Moop Shop

Hi everyone! It’s been one year since I closed Moop Shop, and about nine months since I wrapped up the last production run of wholesale orders. The story from a year ago is still in the link in bio if you want to read it. Quite a lot has happened in the intervening space between. Initially, I went through a stage of extreme burnout recovery, which led to slowly rebuilding myself, understanding my identity outside of the brand and my lifestyle outside of the business operations, while simultaneously, trying to determine what I wanted to do next in my career. After a series of starts and stops, many many interviews, two moves within eight weeks and a lot of big psychic energy, I think I’ve found my footing again. This feed, which began when Instagram began, has been a bit of a confusing place to know how to more forward with. I’ve decided to change it over to my professional brand page.
So, hello! I’m Wendy Downs.
And, I am doing okay.

I launched a project called Cocktail Slob earlier this year. I’ll be posting a lot about that, alongside other projects I’m working on. We all know IG is not what it used to be. But, there is a community and an outlet that I’ve missed activating in a real way. If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll subscribe to Cocktail Slob. It is a writing project with some gory stories, some wild stories, a few that might make you cry, things I’m cooking and cocktails I’m making. Twice I’ve posted videos. My sense of humor is returning, as is my writing wit. I’m working on reading all of the posts aloud so they can become a podcast, and I’m excited to soon launch a shop to go alongside the Substack. I hope you’ll join me as I build again. Over the next few days I’ll be reposting about six months worth of Cocktail Slob photos. And then, I’ll share slowly as things go forward. So much gratitude for this community of hearts and minds who support small people doing big things. The world outside is wild and kinda scary. Hopefully we can all help each other through it with some engaging stories, entertaining cocktails, six minute eggs and plenty of levity.
# # #,
Wendy

A very very big announcement about the last bags I’ll design and make at MoopHQ.
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Click through to read!
https://www.moopshop.com/blogs/news/my-last-collection

I started this week with such excitement for a few new things I thought were happening. By the end, one of those hopes had been dashed, the others left in waiting and I found myself again wondering what it is that brings me joy.
It’s people.
Friends. Partners. Colleagues.
Opening yourself up to opportunities and projects, knowing most starts will have abrupt stops. But doing so regardless.
Cities. Neighbors. Pups.
I love to entertain.
I love to be entertained.
I love those magic feelings that happen when you meet someone new. The shared spark. The daydreams. The imaginations and creative energy that come from knowing that the person you are talking to is equally as excited to be talking to you. That brings joy. The conversations that lead to potential futures. This defines my personal and professional life. Two spaces inextricably linked. Forever in process.

I ended the week feeling rather deflated. One potential bubble burst. A little disoriented from thinking I could trust my own feelings, forgetting that other people are trying to trust their own as well. It can be hard to know why you have to just let certain experiences float away and move on when you find yourself holding on to a potential that has already vanished…even if that space was only occupied for an incredibly brief moment in time.
Then I realized I was closing out my work week on the exact day I officially launched Moop Shop, sixteen years ago. I celebrated with new people around me. People who are learning the storied history of how I built this. The experiences and studios and lives that have filled the time from then to now. Who do not fully know how I ended up, sixteen years later, on the literal opposite coast of where this began, filled with gratitude for the network of people who have very much helped me create that history. Who continue to do so. Who have learned my history and I theirs, in the forwardbackward way that we come to know those we truly love. These are not linear processes. These are portions of lives in process, forever being built, dismantled and rebuilt.

Sixteen years of small business manufacturing is One Hundred and Twelve Dog Years.
Woof.
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