Cincy Magazine Interview
Fashion – Repairing the World, One Sale at a Time
Mark Heiman, founder and president of Tulong LLC, poses with children
in Metro Manilla, Phillipines.
incinnati native Mark Heiman, a patent-holding textile innovator, has spent time in Southeast Asia, working in places such as the Philippines, Cambodia, Pakistan, India and Indonesia. He’s seen how people in developing countries live and decided long ago that he wanted to help.
Toward that end, he founded the Loveland-based apparel company Tulong (meaning “help” in Filipino) in 2008 with the mission statement “to repair the world.” For Heiman, that means manufacturing sustainable, environmentally friendly clothing and reinvesting a significant portion of the company’s profits into developing areas worldwide.
The funds will go toward health education and services, community infrastructure, education, livelihood training and opportunities, microfinance and agriculture. They’ll also ensure that workers developing Tulong products receive a living wage.
“We’re looking at fair wages, not just minimum wages,” Heiman says. “We really had to do a lot of research to identify responsible manufacturing companies to work with.”
Heiman will roll out the first of Tulong’s Repair the World® product line early this spring. The apparel, consisting of T-shirts, hoodies, polo shirts, yoga and sleepwear, is made from fabrics that contain Tencel Lyocell, an environmentally friendly fiber made from trees, recycled polyester and recycled cotton.
“We’re taking what ends up in the garbage dump and making a new product out of it,” Heiman says, adding that in addition to being eco-friendly, the clothes are high quality and soft to touch.
The clothes will be first introduced in cities where studies have shown people are more apt to buy products based on social responsibility: Philadelphia; Boston; New York; Austin, Texas; Chicago; Minneapolis; Los Angeles; San Francisco; Portland, Ore.; and Seattle. With Tulong based here in the Tristate, though, local boutiques will be the first to see Repair the World products.
“We’re focusing a lot on active wear and sportswear,” notes Scott Jacobs, a consultant for Tulong. “We want to have an impact with events like the Flying Pig Marathon.”
— Colleen Weinkam
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