Does Efficiency Lead to Happiness? What Our Customers Say...
This week I received a very interesting comment in my inbox. It is about the article I wrote titled "How Reversible/Multifunctional Designs Help Busy Women Save Time, Energy, Money, and Space."
The comment says:
"What I question is that efficiency necessarily leads to happiness. What about those who do not think 'like machines' and do not measure their private time applying a value used for working time (your 50$ per hour assumption)? The calculations appear quite dry and artificial to me. What about those who enjoy shopping, find it relaxing, exciting, even spend a good time with friends or partners while shopping and spending money? Can that sort of benefits simply be ignored?”
This is very constructive criticism and I absolutely love how thought-provoking it is! It focuses on two topics I care most about life - happiness and efficiency, and also brings up another important topic of consumerism. For me, the ultimate goal in life is happiness. I am designing multifunctional fashion because it gives me happiness not only as a creativity outlet but more because I can see how they make my customers’ daily dressing and travel much easier. It gives me great fulfillment when I see what I do make other people’s life easier. So for myself, working on efficiency definitely leads to happiness. On the topic of ‘consumerism’ of our customers, I would like to argue that the improved efficiency in our products does not exclude the happiness you can derive from shopping. In fact, it should only add to it. Since what differentiates us from other fashion brands is the multi-functions in each of our designs, we have been focusing on talking about the efficiency benefit it leads to. But this feature does not exclude us from providing all the same pleasure you can get from shopping with any other brands. Actually it should only enhance it, because there is more to discover in each design, more fun and creativity in dressing up in our designs - Each time you get a piece from us, instead of wearing it for Monday, you can easily reverse or convert it to a different look and enjoy it for Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday! More pleasure from one single piece! If you don’t want to wear the same piece within the same week, just wear it another week but try a different look of the same piece! We are a big fan of fashion illustrator and blogger Garance Dore. In her blog post “My New 10 Commandments of Style (Ok Five)”, she vividly illustrated the evolvement of her fashion consumerism - from shopping too much to shopping less and only buying the qualities pieces that suits her best, she regained her high in shopping and love of each piece she owns. Here are her 5 commandments.
#1 – Fewer choices = More creativity - when you have fewer choices you will become much more creative.
#2 – Perfect piece = Eternal joy - just as it says.
#3 – Quality = Longevity - when you buy quality pieces you will keep and wear them longer.
#4 – Gisèle = Not me - you are not Gisele, so don't pretend you are, and only buy fashion pieces that suit your personality and body shape.
#5 – Buy less = Buy better - when you buy less, you will only want to buy better pieces, which will give you a shopping high because you fall in love with each piece.
When we piece these 5 commandments together, it says "when you buy fewer but only those perfect pieces that suit you best, you get to be more creative and have more joy!” I too love shopping and the high of getting a perfect piece! I just love it even more when my shopping experience exemplifies like this - buy less and quality, but actually get more. How does it work? Just like what the illustration demonstrates below.
We love this illustration of Garance Dore, very classic and chic style with a simple stripe top and solid navy jacket. But if these two pieces were to be reversible, then this one outfit could easily turn into 4! When pairing these 4 outfits with different bottoms and accessories, they will look completely different from each other! Such convenience is not so important when you have easy access to a large closet full of clothing at home, as you can just pick another piece to wear. But when you don’t have such access when you are traveling or any time away from home, this convenience becomes really important. Here goes Google’s definition of ‘Convenience’. 
The state of being able to proceed with something with little effort or difficulty. Less effort and difficulty means more ease and joy, pretty obvious right? Multifunctional/reversible pieces give you the ability to look stylish all the time on the go, with little effort or difficulty. And all the great feedbacks and testimonials that we have received prove that our designs have indeed brought our customers such convenience and more happiness. 
" FROM 9 TO 5 CHIC - CLASSIC TO GLAMOROUS - Lacey"
"LIFE SAVER FOR AN OVER-PACKER - Leah"
"LOVE THE STYLE, COMFORT AND THE DOUBLE DUTY - Allyn”
"ATTENTION-GETTING, EASY TO WEAR. MAKE ME FEEL & LOOK GREAT - Francine"
Feel free to browse more of our other testimonials here from other customers, online/print magazines and bloggers. We would love to thank our customer who sent us the comment. Your comment has given me an opportunity to show you that not only do we want to bring you happiness, we want to maximize your happiness with designs that are comfortable with the best material/construction, stylish with classic silhouette with a modern edge, and versatile with multi-looks in each design.
Yours truly,
