous in its marketing to itself, but it

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isn't what can be done. Yeah. So along the way,

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I learned a lot about fashion and that fashion is perhaps

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even worse than contemporary art in terms of being able to get involved

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in it. So I tried to create opportunities for people

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to enter into the possibility of being a fashion designer.

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And the more I learned about the industry, the more I learned how

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really kind of Problematic. The apparel industry is

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now, there's just so few opportunities to participate.

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The production is largely overseas. The skill set is entirely

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gone. And so this, like, endless drive I

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have to, like, find what's missing and try to create opportunities

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has kind of just ultimately led to what

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kind of industry is it going to take to get people

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skilled trades, sewn trades, labor jobs in the United States?

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How do you make it financially possible? And how do you create an

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ecosystem where we're valuing clothing and valuing

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production and valuing that labor? And so here I am with my next

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best guess. Well, no, and I really

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appreciate that. And I think before we started recording, you and I were kind of

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commenting about and lamenting, honestly, the

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bygone era of the fact that like, most homes in

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the United States had a sewing machine or some variation of that,

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it was actually okay to. To patch your jeans, you know, and to do

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things like that or to darn your socks or. And I know I might sound

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like I'm dating myself, and I know some of the younger generation of folks

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listening, like, what is darning socks? But the bottom line is everybody

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gets holes in their socks. Everybody. I mean, there's. There's a universal problem. It is

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a universal problem. Everybody has issues with that. But the thing, it

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is a. They used to make clothing better and so

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it would last longer. That's why when you think of like Levi's

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501s or Things of that nature, you can have a pair of jeans, a good

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quality pair of jeans for 20, 30 years and they

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still hold up. But nowadays with fast fashion and everything

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else, it's changed to the point where a lot of people feel

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like, oh, well, I'll just wear this for a season or two and then get

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rid of it. Yeah. And call it a day. Yeah. I mean, it's a far

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stretch from where I started, certainly. But if you think about my kind

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of just like obsession with objects and how objects get into the

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world and the inherent value of objects, it does kind

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of make sense in the, In a long strand. But,

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yeah, fast fashion has really, in the last 20 years,

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dramatically changed our relationship to made products.

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And it's a big. There are a lot of thorny

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parts of the issue. And in my last role,

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you know, I really tried to attack a lot of different angles of this

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problem. And then one day I had a kind of light bulb moment that was

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like, maybe just fix some clothes. Yeah. Keep it

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simple. Right? Keep it simple. Stupid. Yeah, yeah. Like maybe you

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just provide an opportunity to get your pants Fixed and like in

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and of itself, that is actually kind of remarkable. Yeah. So.

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Well, you, when you think of it, it's like, it's even now. Like I was

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back in my hometown not too long ago, shout out to Teaneck, New Jersey. And

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I was riding down the street and I rode past a really, really

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small, thin store that used to be where my

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tailor was. And literally growing up, I remember

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going to the tailor when it was beyond my grandmother's scope of fixability.

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Yep, that's such a word. Then we would always go to Mr. Elliot

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and he was our tailor and he would tailor clothes and it was,

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it was never an issue. You could always get something fixed. You could even get

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something customized. Oh, I mean, it was, there was a whole industry. And

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now the research shows that the tailoring industry is.

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13% of tailors age out of the industry every

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year and they are not being backfilled by anybody

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because we're not teaching the trade anymore. So the

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tailoring industry is literally walking itself right off a cliff

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with no replacement, while at the same time

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consumer interest in better made clothes in

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like longevity of the items that they buy is going up. Yeah.

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So there's this increased demand meeting this

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reduced capacity. And I kind of looked right at that. I mean, this

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is like 10 years down the line, but in 10 years, what is

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anybody going to do if they want to take the waist of their pants in

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an inch or get a button put back on? I mean, I

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can barely put a button back on, which is a little shameful. Like, heaven forbid

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your zipper break. Right. And so, you know, it's kind of just

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projecting this need that is there today but will

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be drastically increased over the next decade and just

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wondering whether or not can we get those unit economics right, so

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that this has real staying power. And when I looked at the potential

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scale of the company, of the idea,

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it's just so big because there's nothing else in the space.

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And so, you know, there's a saying that I really hold to, which is

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that inspiration has an expiration date. Okay. And so I

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like that. Yeah, I stole it from TikTok. And I'm sure it's somebody very

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famous, is actual saying. But when I had the idea, I thought, man,

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you know, there's never going to be another time in my life where I

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have this much energy, this much access and this much

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drive to like really go at a problem like this. And

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so I've been running head on at it. Yeah,

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well, you know, and I think the thing that our listeners especially Those

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that are in the United States should understand that even though, you

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know, repair as an infrastructure in the US has lacked, there are

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other parts of the world where it is. You know, repair is such a

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big. Still a big thing. Huge thing. I mean, Europe is ahead of us

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in a lot of ways, culturally and, like, within.

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In the sort of textile realm and the apparel realm. But one of the things

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they've just passed is actually, it's called the right to repair law,

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and it includes textiles. And so apparel companies

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in Europe are about to have to start paying for their own textile recycling.

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But the repair industry is super robust in Europe, and

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there are actually a couple of companies, there's about three companies over there

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that are doing really similar things to what we're trying to launch in the US

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but they're all sort of catered to an ecosystem that isn't

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as geographically vast. So, like, there's a company in

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London called Sojo, and they send a tailor to your house on a scooter,

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which is adorable if you're in London. Yeah, fantastic idea. But, like, that's

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not going to cut it in Texas. Right?

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Like, good luck. Yeah. And then there's a company in Lithuania

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that's doing mail in repair, which is super interesting.

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Their tech is not entirely dissimilar to the tech that we've built.

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And so I think that we're just trying to get to market first in the

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U.S. yeah. And I think that, you know, I mean, when you

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think about the fact that we have been so behind that, it's

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not that there aren't examples out there. It's just a matter of

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deciding that, yeah, that's something that we're going to do. And then also,

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too, let's just face it, fixing and repairing clothes isn't

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sexy. It is not, you know, compared to other things, it's just

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not. But it's. And I want to share just a quick story. You'll find some

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humor in this. I have a very favorite, one of my

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favorite Izod or Lacoste

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sweaters. And the zipper broke. And

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so for, like, almost a year, I didn't throw it out. I was like, man,

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this is like, my favorite sweater. I got to get this repaired.

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I had to wait until I went to Pittsburgh, where my mother is,

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to a repair shop that could actually do it for me.

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And they charged me 40. You know, they charged me 49 bucks. And I was

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like, it's the best $49 I ever. Yeah, yeah. Because, I mean, zippers are

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hard. Yeah, they are. And they're not easy. And this is a really well

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constructed, well made Lacoste sweater. And for

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the $49 investment that I made three years later, it still fits

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me great. I still wear it all the time, and I absolutely love it. And

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I didn't want to go get a new one, and you might not. Be able

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to find it even if you did. Actually, I probably couldn't because it was a

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something that they stopped making. So even I went to several

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Lacoste shops and say, hey, do you still have this? I'm like, no, we don't

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make that model anymore. And that' that is the challenge. And so there are people

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that are listening to this that have some favorite items sitting in the back of

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their closet that are unrepaired, but with a

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little gentle love and tlc, could be brought back to

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life. Yeah. I call it the pile. And I want to trademark

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the upkept pile. And because I have a pile too,

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and I'm adding stuff to it all the time. We all have the

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garments that are. We have a sentimental attachment to them,

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or they just fit, right. Or they, you know, we wore them during an

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important part of our lives and we can't throw them away

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even though we can't wear them. I have a pair of cowboy boots upstairs that

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I've had for 20 years. Yeah, 2,

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020 years. That's a long time. And the sole is cracked

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in half. And I'm like, I guess at this point

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I'm going to get them fixed in time for my kids to wear them, but,

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like, I'm not getting rid of them. And so, yeah, it's not

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like, it's not the raciest, coolest, sexiest idea,

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but it very much is an idea that's like, it's tied to skilled labor, which

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is something I'm really dedicated to. It's tied to

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keeping things that you love. And it's also a really good

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way to slow down fast fashion. Right. Because the most sustainable

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garment is the one that's already in your closet, Right?

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Absolutely. So. And there's, you know, when it comes to, like, the question of

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should I replace or should I repair? And I really always think

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about, like, cost per wear. Right. So if you, like

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you just said this izod sweater, you paid 49 three years ago.

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I bet the cost per wear on that repair is 40

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cents now. I mean, it really wears down over time. At a certain point,

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it's going to be paying you money to wear it. And then you think

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that Izod sweater Was probably a couple hundred bucks to buy. So 50 bucks

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to keep it for another six years is like really easy math. I

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hope I can keep it longer than six years, just personally. So. And then

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here's my. Here's my other story I'll share. My wife gets a kick out of

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this. I was in college and I'm actually ashamed to say this, but I

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bought a pair. Literally, I bought a pair of Gucci loafers. I was a kid.

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I was that kid. I was that kid in college. I was, I was living.

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But this was the 80s and I was like, I shouldn't be spending this kind

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of money. I mean, it was the most I've ever spent on a pair of

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shoes. I was like 300 in the 80s. That was a lot of money.

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But I was making really good money because I had like three jobs, so nobody

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clapped back at me over that. I legitimately, I wanted those

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Gucci loafers. Now I say all that to say I still own

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those Gucci loafers. That was more than 30 plus

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years ago. I've had them resold, they still look

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amazing. And I get compliments every time. And I've got my money's worth. So

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I told my wife. I was like, Yeah, I spent 300 bucks. But if you

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amortize that over 35 plus years, it's all

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good, right? It's a wash. Exactly. And my feet always look good

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when I wear them. So we should really be using the word amortize more

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in my marketing of this company. I'm going to make a note to. That you

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can have marketing too. Yeah. With the amortization of the sweater.

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Well, people, I mean, stuff. Listen, I have a. I mean, I

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went through a phase and I lived in the Bay area for a while and

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I still have a really nice Giorgio Armani

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linen shirt. Yeah. That I will just never get rid of. It's not

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frayed. It still looks amazing. The buttons, I've had

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to replace a couple of buttons. But, you know, it's just, you know, I'm

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not letting it go. As a matter of fact, I even tell my boys, I'm

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gonna will this to you. This is gonna be yours. And they're gonna love it.

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Yeah. One of the things I'm excited about with this company is just the

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data we're gonna get. Right. So when we're starting to get, you

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think about getting repairs at scale. What we're gonna start to see is

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trends and what's coming in. Trends and what's breaking and

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being able to report back to

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Izod, like, hey, this SKU of yours has shown

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up to us X, Y, Z number of times. Like, you may consider

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a different zipper solution. Right. Because your customer

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loves the sweater, but it's coming back for repair over and

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over again. And I'm just really interested to sort of start to see

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what we learn about our clothes by finding out what people

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love enough to keep and also what's breaking. So

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that's something I'm really excited to start measuring. We obviously

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don't have enough case studies yet to be doing that, but

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I do think about this as an at scale business. Right.

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There's, you know, there's one point or

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there's 126 million adults in the United States and all of them are

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wearing shirts right. Now. How many of those people need a button

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fixed? Right, Absolutely. Or several buttons. Or several buttons.

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Or wonder why there's an extra button on the inside of their

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shirt. And it's like, because every shirt. Yeah, exactly.

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Every good shirt comes with one or two buttons. Right. And so.

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Yeah, you know, it's funny that you mentioned that. And I do believe

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that there is inherent value in the work

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that you're doing of rehabilitating clothing

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because, you know, like you said, just speaking to that specific sweater,

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my eyes Odd sweater as an example, my Lacoste sweater.

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Reporting that information back to Lacoste could be

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extremely valuable. Yeah, right. Because I do get it that a lot

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of manufacturers aren't thinking about the long term wear, but some are, right? I

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mean, everybody can't be Patagonia and Patagonia set the standard.

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Yeah. For, you know, their whole thing is we actually enjoy seeing

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people either give their stuff to somebody else or,

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you know, a gently used parka ends up in the hands of another

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person so that it continues to have sustainability and long term

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life. And because, you know, Patagonia is all about that, you

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know, recycle mentality when it comes to clothing. But I

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actually think that it's valuable data and information for

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any clothing manufacturer to understand what brings the

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most value to their customer. Yeah. Make more of

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that. I actually read the. I was flying back from Boston

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last year, the year before, and I read the

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autobiography of the founder of Patagonia in like one go.

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It's called Let My People Go Surfing. I was just so

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inspired by how his journey was started

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by like, it was not carabiners, but like some other

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small metal thing that you use for rock climbing. And it

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just kept piling on top of itself from there. Like he built this one

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product and it matched his lifestyle and it matched

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the people he was with and then he made more of them. And then like

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fast forward 30 years later and he's got the only

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apparel company on the planet that's actively doing repair.

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Right. And it's just so I just. There's something in his story

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that's so fascinating and I think it's really, you know,

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not every apparel company. I mean 75% of apparel companies

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offer no post purchase support. Yeah. So let's just

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build that support. Yeah. Because they're not going to buy it. They're

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not going to build it, but the customer still needs it. Well, and

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obviously coming from New England, the one company that comes to mind is

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L.L. bean. Right. I mean L.L. bean, people forget about L.L. bean.

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It's not a sexy company, but it's. Not a sexy company. But I've been, been

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wearing L.L. bean all my life. And as a matter of fact, my mom used

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to buy L.L. bean products because she knew that they stood

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behind them and if Randy ripped them up and out in the yard somewhere

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on his bike that she could get them repaired. And just recently

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they stopped their unconditional program

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and a lot of it was just due to abuse. Yeah. But I think

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I may have been the last person to get a rain jacket

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repaired because the way they did it is if they couldn't fix it. They would

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replace it. They would replace it. Yeah. I actually anecdotally we just got

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an L.L. bean coded in the mail last week. It had to have all its

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buttons put back on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So. And still they make

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good clothing. It's just, you know, you just have to, to me that there's something

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to be said for that. And actually that might be, that is a gap

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or an area of opportunity for upkeep when you think about

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kind of filling that need. Right. Yeah. No, the business to

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business applications are in my opinion probably larger than

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the actual consumer facing applications. It's just a matter of

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what do you build first. Right. And so for us, I

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really wanted to launch the company as a consumer facing product

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one because the real hurdle was to build the tech so that a consumer

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could use it. So we thought let's go ahead and get that out of the

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way first. And then also we want to slowly over the

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next several years build a real reputation for the

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care and maintenance of clothing. And I think that if the

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customer knows that upkept is a known

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quantity, businesses will be more likely to partner. You know,

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even if our name isn't on It. And we're just offering the service to them

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behind the scenes. But, yeah, the B2B applications are huge as well.

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Yeah. Okay. So we've talked a lot about repairability

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and just the challenge that this industry faces as a

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whole. I would love for you to kind of walk through the solution

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and customer journey that Upkept has in terms of, like, walk

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us through what happens when someone sends a garment to Upkept and

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how do you make it seamless? Yeah. So a really

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important part for me was lowering the

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barrier to entry for consumers, making it as easy as humanly possible.

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Right. Because the idea came to me when I had a pair of jeans

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that I needed to get fixed. And I sort of went through the

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mental gymnastics of, like, what would I actually have to do to fix

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these? I would have to go somewhere with my human body and take

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them with me, find a time they're open, talk to

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somebody, get the price. If I don't like the price, what am I going to

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walk away from the counter? That's going to be horrifying. So I'm going to have

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to pay whatever price they say to me. And so what I wanted us to

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get to was an easy interface where the

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customer finds the price out right up front. Right.

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And so we want you to be able to sort of self diagnose the problem

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with your clothes and then find out a zipper is $40.

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Great. I haven't talked to anybody yet. I can reject that and walk away

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from. I put my phone down or I can opt into doing it. And

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I want that to be something the customer can do on their own, on their

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own time. And if they choose to get the repair,

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then they can mail it to me, or I can make it even easier and

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I'll mail them a mailer and then they can mail it back to me because,

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you know, okay, I want to get my pants fixed, but I don't want to

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go to ups. Like, I don't want to have to buy a mailing label. So

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we are really trying to make that reverse logistic problem

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really easy. It isn't. It isn't. It isn't.

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Well, you can ask Amazon that because they bought Whole Foods under the

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auspices that that would help part of their logistics. It's helping.

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I think it's hurting Whole Foods, but that's. That's a whole different story. Not my

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business. Yeah, yeah. So the goal is you find out

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what the cost is, you pay up front, you get it to us, we fix

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it in 10 days, and we send it Back to you and that's it. It

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shouldn't be any harder than that. So, you know, we are thinking

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a lot about supply chain. We're thinking a lot about how to make it as

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easy as humanly possible. The end goal is when the

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product is finished. When I have built it all, it will be

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an AI photo recognition system where you don't even have to

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enter the problem. It just tells you the problem. It says, this is a ripped

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pair of jeans. That's a $25 fix. Put it in a bag

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outside your house and we're going to come pick it up from you. And I

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mean, imagine if we can get there,

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just how easy this service could be. So I think it would be

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huge. And I was just thinking about that because AI will like, AI will walk

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you through a number of things. I mean, we're seeing commercials now where the guy

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is looking for a compact and is obviously his girlfriend's bathroom.

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He doesn't know what a compact looks like. So he asked AI. AI points

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it out to him. And it's in the same way AI can

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identify or at least self diagnose exactly what is the

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issue with this garment, this clothing, and if it's mated

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to a database, it can pretty instantly

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tell you, yeah, this is what this is gonna cause. It's not rocket

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science. It's just a lot of data. Right? And so one of the

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things we're using is in order to get your repair done through us, you have

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to submit an image of the repair. That's for twofold reasons. One is that we

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need to know for a fact that that's what you're sending. And not like you're

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not gonn a ball gown and say that you wanted to get your pants

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hemmed. And you will have paid for hemming and not ball gown fixing.

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But the other is to make the pile of images of

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ripped pants. Like, we just need the world's biggest data set of

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torn jeans to train that AI model. And so

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we are collecting them now and we are exploring what kind of options

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are on the market. And man, everything is developing

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so fast that, you know, in

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two years ago, what we've built so far would have taken

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two years to build, and we've built all of it in six months. Right.

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It's happening overnight. AI has literally transformed

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marketplaces. Wild. It's wild. It really is, you know, and

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we're using it in a way to help extend

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what's possible for us. Right. So we're, we don't have to spend as

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much Money on programmer time because we're vibe coding a lot of

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the system. But we do have to pay programmers to, like,

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code check. Right. So it's not that there are people that are just getting cut

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out of the equation altogether. It's just that the work that's being done

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is farther down the line. And so we

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also think that two years ago, there would have had to be

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a customer service layer in this company that would have

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cost too much money from a manpower perspective

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to make it feasible to pay the labor to actually do the repair.

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So for me, I think that this is the reason this doesn't exist yet is

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because this may be the first time in the last 20 years that this is

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actually financially viable. Because you want to pay the seamstresses

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to do that skilled labor. You don't want to pay a

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cost center for folks on the telephone talking about pants.

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Right. You just need to get that done through the digital layer. So, I

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mean, I'm obviously very excited, but I think it's just,

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you know, it just feels like it's the right moment.

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The ingredients are here, and it's getting easier

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every day for the technology aspect. Yeah. And I would

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imagine, as you said earlier, how do you guys kind of vet and

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support repair specialists to ensure the quality? That's

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gotta be like, one of the biggest issues. It's the thing, actually.

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So, you know, I spent nine years in an organization that was

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dedicated to teaching people sewn trades. So luckily,

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I have a pretty good knowledge set myself of what

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training looks like, what good quality looks like. And

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so right now, I'm quality control, which is my team will tell

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you I am an impossible quality control to get through.

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I'm really picky because my thing is, if you love your

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clothes enough to send them to us, I want it to be like, it's impossible

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to know that we were even there. Right. So luckily, I have a group

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of folks that are really, really good at tailoring.

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My main repair designer does wedding

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dresses. That's her day job. And then she moonlights with us

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to do repair. And so what we're learning is that as we go,

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it may be more beneficial for us to train people

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from scratch on an upkept repair manual

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than to actually bring people in that already know how to sew. Because

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we're going to have to teach them how to sew differently. Right. Because one

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of the things that's really important to me is standardization of practice so that

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a hem is a hem is a hem, and in order to get that,

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it may actually Be harder to break people's

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habits. So we're learning about that as we go. But I do

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think that training is going to be a really important part of this

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company, which luckily I know a lot about how to do that.

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Yeah. So how much in your estimation will

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repair be physical? People doing

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it versus automation? Oh, I don't think we'll be able to

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automate repair for 20 years. Really. I mean, if you think about

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not. At the level that we're thinking, that we're like, irobot's not coming for that

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anytime soon. No. Well, and think about this. Underwear,

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for instance, is still made by people in, not in the US

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obviously. But like, there are some items of clothing that

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will never be automated because you need a human being to like do this

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one seam or do this one operation. And so until the

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world invests very differently in automation

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for apparel, straight line manufacturing is one thing that may

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be automated in the next 10 years. Repair is.

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Every repair is an individual problem to solve

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because the pants are all torn in a different place, the buttons are all different

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shapes, the texture of the fabric is always different. And so

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it's kind of uniquely suited to a human workforce,

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which is also something I really love about it. I don't think a robot could

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do it because it's a problem solve every time. So I

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think that of all the industries that could be grown right now,

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this one is, I think, pretty future proof. Okay. All right, so

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here's the other question, right? When you think of all of this work and, and

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the time and effort that you're putting into this, how do you convince people? Like,

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I know I've already said, I've already given several examples of why I believe

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repair is worthy. But how do you convince people that it's worth repairing

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rather than replacing? I think there's a few metrics we can capture

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customers across. One, I think the most, the easiest is the

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sentimental value. Right. You're not going to

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repair something that doesn't mean anything to you. But we

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all own clothing that we are keeping for years and years

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for different reasons. And I think that for that customer, it's not

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convincing them that they should do it, it's letting them know they can

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do it. Right. And so the marketing push is just to get people to know

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that it's there. I think there's another sort of

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metric across which we can capture customers, and that's for people

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who want to be doing better with their clothing purchases. But the

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apparel industry hasn't really provided a ton of options for what

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feels like sustainable apparel shopping. And so this is just a kind of

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argument of, listen, if you invest 50 more

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bucks into that sweater, can you extend its lifespan and therefore slow

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down your participation in the fast fashion problem? And

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then there's another customer that I think is unique and that we're

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very interested in capturing, which is the sort of outdoor enthusiast who has

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spent a significant amount of money on their garment because

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it's got a particular technical usage or, you know, it's a very

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fancy bike short, or, I mean, even a tent. Right. Like,

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there's no real reason we can't fix a tent zipper. Yeah.

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So thinking about people who are investing in these technical

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gears, those folks, from a unit economics perspective, on their

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end, it does make more sense to repair than replace. I'm really

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interested in working with people who invest in clothing for their jobs.

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Right. People who work in construction or people who

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have to wear any kind of special gear. I also think that, like,

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police officers have to have their patches sewn on somewhere. Like,

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there's just a lot of applications. And so I do

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think that there will be some education around letting people

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know it's valuable to do, but I think it's more along the lines of just

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letting people know it's possible to do. Yeah, it's almost like, you know, and I

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think of, like, Cintas or some of these other companies. I mean, like, having an

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up cap. Yeah. Having an up cap kept in. In house with

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Centos, because they can offer that as a service, as

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a value added service. Because, you know, you don't always want to replace

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a whole outfit. And you better believe that they're on. If I flip

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three pages back, they're on this notebook. They're on the list of like, I. Just

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saw them literally earlier today in a store that I was in, and I was

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like, oh, okay. And these guys are here. A lot of people don't know what

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Cintas does, but it's like I drive. Past him every day when I go up

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to the warehouse and I'm like, like, get me Mr. Cintas.

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What is his phone number? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I

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guess for you as an entrepreneur, it must be exciting

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to see all the possibilities that it's almost like, well, where do

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you, you know, where do you go next? You're kind of like squirrel. You know,

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everywhere you look, there's an opportunity. So I'm learning

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this journey is. I'm right where I belong in that I love to

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build. I'm like a real builder. And so right now, this is a

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very buildery part of it, but what I'm learning is there are

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more good ideas out there than there are hours in a day.

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And that everyone I know is pretty smart.

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Yeah, yeah. And everybody comes with such

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unique and good additions to the possible model of

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this thing. And I have to listen to them and I have to say,

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man, yes, absolutely. I'm going to put it on

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the list. I had a two and a half

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hour meeting last week with somebody that I just. Brilliant.

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Was just throwing good ideas at me left and right. And I came home and

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I was energized and I was ready to go, and I was ready to pivot

Speaker:

the whole company in this new direction. And I talked to Kash about it, my

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husband, who's my co founder, and he was like, we got to start a list.

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Robin, you have to stay true to mission, even though

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there are so many delicious, shiny objects in

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every direction. And. And that's okay, right? It's just. This

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is definitely a marathon, not a sprint. No, it is. It really is.

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And so I applaud you having the

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patience and the fortitude to sometimes dial it back in. Right.

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Cause it's like you almost have to say, woo, Sammy, just

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calm this down. Because you get so excited and animated. That's. First of all,

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I think it's a good sign that you really are in the right place in

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terms of where your passion lies. But at the same time, you also

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want to be as practical as you can be. But then nobody ever said

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any entrepreneur that was ever worth their weight was practical,

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right? No, no. You got to break some things in the

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process. And that goes without saying. And there's like,

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in my mind, it's almost like a visual process of, like, we're

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going to build this one core offering, and then we're going to branch off this

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other offering from that core offering. But we can't build the branch until

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we've built the trunk, right? Yeah. And so just knowing how to

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build the LEGO BL together and knowing that this could keep

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me busy for 20 years, you know, and really being

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excited for how much there is to build. Sure, sure.

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Well, and I think you couldn't have picked. And now I want to look

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at the backdrop of where you're building this. You couldn't have picked a better

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location being northwest Arkansas. No, My

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question simply is, how has building from

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northwest Arkansas shaped your journey? And then

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really, how have you leaned on local makers and the

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creative communities which I already know you're connected with? Yeah, yeah.

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I'm gonna do a funny aside that maybe will make sense when

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I'm done with it, but my mom was a

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failed painter. Like me, she wanted to be a painter.

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She interestingly became a curator, and then she went to school for

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nursing. And when I was younger. It's a big

Speaker:

pivot. It's a big pivot. Yeah. And she married a doctor, and it all worked

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out okay. But when I was younger and I

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wanted to be a painter, she told me about this job she had in the

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70s where she painted presidents faces onto plates

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in a factory. And I was fascinated by this because

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I was like, this doesn't exist. Right? This is not a thing. But

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I as a person who wants to paint for a living and I need a

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day job, I would like 100% President's faces onto

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plates for money. That would be so cool.

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And so this idea was in the back of my head all throughout my whole

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journey, which is like, what are artists supposed to do during the day?

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Not everybody is making their living at art. And so what are

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creatively inclined humans meant to do with their

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time to earn dollars to support their art? And so that's

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just been something I've always been fascinated to solve. And so

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coming back to northwest Arkansas in

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2015, really, and seeing how massively

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different the landscape was from when I left, it seemed like

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just endless possibility. There was so much growth. The arts

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ecosystem was booming because of the investments that the Walton

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foundation had put in. And so when I relaunched Northwest

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Arkansas Fashion Week and then converted it into Interform, it was

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just this really incredible process

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of building and learning and connecting to community

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and learning what was possible that I think I couldn't have

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done anywhere else. Like, the ingredients would not have been

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altogether in the right place. And I think that. So

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if I had not gone through the last nine years of building Interform

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and building that entire platform, I

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wouldn't know how to do what I'm doing now. Right. And so, I mean, it

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is unique to this place. And now I'm older, I

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know more about business, you know, got some hard won,

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Some hard won wins or some, you know, I've got some battle

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scars, some calluses. Some calluses. And I'm like,

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more determined than ever that, you know,

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I'm here, this is where I belong,

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and I'm going to build this thing and I'm going to build all the bits

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along the way that I have to. But, like, it's really handy to be in

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the supply chain capital of the world while I'm working on a Reverse

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logistics problem. And crazy enough, I mean, one of the top

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universities in the country teaching logistics. I mean, you. I mean, you've

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got young people here that can help you. I mean, there's all kinds

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of resources and opportunities right in your

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own backyard. Yeah. I mean, the entrepreneurial ecosystem is so

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welcoming and so enthusiastic and so

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optimistic, and oftentimes all

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you need is a couple people clapping and

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saying, like, yeah, you can do it. Right? Like, we know you can do it.

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And that's kind of all I need to hear. And I'm like, you're right. I

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absolutely can and will do it. Thank you very much. And that exists here,

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unlike, sort of anywhere else. I've been right. That people really

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want to see wins, and they're willing to go out of their way sometimes

Speaker:

to help them happen. So I definitely think that the

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DNA of upkept is very much built in northwest

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Arkansas and is very rooted to, like, its centrality in the

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heartland. My relationship to creative

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talent in the ecosystem, and, like, really smart,

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skilled people who can do repair. And

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then. Yeah. Having a giant behemoth right next door

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to learn from. Right. I can't tell you how many times I've

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listened to. There's a great business movers podcast

Speaker:

about Sam Walton, and I've listened to it and then just turned

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it back on again just right afterwards, because it's just, like,

Speaker:

the amount of obstacles and the different

Speaker:

ways everything can break, but you just have to keep going is

Speaker:

incredibly inspirational, so. Well, yeah, and I mean, there's. I mean, I. And

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I've talked about, like, Founders, which is a really good podcast. Talks about

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different biographies of amazing business people, Sam Walton being

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one of them. His biography, which I say to most people that move here, I'm

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like, you should read it. Yeah. Like, I had read it before I moved here,

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and then I've. I've reread it, like, three times, and I have the

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audiobook. It's really interesting because there's actually, you know, people

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always say, you know, there's nothing new under the sun. Right. And so the challenges

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that he faced, you know, that he, you know, when he decided to come up

Speaker:

with Sam's Club, and people were like, you're crazy. That's never gonna work. And he

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was like, well, no, I know this guy. I know this guy named Saul Price

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out in California. He's doing something like this. And I mean, you know, it's

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like his story is one. And he did it in actually a very

Speaker:

short window of time, too. Oh, yeah. When you think of like when things

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really, the trajectory of Walmart went like through the hockey stick

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to the right. The number of times I've said to myself, he founded

Speaker:

it at 44 as a 41 year old woman.

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You like saying that, right? Listen, it's never too

Speaker:

late, you know, and it is funny, it is a little bit like drinking the

Speaker:

Kool Aid, but like, as an art school kid to like

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circle back around and be listening to this biography of this big

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mover. I don't know, it's fascinating. There are

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so many ways that even folks in the creative community

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can be and should be learning and inspired

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by this just drive to build. Right. And this

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drive that if it doesn't exist the way

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you want it to exist, the best way to get it where it needs

Speaker:

to go is to build it. Right. And you just have to sort of like

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take the punches along the way. 100%. Yeah,

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yeah. No, it makes perfect sense. So listen, I want to ask you

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if upkept succeeds wildly, right? Okay.

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And that's not necessarily a big if. It's just like, you know, my hope would

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be that it does, neighbor. There's a lot of good things that come

Speaker:

out of that. But. But if upkept succeeds wildly, what

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change do you think we will see in fashion's

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environmental footprint? Because I mean, that's the kind of the, one of the

Speaker:

foundational aspects of why you even wanted to do upkept. In the first place.

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I mean, I don't think it would be terribly ambitious to say

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you could reduce textile waste in the United States by a third.

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Like, I think you really. Yeah, I really think you could. There's some

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studies to show that every American throws away

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roughly 86 pounds of apparel a year and

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a third of that is thrown away for minor breaks,

Speaker:

fixes, things like that. And so I think that when you think about

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the dump truck full of apparel

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trash every single second, well, every

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three seconds seems like a, you

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know, pretty ambitious goal to slow it down. But I

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definitely think that we can, I think we at scale can pump the

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brakes on fast fashion enormously. Yeah. And I

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think that there's a couple other products that I want to launch later

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down the road, and I won't say too much about them right now, but

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if those products can hit the market and succeed, and I think

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that repair becomes as normalized in

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the retail cycle as buying new,

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which creates a much slower

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industry altogether, which I think I wouldn't necessarily say most

Speaker:

industries need to be slowed down. That's not really what capitalism wants, you to do.

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But I think with apparel in particular, it's in such a

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terrible place because there was this race to the bottom

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and now the prices are more depressed than the industry can really

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handle. And what is it, 50 new

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seasons a year, which is there used to be four seasons a year

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and now we're doing a new season every week. It's too much for the industry

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to keep up with itself. And I think everything I've seen just shows that

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it kind of doesn't know how to stop itself because the

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churn is so fast. And so that's why I love this idea of, of

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repair, like coming in at a funny left angle and saying, wait, I

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have an idea, I think I can help. You know,

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and then the price of apparel probably goes up over

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time, which it needs to do for the actual

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unit economics of apparel, the industry itself, but also because

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the customer understands that this is. I'm not going to throw this away immediately.

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Right. I'm going to pay more for the garment. I'm going to keep it.

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And I just. That's my sort of utopic vision of like how upkept actually

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changes how we interact with clothes. Yeah. Well, I mean,

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I certainly think you're on to something and I'm excited to see,

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you know, where you end up seeing upkept in the next five to 10

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years in terms of like the big overall picture. Do you

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hope to see an upkept bin, you know, in

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every major city throughout the United States where people know they can

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go to and drop off their item and have it returned in a period of

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time? Is it, is there some vision of that in your head?

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Yeah. So, you know, a really smart thing for us to

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do would be to create a retail partnership where

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we've got drop offs in, you know,

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Walgreens, let's say, or in the UPS where

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it's as easy to drop off an upcapped as it is

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any other thing. Or we partner with somebody like

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Doordash or Uber Eats and we're actually picking it up

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from you and taking it to a centralized hub for shipping.

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Long term. There's a big hub in northwest Arkansas, but there probably

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should be four or five fulfillment centers throughout the US because

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that way we're not shipping them so far back and forth. But I don't see

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any reason why upkept isn't a household name and why it isn't

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as easy to send an upkept package out as it is to get a

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hellofresh in. Right. And there are plenty of companies Doing

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shipping. We don't have to build it all ourselves. Right. We just have to find

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the right partner. Yeah. I mean, I think that's key. And I mean, certainly in

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any business, a good partnership can go a long way. Really long way. A really

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long way. Yeah. Really, really long way. Well, I only have a couple other questions

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before I land this plane. What have you learned the hard way

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about starting what I would call, this is a mission driven company.

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Yeah. That you'd pass on to others, because there are other people

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listening that have ideas about doing something. And it may be in a

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totally different marketplace, but what advice would

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you give them? So I think that the hardest lesson I learned

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was the difference between non and for profit.

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And I spent 20 years of my life running nonprofits.

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And then I realized at the end of the

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day, if you are going to build something that

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relies on your vision, if your

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blood, sweat and tears is the gasoline that gets everything going,

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it's likely that you need to own the company. Right. It's likely that

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rule by committee isn't in the long run going to be the thing that gets

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you where you need to go. That was a really hard lesson to learn. But

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I think that there was a big boom of nonprofits

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in our region because the philanthropic support was there.

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And I think that running a nonprofit, like a for profit is good business

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sense, But I also think a lot of things can be for profit. Like, for

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profit's not an evil thing. No, it's not. It's not selfish.

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It's not. You know, it's just all about what

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kind of governance structure's gonna get you down the

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field at the end of the day. And for this one, it was very much

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like, it's okay to want to keep some things

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close and make some decisions yourself. And so

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that's one thing I learned. And then I think another thing for folks who are

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dabbling with the idea of they want to build something, but maybe

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they don't know exactly how to do it. The other thing is, like, none of

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us do. No, no, no, no, no.

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You know, I mean, if we were all waiting on the perfect moment or the

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perfect plan or the perfect idea, we'd all be waiting forever. Yeah. So you kind

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of just have to jump and put one step in front.

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Of the other and make it work. And make it work. Exactly.

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Yeah. Now that. That makes a lot of sense. Well, just as

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we close out, do you have so far in this early

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stages of upkeep, do you have, like, your favorite garment story

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from a customer Repair. That really stands out to you? Oh

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my goodness. What a really good question. Yeah, we got a

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pair of pants in last week that the person wanted

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them to be longer, which is hard to do. Like

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there's. If there's no extra fabric. Right. Like. And when they submitted

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them, I would. They said, we, I want these pants to be longer. And I

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was a little nervous, like, I don't know if we can do that. But then

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I saw them and they were like purple velour bell

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bottoms. I was like, oh man. We just put ruffles on them. Like,

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this is just purple ruffles on your purple velour

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bell bottoms is like the easiest fix in the world. And that was a wonderful

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surprise to me. I was like, I thought we might have been up a creek

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on that one, but just that somebody wanted like a creative solution

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was really great. And then there's another

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woman from Miami who she saw me on

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TikTok and she sent her husband's pants in

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and was so happy with the fix that now she's working with us

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through a consultation basis to fix this silk dress of hers.

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It turns out ruffles is going to be a thing. We're doing a lot of

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like, we're also putting ruffles on this silk dress. So this like off

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label ruffling is kind of my favorite. We don't

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tell you on the website that we'll do it, but secretly, if you ask,

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we'll put ruffles on. There you go. Well, folks, there that

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is certainly bears repeating for anybody listening. But I think

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it's important to understand that, you know, just in you doing

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that and it's great to hear that you're reaching as far as Miami and other

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places as you continue to expand on a daily basis. It's just going to

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be a matter of time, I think, before you reach the right person

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who is not just may not just have the financial

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wherewithal, but also may have the social capital,

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which is huge. Right. Because I always tell people, when people ask me about being

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successful in business or anything along those lines, you are the value

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of the relationships you have. Yeah, 100%. If you don't have good

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relationships, then forget about all that. And that's one of the things that

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I've always personally endeavored to do is just to build more than

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anything else strong relationships. Yeah. I mean, if I could

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give 25 year old Robin any advice at all,

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I would say don't burn the bridge.

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No, absolutely not. You're gonna need that bridge. Yeah. Yeah. You can

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burn the boats, but don't burn the bridge. Exactly. I mean, it's just. It

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is. The older I get, the more I realize that, like, man, life is

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long. And that person that you

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might have thought that didn't add a ton of value at the

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time, man, that person's super important and you just don't know

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it yet. And you need to treat everybody that you're interacting with like

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that. Right. Because you never know. So you're so right about that.

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Absolutely. So, well, listen, if people listening to this,

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we said the website earlier and we'll put all of this in the show notes.

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It's upkept IO, but what other ways can people get

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in contact with you? If somebody listening to this is saying, oh, I. I've got

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either a great idea for Robin or I'd love to collaborate

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with her, what's the best way for people to get in contact with you? So

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I'm on all the socials, you know, I'm on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

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It's obinwallace on Instagram and Facebook.

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And my DMs are open. And, like, I can't tell you the number of

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meetings I've had because of DMs I've gotten. Right.

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And, like, even on TikTok, I'm having meetings weekly with

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folks all over the country because they're shooting their shot in my DMs,

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and I have a lot of respect for that. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you always have

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to shoot your shot. I mean, I think it's important because you just

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never know what people are, how people are going to respond. So I think that

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that is important. So. Well, we certainly make sure that everybody knows

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how to get to upkeep IO and we will also make sure

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that we get all of your contact information put in the show notes so people

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can reach out to you. And we continue. We'll be excited

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to sit on the sidelines with our popcorn and watch as you grow

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this thing. And even more so since we're actually physically

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neighbors. That's the cool part, that I'll get to see the growth

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firsthand and up close and personal. You'll be the first to find out when

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we ask to add on to our house. Yes, yes, I will for

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sure. It's gone really well. Yeah. Yeah, well. And that's always. Those are good problems

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to have. But, Robin, we really, we wish you nothing but continued

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success with upkeep and the team that you're building here and you and

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your husband, cash and the work that you've already done in our community. And so

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I certainly encourage you to keep going and don't

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stop. Oh, thank you so much. That's always my thing. I always tell people with

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my hashtag, keep going because I think you just have to. Sometimes we just need

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that encouragement. Right? Yeah. You just one foot in front of the other, man. Yeah,

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it really is. It really is. So. But thank you so much for joining us

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on the podcast. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Absolutely. Well, folks, that's a

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wrap on today's conversation with Robin Wallis Atkinson.

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Her commitment to creative infrastructure and equitable access to

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opportunity is a reflection of the kind of leadership helping

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move Northwest Arkansas forward. This episode is part of

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a special series made possible by the Walton Family

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Foundation's Home Region program, which supports work and

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entrepreneurship, transportation, housing and community

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leadership across our region. To hear more episodes in this

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series, visit iamnorthwestarkansas.com

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or find us wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for

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listening and as always, we will see you right back here next

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week. Peace.

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We hope you enjoyed this episode of I Am Northwest

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Arkansas. Check Check us out each and every week, available

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anywhere that great podcasts can be found. For show

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notes or more information on becoming a guest, visit

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IM northwest arkansas.com we'll

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see you next week on IM Northwest

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Arkansas.

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