Meet Christy Phillipps | Designer, seamstress.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Christy Phillipps and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Christy, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
As a single mother raising two sons, I often wondered about the world I had brought them into. Seeing them glued to their devices – for gaming as well as for school – I knew the paradigm had shifted and there was no going back.

I wondered, increasingly, about the potential danger of the proximity of high frequency microwave devices to the vulnerable bodies of sensitive people, infants and children, pregnant women, and fetuses.

I no longer felt comfortable putting my laptop on my lap. Yet it’s virtually impossible to imagine navigating through life – personal, professional, and educational – without Radio Frequency devices.

NixRay was born of my desire to create innovative and sustainable solutions to the negative impact of technology upon our planet and the life it supports. I believe that safety and technology can, and must, go hand in hand.

I developed NixRay Radio Frequency and RFID shielding antimicrobial phone and computer bags and cases to answer this need.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My art career began in film and videography at S.U.N.Y. Purchase College NY.  Purchase was a well-equipped school, because of Rockefeller’s initiation and Pepsico across the street continued support financially.  In my time at Purchase, my graduating class turned out the likes of Wesley Snipes, Stanley Tucci, and Edie Falco.   The resources available to me were incredible.  Film, Photography, and Printmaking was where I spent my time.  I donned a new major with the Dean “intermedia” which allowed me to bounce in many differing majors at college.  I created many wild installations on the school grounds and in the forests in Westchester County, using film loop projectors and scrims from Rosebrand in NYC.     I was picked at the early age of 19, by John Hanhardt the curator of film/Video at the Whitney Museum to participate in a Video installation show in the Whitney Museum then traveled to the Pompidou Museum in Paris, I was the youngest participant and being an artist and student I could not afford to fly to Paris so had many telephone interviews instead.    

When I graduated college I was disheartened to find out how expensive it is to rent the equipment I had at college at my disposal.    I worked within the film industry, and silkscreen printmaking for a while in NYC.   My boyfriend and I were living in an unhealthy loft in Brooklyn, in a lawsuit about the fumes we were inhaling from an industrial military dry cleaning plant below us.   A friend came over and told us our skin was green and we needed to go.    

Having grown up in NYC when I was 10 my Mom moved my 3 siblings and me to family property on Martha’s Vineyard where we all went to elementary school and High School.  We decided to return to detox there and moved there for three years, got married and I had my first child there.   We lived off the land. Fished, and gathered seafood, oysters, and clams.  Had gardens and cultivated our food.  

It was on Martha’s Vineyard that I got my first industrial sewing machine and taught myself how to sew.   I began with leather hats, I don’t know why, but this taught me a lot about pattern making and difficult sewing.   My husband was making tiles using clay he gathered from the Wampanoag Indians.   Creating intricate rug patterns and also he was a painter making his oil paints.   I was working on running The Field Gallery, turning around a somewhat dilapidated gallery into a thriving happening scene with weekly rotating artist parties.   It was an exciting time. 
I made my clothing and began to get recognition.    

My son was born on Halloween.   Naturally, I began making costumes for him.     This grew to making costumes for my friend’s children and schools.    I developed a line of easy-to-wear cape costumes that had kids in mind.   After the 1989 Earthquake in San Francisco, we decided to move out there as my husband, thought there would be a lot of repair tile work there.  He could paint and show more easily.   

I worked in SF for many manufacturing companies, big and small. I got my education by working within my chosen field.  I was working for a company making sportswear in Potrero Hill.   I was in charge of supplying these 21 sewing shops with the necessary goods to produce the sportswear.   I took my ideas to the sewing shops and they began manufacturing my capes.  I pounded the pavement with my son in a stroller, selling to stores on both coasts.    I eventually sold large amounts to Nordstroms and FAO Swartz in NYC.     I traveled and did shows East and West Coasts.   In this time I learned that women were less likely to buy my $20.00 cape for their child.   They wanted something for themselves.   

I then moved into women’s and men’s clothing.  My sister was a dressage horse rider and one day she asked me to make her a wool jacket, one she could wash and dry.    This led me to use Military wool blankets that I would hand die in my washing machine using eco-friendly dies,   I made all sorts of men’s and women’s wool jackets, for horseback riding, Sailing, Skiing, and Boarding.   They were colorful,  I had 52 colors.   I was asked to attend Olympic horse events but discovered I had too many choices and everyone at my shows would pick custom colors instead of the premade wool jackets.  I ended up making only custom coats.   

I longed to manufacture a product I didn’t have to sew myself.   Then came the dream I had in 2013, in which I was making products to protect people from their cell phones and computers and Nixray was born, actually in the garage in Wellington Florida as I was there also aiding my sister in her Grand Prix pursuits.   

There are always challenges along your road, the trick is listening to yourself.   It is important to listen to both sides of the criticism There will be positive responses and always naysayers, both sides have insights.   I try to remain neutral and open, but also know when to put my foot down and override a no-can-do attitude to create something no one perhaps has done before. 

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I love to get into nature and explore.

I’d say go to the everglades. This is an impressive vast and extensive swamp. The largest subtropical wilderness in the United States. Get in a kayak and roam the mangrove canals. It took me 20 mins to fly over this impressive swamp west coast to east coast.

kayak through the 10,000 islands and camp on them. Spend a few days here.

The cypress slogging in Homestead Florida is a feast of the eyes as you are in clear waters up to your waist walking through the original cypress forests. Our guide I kid you not was Blue Waters, her real name. She was so informative, and don’t worry they don’t allow slogging when the alligators are in their nests, only after they leave for mating season, are you allowed to go in these crystal clear waters.

Or walk Cypress Bend which is a boardwalk that also takes you through the oldest cypress forests.

We also like to go up to Rainbow and Crystal rivers up north in Florida where the river temperatures are 72 degrees year around. This is a fantastic place to see the Manatee’s in their natural habitat. And swim in Devil’s Den above Ocala. A truly mystifying place.

I also love the Botanical Gardens in Naples, there is an orchid display that will delight everyone.

And Coral Castle is a marvel feat of one small man in the 50’s who was 5′ tall, who moved several tons of coral singlehandedly. It remains a mystery how he did it.

Or just going to the beach as there are plenty in Florida and the waters are turquoise blue and always warm 72-74 degrees.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My family is the ones who really spurred me on with this idea I had in a dream, in which I was making products to protect my friends and family in 2013.

After extensive internet research on the effects of Radio Frequencies (RF) on our bodies, I was surprised to find in that many of the pages I did find on their harmful effects on our bodies, the next day these pages were scrubbed off the internet. I would constantly get a blank page notification ” #404 Page not found”. I knew then I was onto something.

I began searching for the materials that I would be able to incorporate into computer cases and cell phone cases that would reduce the RF signal from entering into our skin. This lead me to a company in upstate NY. I drove up there and met with them. They were using Mil-Spec RF nickel and copper fabrics and making tents for Presidents, to make calls within and be protected and untraceable. And Military products so solders would also be un-trackable in the line of duty.

This company took a liking to my designs and began making them for me, testing my products along the way.
I also need to give a big shout out to my team. My writers, web designers, photographers and stylists who also continued to support me and knew this idea was an important milestone, that everyone needed to know the effects of their computers and cell phones that have become appendage’s that are almost required to navigate in the world at large.

Website: https://nixray.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nixrayshield/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christy-phillipps-06125114/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NixRayToday

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@nixray8898

Image Credits
All my photos