As a kid, I recognized that clothing had the power to affect my day, both positively and negatively.
As I got older, I discovered what affected me was how my clothing fit. If my clothing fit how I wanted, I didn't think about it the rest of the day—it had a neutral or positive effect. If it didn't, it became an unnecessary distraction.
By high school, I was wearing t-shirts and jeans every day. Some t-shirts and jeans fit exactly how I wanted, and others didn't. I figured if I could get all my clothing to fit how I wanted every day, I could stop distractions, and it seemed doable.
I started to find the differences between the t-shirts and jeans I liked and those I didn't. The differences were variations in measurements, like how wide the t-shirt neck was or how roomy the jeans were. So I started doing alterations at home, some with a local seamstress, to make all my t-shirts and jeans fit consistently. It helped and getting dressed became easier.
I was doing this at a time in life when people ask you what you want to do when you grow up. I had solved a problem for myself and figured I could do it for others. That's how and when the idea for this company started.
After graduating from college (Univ. of Tennessee/Retail and Consumer Sciences), I moved to New York City to learn enough about the clothing industry to start this company. I found a job with a clothing company and enrolled at Parson's School of Design.
Three years later, I released my first product. It was a white t-shirt. What made that t-shirt different was in-between sizes, sizes in-between S, M, L, and XL. I was in-between sizes, and I knew other people were too. Today, in-between sizes account for half of our shirt sales.
For the first three years, I outsourced manufacturing overseas, then to factories in the USA. But I learned outsourcing didn't give us the flexibility to solve the fit problems we were hearing from customers. So I created a factory in New Jersey.
Today, our purpose is to save time and mental energy for detail-minded people who care about how their clothing fits by minimizing the distractions that can come from inconsistent fitting clothing.
I hope this story can help you relate to why I started this company and the purpose of our work going forward.
Todd