About

Seek is focused on establishing connections between art, product, consumers, process, and makers.  Made in India through partnerships with like-minded communities and people, everyone who touches our brand shares in our values. We create clothing thoughtfully with the purpose of aiming to make people feel connected, creative, beautiful, relaxed, joyful, empowered and sophisticated. We truly embody the slow clothing movement, with handmade processes that take months to complete even before stitching begins. Seek Collective is a woman owned business, founded in 2014. 

seek

/sek/

verb

To search for someone or something.

collective

/kəˈlektiv/

noun

a group of people, working together with communal purpose.

The name of the brand started with the word Seek. It’s such a powerful term and for us it signifies searching in life; searching for meaning, for knowledge, for beauty, for new ways of doing things, for purpose, for community, for peace within, for expression, for connection, for understanding.  Collective is representative of the communal effort required to create something, in this case a garment. Many people, all with distinctive skills and strengths, are required and involved in making something come to life at our brand. The growing of cotton, the spinning of yarn, the weaving of fabric, the printing of fabric, the dyeing of fabric, the cutting and stitching of fabric all goes into an item. It really is a communal and united effort.

What We Care About

We are dedicated to sustainability and social responsibility at every step of our supply chain. We produce slowly and in small batches through partnerships with natural dyers, hand block printers, hand loom weavers, and other environmentally sound vendors and suppliers. We believe that sustainability is a process that should constantly be improved and that words mean very little so encourage all to investigate our processes: here. Transparency and education are key.

The people at every step of the supply chain matter to us tremendously as is making sure they are paid above minimum wage, have health care support, and are kept safe and empowered. The artisans we work with include both women and men, with the final stitching done with a women owned studio in Bangalore.

Giving back while we do business is a part of our DNA. A tree is planted for each item purchased through our partnership with One Tree Planted.  Additionally some of the organizations we have donated to so far are: Give India, ACLU, NAACP, Planned Parenthood, Sierra Club, IRC, National Bail Out, Fair Fight, Southern Poverty Law Center, Reclaim the Block, Color of Change, NBJC, and Black Women's Blueprint.

Where We Are

Seek Collective is designed in Berkeley, CA and ethically manufactured by artisan communities throughout India. 

Who We Are

  

Carol Miltimore, Founder

After graduating from Parsons School of Design and interning for Michael Kors in New York City and the couture designer Anne Valerie Hash in Paris, Miltimore spent a decade working as a designer for the likes of Calvin Klein Jeans, Converse and Armani Exchange. While doing all that she became a certified yoga teacher, helped launch an urban roof farm, took many textile courses, and traveled to places like Tibet and Morocco where she met with various artisans cooperatives.

Seek Collective began after she traveled solo to India with a one-way ticket for an artist residency and to visit craftspeople throughout the country. That initial trip was a wild ride (ask her about it sometime!) but ultimately resulted in a mission to figure out a way to produce modern products authentically and transparently while working with traditional craft based communities. She went about creating a capsule of clothing produced differently than the industry standard; designing everything from the textiles to the clothing herself and working directly with all the various producers and artisans.

She launched Seek Collective in 2014 while living in Brooklyn NY with frequent journeys to India each year. In 2019 she moved (both herself and the business) to Berkeley, CA. When not working on Seek, you can find her hiking with her dog Brisket and husband Chris or working in her garden with Monty Don aspirations.

Team

We have a wonderful team of people who help make Seek operate day to day. Sean Cutrona is our resident finance guru, Ariel Llorente is integral to all operations, and Brenna McDuffie’s realm is in copy. In India, Padmini Govind and Sonia Jain oversee block printing, Hemendra Sharma oversees the handloom weaving, Dr. Bosco oversees the natural dying, and Shivangi Musaddi oversees stitching. Together, they are all an incredible group of people who believe in Seek's mission, are incredibly dedicated and know how to hustle!