December 2025 Fashion and Interior Design Grant Awarded to Desert Bloom

Video Transcript

Jama: Hi everyone. My name is Jama with WomensNet, and I am excited to connect with you all today to meet our December, 2025 winners. We have an awesome group of women that are going to talk to us about the creative and wonderful things that they’re doing. All of their products are things that inspire joy and brighten our lives, and so we’re so happy to have them with us. And so today we have with us Selva, with Iconicake. She’s our Amber Grant winner. And then we have with us Kristen, with Desert Bloom, and Kristen is our Category winner. So in December, that category was fashion and interior design. And so thank you so much for taking the time to be with us. We do have our startup winner that’s Chitsanzo, and she’s with Duplii. She will be submitting a video with her responses so that we can get to know her a little bit. Kristen with Desert Bloom, tell us all about the awesome fashion contribution that you are making to this world?

Kristen: Desert Bloom is definitely a passion for me. ‘ve been a cowgirl my whole life. I grew up on a small farm in Camas, Washington, and basically always wore cowgirl boots at a small age. Through my whole life that’s what I’ve always worn. I’ve always had this dream and this passion that goes years back of wanting to have my own boot brand, but I wanted to do things a little bit differently. So, looking into the industry, it’s you know, a lot of either animal products or cheap synthetics and plastics. There’s never really been an in-between something, like a product that would be comparable to leather, just as good as leather, but would come from plants.

And so I discovered this material 10 years ago and started experimenting with it. I started recovering old couches and chairs, ’cause I thought, gosh, this is so amazing! It’s doesn’t have to come from an animal, it’s not like these cheap plastic materials. It’s comes from wheat and corn and they make them out of cactus and apple and all kinds of things. So for me the passion was always there. The cowgirl in me was always there discovering this fabric, kind of playing around with it. Then about three, four years ago, I actually just woke up one morning, looked myself in the mirror and just said, I am gonna do this. I need to make cowgirl boots!

Jama: Amazing! And they really are beautiful pieces. Thank you so much. I know we know a little bit about what makes your boots so unique, but in the world of cowboy/cowgirl garments and boots, can you please tell us something else about what makes your product so unique?

Kristen: Our product is unique in several different ways. So for example, number one being our material. So we’re using this new innovative material that’s going to hold up just like a traditional leather boot would, but comes from weaving corn. Also, our mission around Desert Bloom is around sustainability. So we’re not shipping our components from all over the world. We are basically focusing all of our manufacturing processes, all of our development, everything in Mexico, and then transporting it to the United States. So we don’t have to go very far. We’re keeping down on our carbon footprint. We actually just won the Global Footwear Awards in sustainability, which is a pretty big deal for us- we’re pretty proud of that! We’re also partnering with Soles4Souls because in the footwear industry alone, there is there’s a lot of waste. It’s not like the apparels industry where you have like five skews where you’ve got extra small, small, medium, large, extra large. In the footwear industry, you could have 12, 13, 14 to 20 different shoe sizes per color, per style, per size. So there’s a ton of waste that’s involved in that. And so by us partnering with Soles4Souls, we’re able to repurpose any defected boots or returned items that we’re not able to resell. They’re given away to people in natural disasters, or they also have programs that they do all over the world where they’re empowering women to start their own businesses and are able to resell these items. We’re trying to do our part and do things differently. That’s new for the cowboy footwear industry just in general. It’s like having a blue product introducing a blue product to a red demographic.

Jama: Wonderful. I absolutely love that! And it’s so important to have good wearing shoes, and there’s sustainable- which makes them even more incredible! Thank you so much. I’ve seen a lot out there in terms of sustainable shirts, pants, and clothes- but for shoes not as much. And so really what you’re doing is truly unique. And so thank you. In your journey as a businesswoman, can you please share with us a lesson learned story?

Kristen: Oh man, this is a big question. Over the last three, four years, I have learned so much. And I kind of look at it like Thomas Edison. They asked him in an interview something about having failed 174 times before he actually invented the light bulb. And I kind of look at it similar- he said, “I haven’t failed, I’ve just learned 174 ways that doesn’t work.” And so you go through all these different things and you try this and you try that and you find all these things that don’t work. And each of those things that I’ve done over the years, they’re definitely not failures because I wouldn’t be here where I am today without them.

Probably my biggest thing that I’ve learned in this journey that I probably wish I would’ve known a little bit more about is how difficult it was going to be marketing a new innovative product, because it’s mainly around the education, right? It’s not so much the product, it’s what the actual product is made out of. Because the industry for so many decades has always been either one way or the other people are skeptical. They’re like, “well, is it going to last? Is it going to hold up?” And, and so that’s probably been my biggest challenge that I didn’t really expect was going to be so huge- the education behind it.

Jama: Well, we’re listening and we know it’s a great product!

Kristen: So thank you. Yes. It’s a great product and the people that are buying it and that we meet at events, and that are seeing it are really blown away. They can’t believe that it’s made from the corn and wheat materials that we make it out of. It looks and feels like a traditional leather boot. It holds up like a traditional leather boot would. So yeah, that constant education and reassuring and talking to people about it, that has been the biggest challenge. It’s getting it out there, right? It’s like you can have the most amazing product in the world, but if nobody knows about it you’re not going to have any sales. So marketing and education has been the biggest challenge.

Jama: Well, with everything going on with our environment it sure comes in handy to have such a sustainable product on the shelf that’s also stylish and durable. And so we’re very excited that you came up with it. 

Kristen: Thank you.

Jama: And so thank you so much. Here you have it, our December, 2025 winners- our Amber Grant winner and our Business Category winner. And as I mentioned before our Startup grant winner will be submitting a video with her responses. And so we look forward to getting that. And so thank you so much for taking the time.