Right Place, Right Time
One of the hardest parts of owning your clothing brand isn't worrying if customers will buy or worrying if you wasted your time and money; it's the waiting game. We took a couple of months to find the perfect manufacture. Once we found one, we had to start rolling into preproduction - tech packs, design, pattern making, samples, and marking and grading. Tech packs and design takes 1 to 2 weeks. Pattern making takes another week. Each sample usually takes 3 to 4 weeks and then throw in there all the shipping back and forth. It's ALOT of waiting. All you do is wait and wait and wait for that final product. Since February, we've been working on these joggers, and now that it's August, I am so tired of waiting.
Today, I almost lost my patience waiting for our fabric to get shipped to New York City. No fabric means no joggers. No joggers (that I have promised customers for months and months) mean no income, no income means no clothes, and you know the rest. As I was losing patience, a friend reached out to me out of the blue, and her words were, "I am so proud of you." She couldn't have said this at a better time, and I am SO thankful for all the support I have gotten from friends and family. She asked many questions about Staying Young, and it warms my heart when people ask because I have put so much time and effort into this brand.
I wanted to share our conversation just in case anyone else was interested and had the same questions.
She asked how I went about choosing a manufacture since there are SO many out there to choose from. I told her I knew I wanted one that was USA-based and owned by women. When I told her those two things, she said it made her tear up and made my brand mean much more to her. She then asked, "How do you learn what people want?"
I said, "I guess? I knew I wanted Staying Young to be athleisure and workleisure because I knew it would start trending since COVID has happened. Companies allow employees to work from home a couple of days a week or allow their employees to dress more comfortably. I decided to choose simple/basic t-shirts that could be worn working out or being dressed up. I also knew I wanted to offer sports bras and leggings, but what can I find that benefits the customers differently from the other 10,000 brands out there."
So if you want to create your brand, DO IT! Don't give up, don't lose patience, and work hard. Also, make sure to lean on your support system when you need to! There's nothing wrong with that.
P.S. - the fabric got shipped out today - which means the SY Jogger is not too far away from your wardrobe :)
-LY
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