Naturally Tan Page 9

  I hated the modest swimwear that was available at the time. I had saved a vintage picture on Pinterest of a woman in a high-waisted swimsuit, and I thought, You haven’t seen that since the ’50s and ’60s. The only version I could find was by Dolce & Gabbana and cost a fortune. I figured I could design an accessible version of that, and I was sure that the Mormon crowd would be all about it. But it would also appeal to non-Mormon women who just wanted more coverage.

  So I made my first collection of swimwear—eight swimsuits, six one-pieces and two two-pieces. They were all vintage inspired, harkening back to the ’50s. The one-pieces were similar to the iconic crème one-piece that Marilyn Monroe wore. The two-pieces were simple high-waisted bottoms with a structured front panel for extra support, and the top was a mid-length bustier with straps. Designing swimwear is very different from designing clothes, but I learned quickly. The entire collection was around seven hundred pieces, as that was all I could afford to make. It was a tiny collection, but a strong one.

  I gave one of my swimsuits to a blogger I’d known through Instagram and asked if she would consider posting it if she liked it. She did, and she did.

  When the collection launched, I was boarding a flight to China, where I was going to sample the new collection. I had designed a fall apparel collection, and I was going to have it sampled, which is the process you go through to prepare to go into production, in the event the swim line sold well. Unbeknownst to me, the blogger posted about the swimwear while I was on the plane. By the time my flight landed seventeen hours later, I had sold out—every last one of the seven hundred pieces.

  As the Wi-Fi didn’t work over the ocean, I only started to get a signal as the plane was really close to landing. As we were about to land, I saw the text from Rob saying, “Oh my god, we sold out.” I thought it was a joke, and I replied, “Hahahahaha.” But then he responded, “Legit, we sold out. We don’t have one piece left.”

  I was in complete shock. I needed to talk to him on the phone. Yet when we landed, I still couldn’t call, because China is really strict when it comes to using phones in the airport. Instagram is also banned in China, so I wasn’t able to see if anyone had tagged a photo of the swimsuit.

  This was only my second time in China, but I knew that the customs line was very long, and I wouldn’t be able to talk to him until I got through it. I was standing on the line for over an hour, tapping my feet and biting my nails (which I’ve done since I was a little boy). I was so anxious I wanted to scream, which of course I could not do, because I am brown.

  There are two things a brown person cannot do, and those are to scream or run through an airport with a backpack on. We struggle to catch flights, too. But we’re not allowed to run, because that would alarm all the white people.

  So there I was, standing in the airport, screaming in my head. Then, finally, I got into the cab and called him.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I said. “There is no way we sold out.”

  He assured me that we had.

  I still didn’t understand how this was possible. Everything had sold out while I was on the plane? That’s a lot to sell through a tiny, tiny website.

  “How did this happen?” I asked him.

  He said, “I don’t know! I woke up, and everything had sold.” He said it had been nonstop for a few hours.

  “Was there a glitch in the system?”

  “No,” he assured me. “Every order has a different name on it. People are asking for preorders and when we think we’ll get more in.”

  I immediately called my factory and asked them if we could rush another order, and they said they could do it in six weeks. So we immediately put the collection back online, with a message that said, “Preorder available, back in six weeks.” And we continued to sell and sell.

  At this point, I called Rob and said, “Now, all on your own, you have to go through all three thousand boxes and send out all three thousand orders.”

  He is an angel.

  I told him he could call some of our friends and ask for help, and he said, “No, we’re not the kind of people who ask everyone for help.” And for five or six days, he was doing it all himself, around the clock. He fulfilled orders from the time he woke until the time he went to bed.

  Mind you, these were massive boxes, and they were all in our tiny one-bedroom apartment. At the time, our living room was no longer a living room; it was a storage space. Our apartment had basically become an office and warehouse that we just so happened to have a bed in. It continued that way for a year and half, with Rob shipping out orders until we could afford to get an office space.

  The business was finally working, and I was overjoyed.

  When I flew back to America, I brought my new autumn samples with me and started taking them to stores in Utah and Idaho. I would go from store to store with a suitcase and start taking wholesale orders. It was such a cowboy operation—it’s not how it should be done, but it was the only way I knew.

  With the money from my wholesale endeavors, I was able to afford to rent a booth at my first trade show, called Magic, in Las Vegas. It’s the biggest apparel trade show in the US and attracts a massive number of buyers. I was panicking over the $10,000 fee, but I made back the money on the first day of the show. I did another show—this one a swimwear show—in California, and the likes of Forever 21 and ModCloth purchased my line. They placed large orders for many of the styles I designed that were put into mass production to be sold at their stores and online only three months later. I couldn’t quite believe it. The business was finally becoming a real brand.

  We went into mass production immediately. Their orders were huge, and I didn’t know how I would be able to afford it. I took out financing to make it work. It sold so well that they quadrupled the size of their orders within weeks of the items going online.

  Once the swimwear did well, the retailers started ordering apparel, too. My business had become something I’d hoped for but didn’t expect to have for many, many years.

  For the first two years, I was the only employee of my business. I pretended to have a business address, but it was really our tiny one-bedroom home. Rob shipped all the orders from our living room. I created different email accounts for a payroll manager, a customer service manager … I didn’t want retailers thinking we were a tiny business. I wanted them to continue to order on the faith that we had this whole team working to get their orders out to them. Over email, I was Jane … I was Avery … I was Christine … I was so many women. Whenever they’d ask to speak, I would say we had to correspond by email so there would be a paper trail. I made up ludicrous stories to keep the illusion going. It worked.

  For the first two and a half years, we weren’t earning much. Everything we made had to go right back into the company—so in addition to running the business, I had to have a job. I was back in the UK because I still didn’t have a US work visa, so I had to run the business remotely as Rob continued to take care of shipping on his days off from his regular job.

  I had gone from earning a good salary as a director at Shade to working for minimum wage as a temp at a law firm or a mental health clinic or whatever other temp job I could find. I would temp five or six days a week, from 8:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Then I would haul ass and do production and customer service in the evenings, which was when the US was up and at ’em. It was so fucking stressful, and I can’t tell you the number of times I broke down, cried, and wanted to quit. It was easily the hardest period of my life.

  Although my jobs were temporary, they were still work. I would have the stress of my day job, but all the while I would be worrying about a screwup at the factory, where an item had been produced in mustard instead of a bright yellow, and thinking that if I can’t put a spin on this with the buyers, I’ll be stuck with over ten thousand dollars’ worth of product I can’t sell (since factories are notorious about getting off the hook for errors with production), and how I can’t afford that kind of hit, so I’d better get
on the phone and email ASAP to try to make this all work.

  I was sure that a time would come where the business would grow to a point where we could hire a team to help and could reap the rewards.

  After two and a half years, I could afford to pay myself. I started to focus on the business full-time and push social media more regularly. However, I was still wise enough to keep my team small. At first, we hired two people and then three. I’d seen—and worked for—so many companies where they employed a bunch of people who spent half the day chilling online. So I made sure I hired people who knew what needed to be done and that their days were full, wearing many, many hats.

  Then I had the harebrained idea of creating more businesses. Why not create more clothing brands and just call them different names? At this point, my swimwear had become such a thing that local businesses were starting to pop up and knock me off. There were new businesses popping up all the time that were making pieces that were just like what I’d been doing years before. There was no innovation. Just replicate and rebrand. It was infuriating but completely legal. And, if there’s one thing that Utah businesspeople do well, it’s copying someone else’s work and claiming it as their own.

  Utahns, you know I love you, but you fuckwits who knocked me off, you know who you are.

  So I thought, If everyone is knocking me off and becoming successful doing it, then I’ll knock myself off. I started using cheaper fabric and selling my own designs at a much lower price point, and it sold really well. I had a premium brand and a knockoff of my premium brand, and no one knew that both of them were me. It worked so well.

  High-waisted two-pieces became massive for me. I also saw the tides were turning and that one-pieces were becoming more and more popular. People were starting to see them not as dowdy and grandma-like but as chic and sophisticated. So while everyone was busy knocking off my two-pieces, I started to make one-pieces that, while modest, were as sexy as they could be and looked like nothing anyone else was doing. The two-piece may have created my business, but the one-piece saved my business. The one-piece created everything I have now.

  I love a one-piece bathing suit on a woman. I think women look sexier when they’re not showing it all off. If you wear a high-waisted bottom or a one-piece, it looks sexy and sophisticated and chic as fuck. A thong may be good for tanning, but your butt is literally eating that back piece. That’s not a great look. And you’ll feel so much more confident strolling around knowing your ass isn’t eating your swimsuit and your boobs are supported. A bikini is a vulnerable state to be in, and that’s maybe not how you want to get your next hot boyfriend.

  The ’80s ruined us. If you’re thirsty for attention, you do you, bish, but if what you want is to feel good about yourself and feel comfortable and supported, wear a one-piece.

  Dress for other women. This is as true on the beach as anywhere else. If you’re dressing for yourself and other women at the beach, then you’re doing something right.

  Men, I have some advice for you, too. Let the board shorts die unless you actually own a surfboard. Even then, I’m not sure it’s great to surf in them. Board shorts look frumpy—there is nothing cool or sexy about them. My plea to every man out there is this: invest in a pair of shorts that hit your mid-thigh, which will make you look taller and leaner.

  LITTLE PINK DRESS

  After my businesses were up and running, I started to work with a woman called Rachel Parcell, who runs the blog Pink Peonies. I met Rach a few years prior, as she often wore my designs to New York Fashion Week and had helped promote my swimwear. She was killing it with her fashion and lifestyle blog, and even though she was only in her early twenties, women across the world were looking to her for all things lifestyle.

  Rachel is incredibly creative and has a very feminine aesthetic, which helped her carve out a niche in this crazy blogging world. With two kids, a husband, and a multimillion-dollar home to boot, she’d become the go-to blogger. One cold, Christmassy day, she asked if I wanted to help her create a brand.

  Side note: Before I started working with bloggers, I had some real disdain for them. Over the years, there were literally hundreds, if not thousands, popping up every day, taking selfies and pics of their avocado toast. I never would have thought I’d associate myself with that self-indulgent bunch. However, it took getting to know just one of them to change my opinion.

  I know bloggers can seem vapid to the skeptical eye. However, I’ve come to realize that bloggers are some of the most innovative marketers out there. They bust their balls building up an audience of the most engaged followers. Yes, they do many a sponsored post, but why the heck was I expecting otherwise? They’re influencers, and this is how they earn a living. They’ve managed to carve out a whole, massively profitable industry that gives them freedom to create some amazing content while providing for their families. I’ve drastically changed my opinion of this savvy bunch.

  Do I still want to hammer-punch their brunch while they’re trying to take a pic of it? Yes. Do I want to photobomb the selfies they’re taking at the gym? Heck yes. Do I think that they deserve the venom that’s hissed at them online? Absolutely not. They’ve built companies out of nothing. Colour me impressed.

  Back to Rachel. She’s special. She’s beautiful, caring, and incredibly talented. At the time I write this, she’s only twenty-seven but has created a million-dollar blog and a million-dollar clothing brand, all while raising two children under the age of six. (Oh, and yes, she is very young to have two children. The Mormons pop them out young here in Utah.)

  Originally, when Rach suggested going into business together, I had no interest. I didn’t have a business partner, and I didn’t think I ever wanted one, as I’m very set in my ways when it comes to business. However, I saw the benefit in working together. Rachel was one of the biggest bloggers, and her readers bought what she recommended. In the blogging world, conversion is very important. If your links and traffic don’t convert to sales, then your follower count doesn’t mean shit. But her readership was very engaged, and I thought the collection would do well.

  So, after some thought, we formed a partnership. She wanted the collection to be ready in three months. Under even the best of circumstances, creating something like that would take at least six to nine months. But I said, “We’ll try to create a miracle,” and we did. We worked every hour that God sent. We hauled ass.

  We were together every day for most hours of the day. If we couldn’t meet in person, we worked on FaceTime. The collection was very pink. Rach is obsessed with pink, as highlighted by her blog, Pink Peonies. She wanted whimsical, flowy, and structured occasion wear. She described; I drew. By the end of the week, we had a beautiful collection in the works. Once I designed it, I went to China to start sampling, and production began within a couple of weeks.

  We created a brand of premium clothing, which was something I’d never done before. We were both apprehensive—I wasn’t sure we could sell at the above-$200 price point, and she didn’t know how much we could sell. But we forged ahead.

  She had the idea in January. We launched in April.

  We sold over one thousand pieces within just one day. Holy shit, Rach had selling power like I’d never seen before.

  That was the moment when I realized, with the success of all my brands, I could probably retire within the next few years. I wasn’t making a fortune, but I was making enough to be able to provide a comfortable life for my husband and future kids, while maybe taking consultant work on the side. What’s more, I realized that I should probably retire within the next few years. Mostly because trying to manage the pressure of keeping these brands afloat was going to give me a heart attack.

  When I first met Rachel, I hated pink with a passion. But now I’ve grown to love it. She showed me the (pink) light. We knew our audience and we catered to them—a classic, feminine brand, full of dresses and skirts that were appropriate for our customers. We did a lot of fit-and-flare dresses. In America, people will purchase a
fit-and-flare dress over a shift dress any day. I don’t know what the fascination is to wear something so form-fitting up top and more voluminous down below, but the masses seem to love it out here. From what I’ve found running these apparel brands, Americans like to show off their waists and try to hide their hips, while European women don’t care as much about highlighting their curves. In Europe, they’ll go for a shift dress. The focus there is more on showing off their style, their fashion sense, and their ability to play with proportion, structure, and dimension.

  I don’t know where this American desire to show off the waist and hide the hips comes from—is it pressure from the media? Is the ’50s housewife look the eternal ideal in US culture? I don’t know what the psychology is behind it, but I am always amazed by how much American women gravitate toward it. My personal opinion is that while I love a fit-and-flare, which can be very flattering and whimsical, I hate the idea that women are wearing it to hide the lower half of their curves, or using this silhouette to accommodate men’s ideas of femininity and beauty.

  I think a shift dress is super cool and sexy without having to highlight any part of the body. Plus, I think it really shows off creativity and style, as opposed to just showing off the female form.

  But anyway, back to Rachel. We agreed to be partners for five years. Our collection was a massive success, but after a year, it became clear to me that having another business was killing me. I had moved to Utah permanently and had so much on my plate at the time. It had been so ambitious of me to think I could run three companies and still have a life and be happy.

  I thought I could handle three businesses, especially since the third was an extension of what I was already doing. But having a business partner added a level of stress that I never expected. With my own business, I got to make all the decisions. But with a partner, that was no longer the case. Rachel had a million-dollar blog and an aesthetic to uphold. The details were very important to her, and I understood that. But it meant that all my decisions had to meet with her approval, and if they didn’t, I would do all I could until she was happy. I realized that I had to start selling the businesses and find a way out. Rachel and I had become close friends, and I told her I was going to leave the company.