Style for Grace

           
On February 10, 2009, a single piece of legislation passed in 2008 will kill an entire industry filled with small businesses, crafters, artisans, moms and dads.

The United States Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) in July 2008. President Bush signed the CPSIA in August 2008. Starting on February 10, 2009, the CPSIA law will take effect. The CPSIA bans lead and phthalates in children's products, mandates third party testing and certification, and requires manufacturers of all goods for children under the age of 12, to permanently label each item with a date and batch number.

All of these changes will be fairly easy for large, multinational companies to comply with. However, Style for Grace, an online business based in Troy, along with thousands of other small businesses, cannot afford to pay for the mandatory testing.

“Girls under 12 are the demographic of my entire business. To comply with the new law, I will derive a net loss of at least $900 per sale. I cannot operate a business with those kinds of losses,” said Aimee LaLiberte, owner and designer of Style for Grace, “I have invested thousands of dollars in establishing my online business and will lose not only my personal investment, but two years of research, product development, and planning.”

Style for Grace is a design-your-own dress center for girls, where the customer is the designer. The Style for Grace virtual design center offers its customers the ability to customize dresses for girls’ sizes 2T to 14.  Once created, each one-of-a-kind dress is custom-made and shipped in 3-4 weeks.  A Style for Grace dress can have up to 6 components per dress. Under the new CPSIA law, for every dress sold, Style for Grace will be required to test every single component of every single dress.

“I’ve done some preliminary research and the cost to test starts at approximately $150 per component,” explained LaLiberte, “For six components, it would cost $900 for testing per dress. In addition to testing each dress, I still have expenses associated with materials, labor, packaging and shipping.”

For those being impacted by the enactment of the CPSIA, February 10, 2009 is being called National Bankruptcy Day, as this new law will force thousands to comply or cease their business operations if they are unable to do so. Style for Grace will be among those businesses closing its doors. “It breaks my heart that less than 6 months after launching my online business, I will be forced to close, long before it ever had a chance to really take off,” LaLiberte stated, “If you care about small businesses, hand crafters, artisans, then you need to contact your Congressional representatives and urge them to take immediate measures to change the CPSIA.”
 
About Style for Grace
Style for Grace is an addicting, fun and expressive outlet for styling the little women in your life.  At Style for Grace, we believe individuality should be celebrated, so why not give the gift of expression through dress design. After completing the design process, your dress is sewn by one of our very talented and local seamstresses who have all taken an oath of providing love and care to every garment. 

Style for Grace is proud to provide dresses made in the U.S.A.