Meet The Creative Behind The Faded Front Door

Lindsey Patterson is the mind, creator, and designer behind Faded Front Door. Lindsey is a senior working to complete her Strategic Communications major. When she’s not in class, creating pieces for Faded Front Door, or out thrifting, Lindsey can be found working on her photography or getting interior design inspo. Lindsey loves fashion, music, and traveling, and she is always a smiling, friendly face around campus. 

Lindsey took some time to talk with us about her new business and give us a glimpse into her creative process and her brand’s story! 

What inspired you to start Faded Front Door? 

I honestly started it because I was at a thrift store in Greensboro and I saw this really cool Coors Light shirt and I thought it would be awesome to bleach it just to kind of give it a more faded look. That was the summer-like mid quarantine- while I was at Elon and I decided that I wanted to show my neighbors. They were like “Oh my gosh Lindsey, you have to make us some!” I ended up making three guys shirts and taking pictures of them, and then just kind of thought why don't I make it into a business. I've been looking for a way to make money on my own time and this is something I really love doing, so I started an Instagram, and Faded Front Door was born.

Where did the idea for the name “Faded Front Door” come from?

So the house I live in is pretty old and our front door is white chipped paint and kind of super textured. I actually live in the original living room of our house, so I wanted to bring the irony of me having the front door in my room into the business because I thought it was a cool concept.

What is Faded Front Door’s mission?

Faded Front Door is founded on sustainability. Our biggest mission is to decrease the amount of fast fashion consumption among our generation and do it in a way that is still affordable for college students. As a college student, I definitely have struggled with fast-fashion and wanting to buy the cute, cheap skirt from the online boutique, but it's in reading more about how much fast fashion is actually depleting the environment that has kind of inspired me to start this business and to take a look at my own fast fashion consumption and see the ways that I can diminish it.

Have you always enjoyed thrifting? 

Yes, I've always loved to Thrift. My friends and I always used to joke in high school that all we did was go to Chili's and Thrift.  I just love the idea of having something that's old and it has lived this different life than you have and be able to kind of make it new, bringing it into your life. It's also super sustainable. People don't know how often clothes actually end up in a landfill when you originally donate them to Goodwill, so I try and shop at thrift stores as much as I can and with this business, I'm able to give people who may not have that vision or the time to go thrifting an opportunity to buy responsibly sourced sustainable clothing.

How do you come up with new ideas for the brand?

The brand is pretty cool because I don't really have to sit down and come up with new ideas that often. Usually, I’ll see an item in Salvation Army or Goodwill and the idea will just come to me. I kind of like to joke when people want me to do custom pieces that I can't really decide how the final product will come out- only the clothes can because oftentimes you won't know how the solutions I use on the shirt will create the final product.

What’s something that has been challenging about starting the brand? 

I would say definitely just finding people who want to model. I want to have the brand be super versatile and open to people of all sizes, genders, and races but some people are too shy and say “Oh no I'm not the modeling type,” where a part of my mission is changing that perception of “model type.”

What future plans do you have for Faded Front Door?

I eventually want to move into a website based business. Right now Instagram works pretty well just because I don't have a huge inventory, but I would love to get a website running. Post-grad I’d like to try to designate a “Faded Front Door” area in my home to do my work and keep all of my inventory too.

Check out Lindsey’s work on her account @fadedfrontdoor and let us know what you think @theedgemag