You know the girl. Maybe you are her. She has a successful career, but she also makes time for her fitness routine. Eating healthy is important to her, and she likes to stay on top of new music and art. She travels. She has an active, vibrant social life. Basically, she has a lot going on, and she’s always on the move from one place to the next. So, that presents a challenge: how does she dress for her day? A new yoga-wear line might offer a solution.
Allison Daroie, former Karmaloop employee and founder of Paridaez , was balancing a number of different jobs and passions when she realized a need for ultra-versatile, transformative garments. Daroie is nothing if not multi-dimensional: She has worked as a hip hop dance instructor, launched a jewelry line in L.A., studied law in San Diego and done freelance consulting. When she moved back to Massachusetts, where she’s originally from, Daroie landed a gig teaching yoga at the Karmaloop headquarters. Eventually, that turned into a job as CEO Greg Selkoe’s executive assistant, and from there, she was promoted to the Director of Corporate Partnerships.
While hurrying from a nine-to-five job to a fitness studio and out for drinks, it dawned on Daroie that there was no way to effortlessly transition from one place to the next when each setting calls for a different ensemble. So she started sketching the initial concepts that would eventually make up Paridaez. And when Karmaloop began letting people go (see: bankruptcy), Daroie saw her departure as an opportunity to focus on bringing this idea to fruition, from paper drawings to real-life fashions.
It started with a universal tank top. It features a small and faintly flirtatious cutout on one side, but can be turned around for a more conservative look. As of now, it’s the most popular piece for Paridaez (pronounced pah-reh-deez).
She’s also designed a mid-length skirt that, when you put your arms through the holes toward the bottom, turns into a dress. And then there’s a tulip-shaped miniskirt that transforms into a shawl for your shoulders, an infinity scarf or a hood. The pieces are practical and chic. Because the ladies sporting them can go from a lunch date to a barre class to a networking event, manipulating them into an entirely new article of clothing as necessary. That means you can get more wear out of each, cutting down on wardrobe clutter. Not to mention, you’ll never have to be that bag lady on the subway.
“That’s the idea, really,” she told me as we stood in the workstation she's carved out of her Cambridge apartment. “Being able to actually move throughout your day seamlessly without having to go all the way home—or bring and lug around a change of clothes with you.”
The Paridaez line currently includes four pieces: The Birds of Paradise tank, Hummingbird skirt, Albatross skirt and Egret leggings. Every garment is constructed and distributed right in Massachusetts. Not one to waste any scraps, Daroie fashions spare fabric into hair bands, which she includes in shipments for free as a small token of gratitude. She’s pouring a lot of energy into Paridaez these days, but Daroie also teaches a ton of yoga classes in both Cambridge and Boston’s South End on a weekly basis.
Recently, an article caught Daroie’s attention about the one thing Obama, Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs all have in common. Aside from being ultra successful individuals, they also happen to wear the essentially same outfits every day. That’s because when you have a lot of important decisions to make throughout the day, you want to minimize how much energy and brain power you waste on less important matters—like what to wear. How many times have you stood in front of your wardrobe in the morning, making a frustrated attempt to build a cohesive ensemble and ultimately changing multiple times? It’s even more difficult to make these decisions when you know you have a pilates class and a dinner meeting after work, because you need to factor in packing a change of clothes.
While the Paridaez line is almost all black, with no prints, details or adornments of any kind, that’s actually precisely where the beauty of these garments lies: in their simplicity. At the core, these are the type of clothes that you don’t have to think too much about when you’re getting dressed in the morning. The type of clothes never go out of style. The type of clothes you can wear again and again because they provide a blank canvas for any and all accessories. And the type that complements your lifestyle, not complicates it.
All images courtesy of Paridaez. Video taken by Rebecca Strong.
