A look around the impeccably merchandised ABLE flagship store in the Nations can be deceiving.
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From shelves filled with high-quality, luxe leather goods, to racks of impeccably cut, soft-to-the-touch denim and upscale basics, to the displays of dainty jewelry—each piece looking like it’s been handmade by an artisan who has spent years learning their trade—this is a space filled with upscale goods. But what lies beneath is even richer in value. In fact, the mission behind the brand has nothing to do with trends or style. It is one of empowerment, independence, and second chances.
While living in Ethiopia with his wife, ABLE founder Barrett Ward saw how extreme poverty forced young women to resort to prostitution as a means of supporting themselves and their families.
“Unlike what we’re used to in the States, poverty is not segregated. It is everywhere,” he says. “One of the things that we started seeing early on was these young girls waving at us in the street—particularly me. I thought they were just being friendly, but we came to find out that they were in sex slavery, or girls who had gone into prostitution to save themselves. Women and children are always the first to take a hit.”
Ward was rightfully unnerved by what he saw, and he was ready to take action.
“I’ve always had a justice bone to pick when it came to women,” he says.
He began searching for a local organization that was striving to help women get out of the industry and to rehabilitate them and give them life skills to better themselves and their lives. He found one that shared his mission.
“We loved how they were doing it—supporting the women through health care, childcare—just teaching the women how to not live at night, but to live during the day and what that lifestyle looked like,” he says. “They had individual and group counseling, and the women were so grateful for it. But the thing that we heard from them was, ‘If I get to the end of this process and I don’t have a job, I’m going right back to the streets.’”
And where many assume women in that position got there by making bad life choices or by taking a wrong turn somewhere along the line, one story really hit home for Ward as a reality check.
“One woman told us that she’d gone into the sex industry to save her sister from breast cancer,” he says. “Instead these women were heroes; they were making extraordinary sacrifices that I can’t even imagine making. That was all the motivation I needed to go fight with these women and figure something out.”
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With the intention to help the women create a product that could be sold in the United States and give them the chance to earn a good living without turning to the streets, Ward asked them what they would like to make. The women were quick to respond scarves.
Loom weaving and scarves have long been a tradition passed from generation to generation in Ethiopia. This was a skill many of the women had, but didn’t know how to monetize. Ward gave them the platform to do so, and ABLE was born.
“That’s why we’re a fashion company,” he says. “I don’t know anything about fashion, but they said scarves, so that’s what we are.”
With some help from advocate and actress Minka Kelly, who has supported ABLE from the beginning and promoted the work the company was doing, the scarves began to sell well.
Ward counts the company’s early success as a moment of kismet.
“It was just the right time in this cycle of charity where people were seeing [other organizations] and wondering, ‘Is this the right solution to poverty?’” he says. “We came in and said, ‘With your purchase, you create jobs for women in Ethiopia and that resonated with people. They realized if we were going to be serious about solutions to poverty that we have to create jobs for women.”
With outposts in five countries, 90 employees in Nashville and hundreds of others empowered through manufacturing partnerships, ABLE is growing—and so is its mission. When startup becomes a global fashion brand, sometimes employees can be become just a number. At ABLE, that’s not the case.
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Many of the women who come to ABLE do so because they’re in need of a place to better themselves. Whether it’s impoverished women in Africa, or women in recovery in Nashville, it’s a safe place to increase their feelings of self-worth, and make an honest living while surrounded by their peers.
One such woman is Barbara, the jewelry production manager at ABLE’s Nashville warehouse.
“Because I have struggled with drug and alcohol addiction and I came out on the other side—not that it ever goes away, it’s always a challenge. You don’t just get through it and it’s over, it’s a constant battle—but I think that helps me relate to the majority of the women on my team,” says Barbara, who is currently working towards her Bachelor’s Degree in psychology and addiction recovery. “We have all had to overcome something in our background.”
She points to team members who are living in transitional housing, or in the courts trying to regain custody of their children.
“It’s a really vulnerable time,” she says. “But I can look at them and say, ‘If God did it for me, he’ll do it for you.’”
For Barbara and the women who work alongside her, it’s comforting to know this isn’t just a place of work. It’s a safe space where they can share their stories—not hide them. And she relates to their struggle of finding self-worth after difficult life experiences.
But how does an organization with a mission statement focusing on empowering women through life skills and employment find balance with its commercial side. After all, ABLE is a business—and a fashion business at that.
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What started with scarves in Ethiopia evolved into a full-fledged fashion house with products made in Mexico, Peru, and Nashville, including leather goods, denim, clothing, footwear, and handmade jewelry.
“It’s crazy how much this thing has grown. I never dreamed it. We were four people five years ago, and now we’re 90 with 87 women,” now Nashville-based Ward says. “As it was growing and we were having an impact [internationally], it became obvious that there were women in our own backyard who need help as well, and our hearts missed being around the women. We wanted to be engaged with the women we sought to serve.”
By bringing jewelry production to Nashville, Ward has been able to help women like Barbara and her team.
For most companies, sales are everything. At ABLE, sales are a means to an end. By creating high-end, quality, and on-trend pieces, ABLE increases its sales and that money increases the opportunities to help women. Rather than creating fashion for fashion sake, the company is doing so to better the lives of the women behind it. It’s a refreshingly deep philosophy for an industry often focused on the surface.
And one that Barbara learned first-hand.
“We are a fashion brand, and I’m not a very fashionable person, so when I first came on, I was around all these beautiful women who were always so put together and that’s just not me,” she says, her voice cracking with emotion. “One day I came in and I had this moment of, ‘Wow, it’s doesn’t matter what I’m wearing. They value me for me.’ That was a huge moment.”