S9 Ep14: Saucy Sustainability: A Chic Approach to Eco-Friendly Linens with Nikki Reed and Staci Inspektor
“If you're passionate about something, go for it. It's just lots of ups and downs, and you just gotta ride that wave.” —Staci Inspektor
“We want to give back to the community that inspires us and has allowed us to do what we do.” —Nikki Reed
Elevating the every day with sustainable style - that's the new frontier of eco-conscious living. Thoughtfully designed textiles are proving that being kind to the planet doesn't have to sacrifice an ounce of sophistication. It's a delicate balance that's both beautiful and responsible.
Atelier Saucier is a design house committed to breathing new life into fashion industry waste, reimagining discarded textiles into luxurious table linens and home accents. Founded by Nikki Reed and Staci Inspektor, the brand is rooted in sustainability without sacrificing style.
Learn more about Atelier Saucier's multifaceted approach to sourcing deadstock and upcycled textiles, its seasonal collection model that balances core essentials with limited-edition pieces, and its design process inspired by fashion, architecture, and current trends. Discover how the co-founders' complementary skills and collaborative company culture drive product development and community engagement. Tune in to uncover Atelier Saucier's inspiring story of marrying eco-consciousness and covetable design.
Connect with Nikki and Staci:
Nikki Reed and Staci Inspektor are the co-founders of Atelier Saucier, a modern table linen and tabletop decor brand based in Los Angeles.
With a background in the restaurant and hospitality industry, Nikki was inspired to create sustainable and stylish linens after struggling to find the right options for her own restaurant. As the operational and organizational force behind Atelier Saucier, Nikki brings her problem-solving skills and attention to detail to help grow the business.
Staci Inspektor: With a creative background in fashion design and interior design, Staci's innovative spirit and design expertise are the driving force behind Atelier Saucier's unique product offerings. Staci is responsible for the brand's seasonal collections and collaborations, constantly finding new ways to reimagine textiles into modern, eco-friendly home goods.
Episode Highlights:
01:38 Challenges and Solutions in Sustainable Sourcing
06:02 The Importance of Shared Strengths in Business
13:11 Empowering Employees
17:49 Holiday Collections and Unique Offerings
Tweets:
Napkins with a noble purpose? Sign us up! Join @jreichman and Atelier Saucier Co-Founders Nikki Reed and Staci Inspektor as they share the secret to marrying form and function, balancing core essentials with trendy seasonal pieces, and empowering their team to innovate. #podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #Season9 #SustainableStyle #EcoChicDecor #UpcycledTextiles #LimitedEdition #TableLinens #EcoConsciousDesign #InnovativeHome #CollaborativeCompanyCulture #SustainabilityInspiration #PurposefulProducts
Inspirational Quotes:
03:12 “As consumers, you want something if you know that you're not always able to get it.” —Staci Inspektor
06:50 “When you're younger, you're pretty fearless. You're not thinking of all that can go wrong. You're just excited.” —Staci Inspektor
09:13 “There's always going to be some other issue that comes up so you can't really hold on to anything for that long.” —Staci Inspektor
10:12 “We both had great bosses and not-so-great bosses. We would cherry pick our favorite qualities of how businesses were run and managed, and we would use that when we're running our own business.” —Nikki Reed
10:42 “If you're passionate about something, go for it. It's just lots of ups and downs, and you just gotta ride that wave.” —Staci Inspektor
10:58 “That's what founders do. We fix problems.” —Justine Reichman
12:23 “When we bring people on, let them own their niche and look at them as the expert for what you've brought them on for.” —Justine Reichman
15:00 “We're not doing this alone. The people that we bring on are all part of that team. It's more fun together, it's more productive together, we can make a bigger impact together.” —Justine Reichman
16:51 “We want to give back to the community that inspires us and has allowed us to do what we do.” —Nikki Reed
Transcriptions:
Justine Reichman: Welcome to Essential Ingredients. I'm your host, Justine Reichman. With me today is Nikki and Staci, Co-Founders of Atelier Saucier. Welcome guys.
Staci Inspektor: Thank you.
Nikki Reed: Thank you for having us.
Justine Reichman: Oh, well, I'm super excited to have you. The funny thing is that you guys seem to be blowing up all over me, it feels like my phone is listening to me. You're everywhere on Instagram, and it kept popping up. And I finally said, I gotta get more info on this, and we gotta figure this out because they're just everywhere. So for those that are not familiar, this is part of our holiday gifting series, and we're excited to talk to both of you about sustainability, and what made you, and what inspired you both to build this business? But before we get going, if one of you wants to kick it off and just let our guests know what Atelier Saucier is, that'd be great.
Nikki Reed: Sure. We are a modern table linens line and tabletop decor design house based in Los Angeles. Our brand is rooted in sustainability, so we source all of our textiles sustainably through the garment district and fashion houses in downtown Los Angeles, and then reimagine those textiles into table linens.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. That's so exciting. And as you're saying this, I'm thinking about, it sounds like upcycling, using the leftover remnants that would otherwise get thrown away. So there's a finite amount. It's almost kind of exclusive. Because once you sell out of that, at least, that's how I'm thinking about it, you don't get that again.
Staci Inspektor: That's exactly right. When we started the brand, that was one of the challenges we had to overcome. We had the idea that we were going to be able to sell to all the major retailers. We wanted to obviously build a business over time. So the way that we have figured that out is we have a seasonal collection that our core fabrics we know we can always find out in the market. Let's say it's a dark denim, a white twill, a linen we can dye to the color that we need, but we can always know that we can fulfill orders. And then we do seasonal collections as an ode to the fashion industry. We do a spring, summer and a fall, winter collection, and that's more limited runs with fabrics that are finite. And once we sell out, we sell out.
Justine Reichman: So did you maybe turn that obstacle into something really positive there? Because to me, it sounds like I want to get that because it's not going to be here. Not everyone's going to have it. And I'm using a fashion fabric, Sarah or something, right? And a lot of them just look the same. So this sounds special. Do you know how your customers perceive that?
“As consumers, you want something if you know that you're not always able to get it.” —Staci Inspektor
Staci Inspektor: I think you know when they are limited, as we know as consumers, you kind of want something if you know that you're not going to always be able to get it. But it is also really sad, like each of these napkins that we make like our little children, so when we sell out, a little tear falls down because we can never get it again. But we've become really creative with how we source materials. Figured out that if something is a best seller, hopefully down the road, we can resupply it well.
Justine Reichman: And they may change. They may have another colorway like the following year. If that was so successful, they may decide like, okay, well, brown was really big this year, but navy is really big. I'm just making that up.
Nikki Reed: 100%. We're very inspired when we design the seasonal collections by what's happening at the moment. Not like in a fast fashion sense, but what people are drawn to, what's happening in the world, architecture and fashion. We definitely are inspired by all that when we're designing the collection. So we think it kind of strikes a nerve in that moment too. And people are really drawn to that.
Justine Reichman: I think so too. I love the idea. I'm curious, sustainability and upcycling, these are all kind of new in the last 5, 10 years or whatever, or become more every day. What inspired you? You guys were sort of seven years ago doing this. You're kind of at the forefront of it. People weren't necessarily doing this yet as much. It wasn't something that people talked about quite as much so I'd love to hear from both of you about why sustainability was so important to root your business in.
Staci Inspektor: To kind of go into a little bit of our backgrounds, I come from the fashion design world and interior design. And Nikki comes from restaurants and hospitality. So Atelier Saucier was born just out of both of our experiences in the past. And Nikki was opening a restaurant in New York and was having a hard time finding, they were looking for sustainable linen.
Nikki Reed: The concept was really rooted in sustainability. Every kind of sourcing aspect, and the owner wanted sustainable linens that told a story and truly searched high and low, domestically, abroad and could not find anything. Checked all the boxes for what they were looking for. And also was fun, modern and fresh. So yeah, lamenting to Staci about this challenge I was up against. And she was like, let's make them. Let's tap into her local industry sources and contacts here in Los Angeles. We're lucky that there is such an incredible inventory of reclaimed, dead stock is kind of the official term. Not the prettiest term, but that's what many people are familiar with. And then, yeah, Atelier Saucier was born.
Justine Reichman: Before this, you guys were working for other companies. Is this your first go as entrepreneurs?
Staci Inspektor: I had done a little interior design, like my own business doing interior design. And Nikki had done some restaurant consulting, but not a full blown employee.
Nikki Reed: This was definitely our first for being true operational business owners.
Justine Reichman: What was that like? You came up with this idea. Did it seem overwhelming? Did it seem natural where you just like full steam ahead? No fears?
Staci Inspektor: We were younger. And when you're younger, you're pretty fearless. You're not really thinking of all that can go wrong. You're just excited. And with this project, with the restaurant, it went really well. And the feedback from everyone we knew, and anyone that saw the linens was so great. So it was kind of like a no brainer of, why wouldn't we pursue this? Why wouldn't we see what we can do with this, and take it a little bit further?
Justine Reichman: It makes sense today in all fairness, right? You come at it, you have a fashion background. You're probably both worked in other organizations, both designing and project managing because there's a little of all these different things and skills that you can cross pollinate with some of these things. But equally, there was probably a variety of skills, there was a learning curve too. How did you guys address that?
Nikki Reed: I think we both feel so grateful for Staci and myself, we both have a lot of shared strengths. Because I think of our varied sort of backgrounds, she's creative. The things that she comes up with, I'm just like, I don't even just out of this world, incredible. I might have maybe a little bit more of an ops background from running restaurants and just the craziness of that industry organization like OCD freak.
Staci Inspektor: Like the finest that helps us run an operation day to day.
Nikki Reed: So I think us combining those things, we just have felt really confident from the get go. That anything that comes in our path, big, small, stressful, we are like, you know what? We got it. So having a partner, I think, is very beneficial in that sense, in many ways, we could not do this alone. That's for sure.
“There's always going to be some other issue that comes up so you can't really hold on to anything for that long.” —Staci Inspektor
Staci Inspektor: Yeah, we're both problem solvers. We're making napkins at the end of the day, like we want it to be fun. We want you to have fun with them. We want you to get saucy with it. Think of it as like brain surgery. It's the end of the world if the napkin color doesn't come out exactly what you want. You kind of pivot and shift, and you make things work. Because at the end of the day, you're running a business, and you have to keep all the wheels moving. And there's always going to be some other issue that comes up so you can't really hold on to anything for that long.
Justine Reichman: Yeah, I totally agree. One question that comes up for me often is, do you think entrepreneurship is in your DNA? You're just meant to be an entrepreneur, work for yourself. I don't know if that resonates with either one of you.
Nikki Reed: We say this all the time, when Stacey and I first met over a decade ago, from the second we met, we knew there's something we are going to do together. We didn't know exactly at that moment what it was going to be. There were all these iterations of ideas that we had over the years, and then not seeing this fell into our lap. It kind of did, but it was sort of this light bulb like, oh, my God, we're going to become napkin ladies.
Staci Inspektor: We were like, wonderful.
“We both had great bosses and not-so-great bosses. We would cherry pick our favorite qualities of how businesses were run and managed, and we would use that when we're running our own business.” —Nikki Reed
Nikki Reed: Is this really what is going on? Here we are, and we've embraced that. I think we both have that entrepreneurial spirit. We both had great bosses. We've had some not so great bosses. We would always talk about cherry picking our favorite qualities of how businesses were run and managed, and always said that we would then use that when it comes time for us, when we're running our own business. And I think that's the path that we took and how we got here today.
Staci Inspektor: Being a business owner and an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart. I think everyone should try it and should do it. And if you're passionate about something, go for it. And I think anyone can do it. It's just lots of ups and downs, and you just gotta ride that wave.
“That's what founders do. We fix problems.” —Justine Reichman
Justine Reichman: I do think you guys mentioned a couple things that were really key to me. Problems come up and you fix them, and that's what founders do. We fix problems. We're not like, okay, I don't know what to do. What do you do? Because there's nobody else to ask except each other. Or yourself, if you're a solo founder. So it's really for those that I think know how to either surround themselves with the experts or can fix problems, like my partner, he calls me the fixer, like in the movies. You know what I mean, like with the fixers? I want to fix the problem. The moment I hear it, it rises. So that's a shared thing that I heard from you and I, and I think that it's kind of really true. It stands true, and very much, I think, needed for Founders. Because at the end of the day, the buck stops with you.
Staci Inspektor: We feel super fortunate and lucky that you brought up experts. We have our sewers in our sewing room that are the experts at sewing. So if there's an issue with the sewing, we let them help us and figure it out. Our wash and dye house, and embroider, and all the people that we have really cultivated and created these amazing relationships over the years, we turn to them when we don't have the answers. They're the experts in their field, so you kind of have to listen to what they have to say.
Justine Reichman: I think so. I think it's really important, if you bring people on, or when we bring people on, to let them own their niche, and to look at them as the expert for what you've brought them on for. There's going to be times as founders or as leaders that you may have to switch it, or there's another reason. We look to them to guide us because they're the experts in their industry. And maybe we make a tweak, or this, or that because it's not exactly aligned. But really, the craft is theirs. And I think it's really important to empower the people that we bring on. And I heard you guys mentioned that you had some good bosses, and you had some bad bosses. And I know that you mentioned some different things, but I'd love for you to share some of the things that really resonated with you that you found important to incorporate as part of your leadership.
Nikki Reed: I think speaking to empowering, we had a handful of amazing employees, and even our studio assistant, even weeks into her tenure with us, like she was bringing up ideas and ways to make our operation more efficient, and that we immediately were like, yes. We're there pretty much all day, every day, but we don't see everything. I think it's the people who are in the thick of it, doing these tasks on a daily basis that we maybe are taking at surface level to provide new ideas, new ways to make things more productive and efficient. I think one of our best selling styles is this collection, we just introduced a bottle bag which we have never made before, and has just been really well received. And also kind of opened up our brand to new stores and whatnot that maybe don't want to carry table linens, but have other kind of gifting moments. And that idea came 100% from one of our employees. She was like, we should make a bottle bag. And we were like, okay, let's do it. And it's just been phenomenal. I think she takes a lot of pride in that. So having everybody know that they have a voice and that their opinions really will be heard, and we have the opportunity to act on those things almost immediately and we see if it works, we see if it doesn't, and then we adjust accordingly.
Justine Reichman: It could resonate with me, and I'm so glad that you shared that because I think it's an important message for other founders to hear, and people to hear because it's about culture, it's about values, it's about empowerment, and it's about recognizing that. We're not doing this alone, that the people that we bring on are all part of that team. And I really think, A, it's more fun together. B, it's more productive together. And C, we can make a bigger impact together.
Staci Inspektor: Yeah, we're collaborating all day, every day. The life of a napkin from start to finish touches so many different hands, but you have to really just listen and take the guidance of your employee if they have an idea, and just make sure that it all happens efficiently.
Justine Reichman: Yeah, I think it's really key to a successful, collaborative culture. So I am curious, because this is our holiday gifting guide. And one of the things that resonated with me, that I think I understood, was that a portion of proceeds gets donated. I don't want to misquote, I don't want to misspeak, so maybe you guys could fill me in a little bit more about that and how that works? Because the idea that you're giving, that you're not only using upcycling and sustainability to root your products, and you're also giving back. Are you a B Corp?
Nikki Reed: We are not a B Corp, but that is on our list to keep on that challenge of the application process, which we've looked into, and we have that on the list of one of our employees.
Justine Reichman: It only seemed natural because of everything you're doing. So if you would share with me a little bit more about what that means for you, both individually, on a personal level, and then equally for the business, and why you decided to incorporate that? Why was it so important?
“We want to give back to the community that inspires us and has allowed us to do what we do.” —Nikki Reed
Nikki Reed: We've obviously mentioned how we are so inspired and grateful to be located in Los Angeles. It is really like the heartbeat of our brand from the sourcing to inspiration to people, I mean, you name it, food. We want to give back to the community that really inspires us and has allowed us to do what we do. So we donate 1% of our top line sales to local initiatives that support food and wellness programs, and just bettering the community here in Los Angeles. We've also with various organizations that we've worked with, we did an amazing grocery drop off all around Los Angeles using food that was gleaned from Farmers Market's and supermarkets, and delivered to underprivileged families. We've done fundraisers. We just try to get involved as much as our bandwidth allows us to, both in person, and then also donating to various charities.
Justine Reichman: Just having this conversation and hearing that has inspired me to say, how can we collaborate? How can we get other brands that we've had on the podcast that are either upcycling, or sustainable, or better for you to collaborate maybe in the holidays. Maybe not this year because it's a little bit soon, but maybe next year, create little holiday gifts for them to give back. You know how sometimes at the hospital, they give to kids or something, I'd love to collaborate with you guys on that.
Staci Inspektor: We love a good collaboration.
Justine Reichman: Tell us about this holiday collection, how it's going to stand out against others because we're featuring it as part of our gifting guide, and we want people to know how this stands out from others.
Staci Inspektor: So our fall, winter collection this year is inspired by the collegiate lots of hunter greens, and dark denims, navies and stripes. We were just feeling kind of the collegiate vibe overall, and then I know that's also kind of trending. To be completely honest, that kind of just happened, which I feel like sometimes when you're on the cusp of coming up with ideas and trends. But over the years, come up with super embellished and super colorful and over the top, glitzy and glam for the holidays. And this year, we kind of scaled back and went a little bit more, just like solid colors, bold statements, fun and games. We did some star embellishments that were super cute.
Justine Reichman: I picture the navy blue and green and I could, those kinds of things, the denim and the green that I'm picturing is like a velvet faux or something.
Staci Inspektor: So we have a corduroy cocktail napkin for sure. Velvet is such fun.
Justine Reichman: But corduroy is more unusual, so that's really special and fun.
Staci Inspektor: We did that a few years ago. It was one of the best sellers. We learn from what our clients like, so we try and reimagine them, and come up with the new color.
Justine Reichman: We have to get some corduroy, that sounds really fun. In the meantime, for those folks tuning in, whether to the podcast or the videocast, what is the best way to go about finding Atelier Saucier?
Nikki Reed: Our website, ateliersaucier.la, you can also check out our Instagram for a lot of just easy visuals and a lot of highlights of our new collections, custom collaborations. And then in person, we're sold online and at major boutiques all across the country, as well as small, incredible local boutiques. So if you go on our stockist page, on our website, there's a list of places you can find our items available in person.
Justine Reichman: Thank you guys, that was great. I'm super excited to share that with our community so that they can get saucy this holiday season using sustainable linen, because I would want to. Thank you guys so much for sharing your story, for the impact that you're having. I think it's amazing and inspiring all around. Because from the minute they're sewing the products, or even picking out the fabrics to people purchasing it, you're doing good, and that's really inspirational and aspirational to me. So thank you guys.
Nikki Reed: Thank you. Such a pleasure chatting.
Justine Reichman: Okay, so for those of you that are tuning into the videocast, you can also hear our podcast at iTunes or anywhere you listen to podcasts. And if you're not following us, follow us on Instagram at essential.ingredients. Thanks again for tuning in.
