Breaking Heels

40 Days left to go!

admin — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 17:11:22 +0000

Approximately two weeks in and we have pledges of almost $4,000! We could not be more excited! The pledges have ranged from $25 – $1000! Each of these pledgers get a little special something if we make our full fundraising goal, which include:

Our Cheerleaders who gave up to $25 will get our e-newsletters and special mentions on our site when we upgrade! Major Thank you to Jennifer Gmerek and Pooja & Prachi Bulsara!

Our Players pledged $75 or more and they will be getting our regular e-newsletters, a free music track from a partnering artist and a Breaking Heels-branded pendant necklace or cufflink. Major Thank you to ZZ Friedman, Nischala Bulsara, Vivian Shibata, Tejas Patel, Tony Askar, Sarah Schwartz, Dillan Damodar and Debbie Baker!

Our movers pledged $150 or more and they will get everything the players get, including a 20% off certificate for any Breaking Heels product once we’re on sale! Major thank you to Alex Cocavessis, Deepa Mackrani, Petra Koulia, Reena Solanki, and Sanjay Vrajlal!

We have one Baller status donor who pledged $500 towards Breaking Heels and that goes to Greg Collier, founder of Geebo.com. He will be getting a feature photo/testimony on our site and an exclusive event with us!

Lastly we have two angels, Bina Damodar and Ruehanee Killer who both pledged $1000. They are going to get dinner with us and a professional photoshoot! Your pledge to us means so much, thank you!

We have 18 backers but need quite a few more before we hit our minimum goal of $25,000. Check out Tina Frundt, Executive Director of Courtney’s House talk about our unique partnership. We are working with survivors at Courtney’s House to design our shoes. Each of these girls (and in many cases, boys too) have had ever facet of their lives controlled by a pimp or trafficker, from the food they eat, where and when they could go, to the clothes and shoes they must wear. The rehabilitation and healing process from trafficking is not easy, and even making basic choices can feel so foreign. Now that survivors can experience life in freedom it’s exciting as well as incredibly empowering for them to be able to make their own choices about what they wear AND be a part of the design process.

If you want to be a part of this too, please make a pledge of ANY amount today! Our movement will depends on it!

Our Crowdfunding Campaign is ON!

admin — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 15:53:15 +0000

We just launched our first ever crowdfunding campaign to raise $50,000 towards the launch of our fashion line. We are using Start Some Good – an awesome crowdfunding platform that allows social ventures like ours to raise pledges towards our goals.

We have two goals with this campaign: a tipping point goal of $25,000 and final goal of $50,000. If we make our $25,000 goal:

We will be able to finish our patent on the height adjustable shoe
Start a pilot line of survivor inspired high heel shoes (approximately 3 designs), with survivors from Courtney’s House (Washington D.C) and MISSSEY (Oakland, CA) and others!

If we make our final goal of $50,000, we will accomplish all those things above AND create injection molds for the height adjustables so that we can mass produce them, and begin some manufacturing.

We have just 40 days left to get to one of our goals. All pledges turn into donations only when the goal is made. You can help by making a pledge of any amount and spreading the word with your friends and family! Also, be sure to join our Facebook Group which will provide regular updates on the campaign, sharable graphics, videos and more!

It’s 2012!

admin — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 12:23:19 +0000

2 January 2012

Dear World,

It’s 2012, and we could not be more enthralled to start it with you! Here are some exciting updates to kick off the new year:

Joy For Ever B.V. engineers have a workable prototype. We’ve surveyed over 500 women about our height adjustable high heel line and have tremendous consumer support!
Now that our prototype is complete, we need to work to develop it a bit further for “production readiness.” This means we need to create steel-based injection molds for each part of the mechanism. These molds will allow us to mass produce our shoes
We’ve started up a Kickstarter Project to raise $25,000 for the injection molds. We’ll need a bit more money than this to do it, but this is a HUGE start. To support us please click (here).
We have two great artists joining our business. Adriohn of Crazatic Entertainment and Edward Granillo in Los Angeles, California who are rapping some amazing songs! Stay tuned for previews of their songs on our website!

We have some serious new year’s resolutions, including getting our product ready for the market and on to your feet! If you’re interested in helping us, please reach out at hello@breakingheels.com!

Love,

Breaking Heels Team

Hello World!

admin — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 04:10:41 +0000

25 June 2011

Dear World,

We’re so excited to launch our up and coming social venture called Breaking Heels!

Breaking Heels is a social enterprise that transforms the collective power of consumers into a financial force against human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation (CSE). Having a patented height adjustable high-heel shoe technology, Breaking Heels teams up with iconic fashion brands to produce Breaking Heels branded shoes. A portion of the profits from each Breaking Heels shoe goes towards launching sorely-needed demand reduction programs, as well as funds for rehabilitation/social service provision for victims and survivors.

As our company product, we’re designing a height adjustable shoe that goes from a high heel to a flat with just one simple movement. It all started when two girls at Cambridge University suffered accidents wearing high heel shoes, and decided that there had to be a better way then having to carry around an extra pair of shoes (ie sneakers, flipflops or flats) when a long day in heels is no longer tolerable. After a few brainstorming sessions, several rough sketches and a dedicated engineering team, we believe we’ve found a solution.

What started out as a simple solution to our day-to-day problems also turned out to be part of a solution to a broader social problem in the developed world. Both the US and UK are suffering several cuts in social services and other public programming. There are very few resources for victims and survivors of human trafficking, let alone awareness that slavery still exists, and that it can be right in our backyard.

We’ve decided to use this innovation to raise the profile of this issue in the US and UK. “Breakin heels” refers to a phrase commonly used to describe what a woman must do when she is controlled by a pimp or human trafficker. She is forced to meet a quota, and serve as many clients as possible (break heels) before she is able to return home, or suffer at the hands of her controller. We can’t live in a world where slavery like this still exists…

We hope to create a really amazing product that you would want to purchase, and feel great knowing that it will help address commercial sexual exploitation and human trafficking. Stay in touch with us on our blog as we make progress on our venture!

Cheers,

Breaking Heels Team!