MEET INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY ARTIST - ERIN YOSHI
This International Women’s Day we wanted to create something fun and new for our #smashtessfam to celebrate women. One mission for this year’s International Women’s Day was increasing the visibility of women creatives, with the theme of #ChooseTo Challenge. As a fashion brand created by women, this felt like natural focus for us!
As you might know, our Co-Founder and CEO, Ashley, lives in LA now and so we decided to focus on her stomping grounds and partner with three amazing California-based, women street artists to bring our vision to life. First, we reached out to Erin Yoshi, a street artist and community strategist based in Los Angeles. Erin helped us find two other California-based, women street artists to work with and brought them into the campaign. We’re so excited to share more details with you about what we created together with these incredible artists.
Erin Yoshi is not only a street artist creating murals globally, but she also has more than 20 years of experience leading workshops and building a collaborative space. As a member of Trust Your Struggle Collective (US), COI (LA) and APC (South America), her focus is telling stories of history and ancestorial women through her art. Her style combines abstract colour and figurative storytelling to highlight cultural diversity and biodiversity.
You chose the words ‘The Future is Matriarchy’. What does that mean to you?
The Future is Matriarchy is symbolic of the changing times. Though I come from a long line of matriarchs, each generation has opened up new possibilities for the next. Women have a natural leadership ability, which is more inclusive and holistic.
We have decided to disregard the idea that women are in competition and embrace models of collaboration. The future needs more women leaders in positions of power. I love the example of Iceland, leaders around the globe in gender equality, they mandated that all Board of Directors have to have a minimum of 40% either men or women leaders.
This takes away the tokenism of being the only women spokesperson for our gender and allows for the implementation of feminist methodologies in leadership. We need to change the patriarchal model that is exploiting our planet and tries to solve problems with violence. As we continue to uplift the next generation of voices and support each other to step forward, we create the conditions to change culture, policies and norms.
We are the future. This is our time.
We love what Erin created for us, and we hope that you love it too!
You can preview her artwork for our International Women’s Day campaign here.