“Why does it take y’all so long to make clothes?”

Good question...*laugh-cries*

We produce our garments on a made-to-order basis. We're serious about responsible manufacturing, which means our materials and labor are expensive. We've always had slim margins, but particularly in recent months we’ve been dependent on cash flow from customer orders to purchase our fabric and pay for production labor.

Without confirmed customer demand, it's risky to invest in production–especially considering the wide variety of sizes and colors we offer. Making-to-order gives us flexibility and reduces waste.

Producing in small runs also allows us to continually improve our garments based on customer feedback, which is a core part of our philosophy of creating an excellent product.

This process–start-to-finish from ordering materials all the way through fabric prep, cutting, sewing, washing, packing and shipping–takes a long time, even when things go perfectly. There are always unexpected hiccups and delays (behind the scenes, garment manufacturing is incredibly difficult), which makes a long process at best even longer. Every production model we've tried comes with it's own new set of obstacles, but we keep trucking on.

Another valid question is: 

"Even if it takes a long time, why are the estimated delivery dates wrong so often?" 

And honestly, I'd be surprised if you've ordered from us in the past year and *don’t* have that question. 

The answer to this is a lot more personal.

I tend to be eternally optimistic, I haven’t had backup help in place for when I’m unavailable, and I am still adjusting to my new physical capacity after having kids. I’m acutely aware of this, and I’m working on it. Before kids, I could muscle through problems by working longer hours. With a one- and three-year-old, there are just fewer hours to give. My best-laid plans (Gantt charts, spreadsheets, and calendars galore) still hinge on my own internal estimate of what I can get done, and that estimate hasn’t quite caught up to reality yet.

A few more personal notes that have *specifically* affected preorders over the past few months:

• We moved in February—our family and the business—from Tennessee to Florida to be closer to my husband’s family. Moving our full house and mini warehouse to a new state was an absolute beast.

• I really wanted to offer more customization options for customers, because I genuinely believe more personalized clothing can play a huge role in reducing overconsumption and increasing how long we keep things in our closets. I knew this would take more time in production, but I didn’t account for the time needed to communicate with each customer to get it right.

• I got sick out of the blue in April, and didn't know what was wrong for several weeks. I kept trying to wait it out hoping it would pass, but finally ended up having emergency gallbladder surgery in early May. I am feeling much better, but I was in the hospital for a few days for surgery and couldn't jump right back into working like I had been before. 

• The Montessori school we planned to enroll our toddler in closed two weeks after we moved, so we've been interviewing for at-home childcare and trying to juggle keeping the kids safe and entertained until we find someone.

• The tariff nightmare has made every component we use harder to find, more expensive, and slower to get to us. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to put out financial fires from increased material costs and slower-than-usual sales.

• I’ve been the sole garment-cutter since our move, so every personal delay above directly impacted the flow of production. 

Just for context, here’s what our current team looks like:

• I handle all business ops and production aside from sewing

• My husband helps with the website and tech when he can—he’s on full-time kid duty right now.

• Carissa is on part-time customer support, taking care of customer emails

• Several remote sewists (all ES alumni) do the actual sewing from their homes.

• My mother-in-law helps with shipping when she’s available.

So, with me as a bottleneck in production at both the front and back end (as the one doing the cutting, washing, and packing of each garment), the flow has been susceptible to breakdown.

WHEW! Ok, I think the gist is clear. I’m certain many of you can relate. Life is hard. 

BUT, that’s not why you’re here (or maybe it is? If you’re in the same boat in some capacity, I see you and I believe in us). You’re here to understand what’s been going on and what we’re doing about it, and the good news is we’ve been doing a lot.

Some highlights that I think will make the biggest difference:

• I hired local cutting help! We’ve got working AC in the garage so it’s comfortable, converted our patterns to projector files, established a process for prewashing our fabric, and set up a system that someone else can follow for individual garment cutting. Rosalie officially starts this week--and fun fact: we went to college together here in St Augustine fifteen years ago (!) and met at a vintage shop where we both sold upcycled clothes! Reconnecting with a friend has been awesome, she picked up projector cutting like a pro, and is ready to whip things into shape.

• We’re cutting from pre-washed fabric. After many years of struggling with shrinkage issues (we would test for and calculate shrinkage for each roll of fabric, and add in that shrinkage to each pattern prior to cutting), we are returning to our original method: pre-washing and drying the fabric, and then laying it out to cut each garment. This takes longer on the front end, but prevents errors that used to show up at the very end (like garments that shrink too much or too little, or dye issues that only show up in the wash). This saves a ton of time and resources in re-makes at the very end of production.

• I added some automations into our workflow. I learned my way around Zapier and Google scripts to streamline several repetitive tasks. Now we can confirm customizations and organize garments for sewists schedules without me doing everything manually. It’s not glamorous, but it’s the difference between being buried in emails and actually getting things made. Setting these up took some time, but as of this month they’re both up and running smoothly.

• Projector files > paper markers. With customized garments and prewashed fabric, cutting multiple layers of fabric at a time isn’t ideal. The paper templates (called markers) that we used to use to lay over the fabric and cut out our garments before are inefficient when cutting one piece at a time, so I finally figured out the logistics of converting our pattern files into PDFs that work with a projector. We finished setting this up last month, and now we’re up and running with it smoothly. Now cutting one offs and making adjustments as we go is way simpler and faster. 

• Placing early fabric orders with our suppliers…but asking them to hold the material at their factory until we are ready to pay for it to ship. This has been a bit of a tossup with the tariff changes, but it’s still an improvement. Rather than waiting until a preorder closes to place an exact fabric order based on customer selections and having it milled and shipped ASAP, I talked with our suppliers to see if we could go ahead and have them make our fabrics but hold the goods until we’re ready to pay the invoice. It takes anywhere from 4-10 weeks for our fabrics to be made, and most of the time the colors and quantities we need aren’t in stock, so getting that process started cuts a fair amount of time out of the preorder.

• Childcare: still in progress. We’ve had a few false starts, but I’m meeting more folks this week. I’m optimistic we’ll find someone soon that can give us reliable daytime work hours. Daytime parenting and fitting all work into the evenings after bedtime just doesn’t cut it—especially when our toddler has a sleep regression and is awake til midnight. Side note…this is not a unique experience. I honestly don’t know how everyone is surviving the challenge of working from home with young kids and astronomically expensive childcare. I am extremely lucky with help from a partner and family and I’m struggling, so I can’t even imagine doing it with less support.

• Finally, I’m continuing to adjust my planning lens. Hoping for an ideal week where things go smoothly, no new problems surface, and our kids sleep normally isn’t a reliable way to plan, so I’m trying to over-adjust in order to recalibrate. I’m also training a few other folks in my systems, so that I am more likely to actually ask for help when I need it instead of putting it off.

So, now you know what’s going on here in our little world. This may be way more information than you bargained for, but I am just learning out loud like I have been with y’all for the past decade. When I do share like this, it always seems to resonate with those that truly align with our purpose and vision. 

And—if you’ve also been juggling too much, feeling disappointed by your own un-kept promises, and struggling to keep yourself and family healthy, I see you! You’re not alone, and I believe in us.

If you placed an order this year, THANK YOU. I know it’s been a long wait. I know we’ve always been slow.

But I also know that our garments are meant to last. And they are really meant for the considered, intentional, and compassionate consumer—and they understand the wait is a part of the process. And I know we do our absolute best to make sure the wait is worth it.

If you’re looking for specific information on where a current order is in the process, you can find that on our updated Production Status Page.

With gratitude and so much love,

Liz