Grassroots & Glitter: An Interview with Tinkypuss’s Prosper Hedges

Tinkypuss has become a little flag I notice around Athens, Georgia: when I see someone wearing theirs I give a silent nod of acknowledgement. I see you, feminists! Founded this year by local jill-of-all-trades Prosper Hedges, Tinkypuss is “a for-profit feminist fashion house partnering with nonprofit women’s organizations.” This past spring, for the launch of the line, Hedges partnered Tinkypuss with the Georgia Reproductive Justice Access Network, a grassroots organization that “promotes and support reproductive justice in the Southeastern United States,” doing everything from helping women get to their closest clinic (sometimes 12 hours away) to assisting with the costs of abortion.

For this summer’s new line, “Transparency,” Tinkypuss has partnered with Atlanta’s Feminist Women’s Health Center and their Trans Health Initiative. I interviewed Prosper about Tinkypuss, its accompanying zine, fashion, activism, feminism in the South and more.

Gina Abelkop: How did Tinkypuss get its start? Did you know from the beginning that you wanted to partner with feminist non-profits? What were your first partners, and how/why did you choose them?

Prosper Hedges: It started as an attempt to reconcile the gendered marketing that infiltrated my childhood with feminism.

I particularly loved Britney Spears. In her interviews, Britney would deny her sexuality and publicly discuss her virginity like a new purse. But her costumes, dance moves and lyrics were hypersexual. This was confusing and damaging for me. Like so many people, I was hearing that a woman’s worth was tethered to her (white, cisnormative, skinny) appearance, but also that fixating on your looks was vain, and harnessing the power of your sexuality was slutty (i.e. shameful). So the glittery aesthetic coupled with feminist propaganda is an attempt to subvert the media that my peers and I were inundated with.

“Tinkypuss” is what my mom called me when I was little, and now, so that’s where the name came from. I asked her about it recently and she said it was a portmanteau of Tinkerbell and puss, because we had cats. Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens was my favorite book in college, with its darkly evil faries and Peter’s nest-boat that carried him across the mote surrounding the Island of the birds. A lot of the work mourns innocence lost, so in a way that felt very appropriate for a fashion line that attempts to subvert a pretty not-innocent culture.

I reached out to my community via social media to find nonprofits to partner with initially, and April Greene from the Georgia Reproductive Justice Access Network (GRJAN) contacted me to say she’d like to work together. I loved the idea of partnering with a grassroots organization, because it felt like the money we raised would more directly help people.

I’m the Sales Director at an incredible graphic design and screenprinting shop called Satisfactory Screenprinting in Athens, Georgia. A lot of my work at the shop entails helping nonprofits, artists, and businesses represent their ideas through aesthetically pleasing garments. In my personal life, I’m a social justice advocate and a fashion fanatic. One day it just clicked: the same resources I offer my clients every day are available to me, too!

GA: How do your politics and fashion interests intersect?

PH: I heard something on NPR the other day that I thought was interesting: counter-intelligence agencies and fashion houses are both trained on forecasting seasonal trends. It reinforced something I’ve been thinking about subconsciously for awhile, which is the democratic potential of fashion. Women and people outside of the gender binary have felt unwelcome in political dialogue in the past. Because we weren’t welcome. I think fashion can be a vehicle to enter that conversation.

When the SCOTUS decision legalizing gay marriage came down this summer, a friend of mine texted me that he was shocked because he was so unaccustomed to seeing change in politics (and of course, that decision just felt like a reminder of still-denied rights for many). I think a lot of my generation is disillusioned by government institutions that move at a pace so much slower than the institutions and communities we create online. But obviously that doesn’t mean we can rest in our efforts to combat inequality on all fronts. So I think that creating a fashion line that has a kind of up-all-night-on-the-internet aesthetic is not only a way to raise money for highly stigmatized, legally-combatted services like abortion. It’s also an accessible way to draw young eyes with innovative minds to seemingly insurmountable political inequities. It’s the way my eye was drawn to them.

GA: Who is your non-profit partner for the new Summer ’15 line? Why did you choose them, and how can other folks get involved with their org?

PH: This summer I’m partnering with the Trans Health Initiative, which is part of the Feminist Women’s Health Center in Atlanta. FWHC came highly recommended by my friends over at GRJAN. They’re a feminist institution, founded in the 1970s, with an intersectional awareness of reproductive health. I respect and admire them, so I asked if they’d like to partner. Here’s information about volunteering at FWHC and here’s where you can donate.

Kwajelyn Jackson, staff at FWHC, offered this statement on the important work FWHC/THI does:

“The Feminist Health Center has offered sensitive, friendly, and affordable health care to transgender and intersex individuals since 2000 through the Trans Health Initiative (THI). Our center is committed to providing a safe space and trans-affirmative environment for individuals interested in holistic wellness services.

The THI program is dedicated to building community and making information more easily accessible. As a non-profit, we offer as many services as possible, and we collaborate with trusted referrals in the Atlanta area to provide coordinated, continued care for our clients.”

GA: What do you love about your feminist community in Athens, and what do you wish would change/grow? What are some of your favorite community orgs/spots/events?

PH: When I started thinking about hosting a fashion show to raise money for Women Help Women last Spring, I knew I would need help. So I called on some incredible friends, who are all working on projects I support: Shayne McBride and Allie Miller, who own an incredible hair salon-cum-progressive beauty lab called Washington Square Studio, one of my best friends Avery Draut (who is the front woman of Athens band WANDA), artist Rachel Barnes, tastemakers Seyi Amosu and Ally Smith and event-planning extraordinaire Sarah Sorvas, who also works at woman-owned and incredibly tasty restaurant and catering business, Home.made.

Rachel curated a collaborative art piece for the show. It was a shrine in the shape of an archway that models walked through to enter the runway. Each participant in the event was encouraged to bring an object that made them feel powerful, and we donated those objects to Project Safe, an Athens nonprofit that supports survivors of domestic abuse. One person brought a tomato plant, because she enjoys gardening. Another brought Biore pore strips. The idea was to prioritize self care.

I was reading Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrl Revolution with my Feminist Book Club at the time, and I realized that the program for the fashion show had to be a zine. I love that the medium is the message: you don’t need to strive to meet unattainable standards to say something important. You don’t need to have a PhD and you don’t need to be a man in a suit and you don’t need to act as a representative for your entire gender or race or religion. Because it’s a truly democratic platform, with no glossy masthead and pictures or twitter handles attached to the author’s names. Ephemeral media can be truly revolutionary in this way.

Seyi was the co-planner of the fashion show that got most excited about the zine. Obsessed might be a better word. We sort of went into that delirious, 2 am slumber party-mode when it feels like only you and your bestie exist. We realized that the zine had to live on beyond the show, and we now produce it monthly. The Tinkypuss Zine is a kind of collective diary of essays, fiction, poetry, art, and experimental forms (submissions are open: hello@tinkypuss.com). Avid Bookshop hosted the launch party for our second issue earlier this month, and I really love the community they foster.

All that’s to say, I love Athens dearly and I think there are tons of great things going on here. But I crave more openly feminist physical spaces. If you want to have a dialogue about inequity and progress, there should be an obvious space in your community to foster that conversation. And there are certainly glimmers of it here, but it needs to be overt. And it is absurd for any university town not to have a Women’s Center.

GA: Tell me about The Klatch: any inspirations for the event, how the first one went, and your hopes for future Klatches?

PH: The Klatch is a monthly meeting for women and folks outside of the gender binary to converse, commiserate and collaborate. Me and the six other women who helped plan the fashion show started it, but it’s a leaderless organization, and very intentionally so. There’s no marketing and no agenda beyond consciousness-raising. We meet for a potluck one Sunday a month and talk. I love what I’ve seen so far, but I don’t want to make predictions about it since it’s a collective space.

 GA: What is the theme of your Summer ’15 line? Why did you choose to make the items you did, and what kind of items can we expect in the future?

PH: Well, I wanted to directly support the trans community. The line is called Transparency.

There is a certain risk in, like, “branding” feminism. Arabelle Sicardi wrote this brilliant article called This is Not Really What a Feminist Looks Like criticizing this company called Feminist Apparel. She talks about how it’s owned by a man, but what caught my attention was her concerns that the CEO is co-opting voices and experiences for his own benefit. I never want to be like that. Since I’m cis, I wanted to be really conscientious in how I approached this effort. I definitely ask for permission in approaching non-profits about partnership. I say, “This is what I can make. Is that of direct benefit to you? Is this aligned with your goals and principles?”

I can’t really forecast future lines because the designs reflect the efforts of their beneficiaries. Every garment is inspired by the feminist organizations they’re supporting.

GA: As a feminist business owner, how do you make ethical business choices that reflect your politics?

PH: My boyfriend Jordan and I screen print everything by hand at Satisfactory Screenprinting in Athens. It’s exhausting and hot and really thrilling once we actually get to send the pieces out in the mail. I’m really proud to work there, and with him. All the shirts I order are made in the U.S.

GA: What does/do feminism/s in the South look like to you? How do you see yourself fitting into a tradition of feminist community organizers?

PH: I was talking with April Greene (of the Georgia Reproductive Justice Access Network) recently and I asked her what was most challenging about being a reproductive justice activist in the Southeast. Her answer surprised me. She told me how discouraging it is when fellow advocates don’t understand why she chooses to work in a state with so many impediments to her work. I wrote down what she said because I was interviewing her for my local paper. She said, “The question becomes: ‘Why are you bothering? Why don’t you get out of that backwards state?’ Which is so discouraging and undermining. You have to be really fucking creative to make it happen here. It’s difficult to do this work in a climate that’s hostile to access but even more because your distant colleagues don’t notice that that is the reason you’re doing it.” And I just thought, yes. This is why we do it. We do it because it is hard, and it shouldn’t be. I felt proud in that moment.

GA: Favorite summer reads/jams/activities/movies?

PH: My favorite pop culture summer 2015 stuff has been: Nicki Minaj and Beyonce’s “Feelin Myself” (duh), Roxane Gay’s Ted Talk on being a “bad feminist,” literally everything Athens band WANDA has done, Mad Max because duh, Natalie Neal’s short film “Seashells,” Ally White’s paintings, and the Nina Simone documentary. And I’m anxiously awaiting the forthcoming Simon & Schuster publication of my friend Gabrielle Lucille Fuentes’ first novel. I’m also totally addicted to the podcast Invisibilia. The episode “How to Become Batman” is INCREDIBLE.

I love everything Bitch Media puts out. Women With a Vision is a NOLA nonprofit led by African American women, and if you’re looking for sources to sort of curate your social justice newsources, their social media platforms are a good place to start.

This isn’t pop culture, but I’m really excited about one of my best friend’s new ventures. Her name is Andrea Krakovsky and she has this incredible business called Decatur Babysitter. She matches parents with caretakers, and like a lot of similar services she background checks them, makes sure they’re CPR certified. What makes her work unique is company-wide feminist principles There is no “Oh you don’t want to play with that toy. That’s for boys.” Sitters are not to affirm the gender binary overtly or subliminally, which happens so constantly in children movies, marketing, books, etc. Childcare is one of the most challenging and obviously important areas in which to implement this kind of thinking, and Andrea’s on the front lines. She recommends The Paper Bag Princess for family summer reading.

GA: What is your favorite part of running/making Tinkypuss, and what is the hardest part?

PH: The hardest and most important thing about doing this is that I face criticism. I try to accept it graciously and welcome it when its deserved. For example, I think it was a mistake that the first design I released was a glittery uterus. It made it seem like I thought that image represented all women or feminists, when so many women don’t have uteruses and so many feminists identify outside the gender binary. I like the design, because I think it did function to destigmatize abortions, but it may not have been the best choice for a launch. Or maybe it was. I’m making this up as I go.

I have found that sometimes social justice advocates are angrier at progressive people that make an error than bigots who suck all the time. And while that is a little silly, I also relate to it. When you see a normally open-minded person say something hurtful and ignorant, it can be so frustrating. You think, “How can you NOT get this?” So I’m glad this happened, because it reminded me to be compassionate to people whose opinions differ from my own, and to be compassionate with myself.

One of my favorite parts about working on Tinkypuss is collaborating on photo shoots. I read this quote from artist Hannah Wilke in Chris Kraus’s I Love Dick that really resonated with me: “If women have failed to make ‘universal’ art because we’re trapped in the ‘personal,’ why not universalize the ‘personal’ and make it the subject of our art?” To me that’s the ultimate defense of the selfie as art. And while the photo shoots I curate aren’t selfies, they’re representative of my taste and often carry the spirit of a sleepover, an intimate and, I think, artful space.

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Gina Abelkop is the author of the poetry collections I Eat Cannibals (co.im.press 2014) and Darling Beastlettes (Apostrophe Books 2012). She lives in Athens, GA, where she runs the feminist press Birds of Lace.