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I am so excited to announce that our wear test samples have been received, and they are all packaged up for our testers! We have 14 amazing women who have signed up as volunteers to help me test the first production run of RTQ Apparel’s baselayer kits. During the sampling process, as many of you may remember, we had a few issues with thread tension, fit and construction. In reviewing the samples I received, it looks like all of these issues have been fixed and the production units are of the highest quality I could have hoped for! This wear test is going to be a 4-week minimum test, where I have asked each volunteer to wear their garments twice a week and wash their garments once a week. Coming out of the full review, each tester will have multiple unique wear reports and I am most interested in understanding how the garments fair through home washing techniques. Our care instructions request that our customers hang the garments to dry, but we are testing all different scenarios to ensure any situation will keep the integrity of our garments intact. We also have two testers who will be monitoring their heart rate information while wearing the WATT baselayer kits, to see how it helps with their health statistics. The silver yarns in our fabric have been tested in Italy, and are proven to lower heart rate while protecting the body from EMF radiation. This protective fabric ultimately results in reduced anxiety, improved sleep patterns and reduction in jet lag. Now, we’re going to see what that looks like in our testers’ tracking apps. Last but not least, our garments will be traveling to different countries throughout the month of wear testing, and our amazing team will be making sure they function properly through airport security. When evaluating our competitors who offer similar options, we've heard that their garments cannot be worn through the body scanners at airports. We tested our fabrics throughout the development process to ensure that wouldn't be the case for RTQ Apparel, but we are validating that information now, and cannot wait to bring you all the results. While our wear test is happening, our website is open and ready to take pre-orders. If you'd like to get 15% off the retail price of these high-end, quality, health improving garments, head over to the website today! Not only will you get a discount, but it will also guarantee delivery to you no later than April 2023. If we sell through garments during pre-sale, it will take us some time to refill inventory. so make sure you grab yours now!

Today’s blog post is short and sweet. It is a day for celebrating, so I am off to do that immediately! At noon today, the RTQ Apparel website went live to the public. Pre-sale is now officially open for our first two apparel garments, and I could not be more proud of this accomplishment. Starting an apparel line of my own has been a dream of mine since I was a little girl, and today is the first day of it being a reality. As an avid traveler for my career over the last twenty years, I’ve figured out my go-to travel uniform for every single time that I fly. And now, I’m bringing my knowledge and experience to you with the garments I’ve developed. Not only are the WATT Baselayers like a second skin that you can wear under any outfit, the silver yarn technology will help to protect you from EMF radiation, ultimately reducing jet lag. There are several other health benefits and advantages to this fabric and these garments, but I’m going to let you read it straight from the source! Head over to the brand new RTQ Apparel website now to read all about our process, our why, the products themselves and about me. And THANK YOU for being a part of this amazing journey. We’re just getting started!

The biggest and most successful brands in the apparel industry right now are figuring out how to do things a little bit differently. For example, they are somehow finding the courage and the means to cross money off of the top of their priority list. They’re taking that leap of faith that their monetary goals will be realized if they focus on something more important: their customer. Placing their customer service first in their businesses, these companies are connecting so quickly with their target market. They are creating brand loyalty through repeat sales and positive interactions at every touch point. And from there, the word is getting out… These customers are telling everyone they know about the brand, and we’re watching them grow now exponentially! As a student of apparel business practices, I keep my eye on these brands constantly. I read every article I can find, listen to the interviews with founders and check out their products for quality and fit. Doing this for many years now, I wanted to share a few thoughts on what I’ve learned. These brands are typically run by marketing professionals. A marketing executive or director from somewhere decided one day to go out on their own or with some friends and build an apparel brand, or a brand decided to hire top talent marketing directors to lead their company to success. Their expertise in marketing and advertising helped them to build positive momentum around the products in all the right ways. They have strong testimonials from celebrities or athletes. They know all the right verbiage to use to tout their garments as the best in the world. They are brilliant at bringing people into the experience of their brand, creating huge interest and massive success. As a product developer for the last twenty years of my career, my next observation is about the quality of their goods. And unfortunately, there tends to be a lot to be desired in this area. You’ll notice I’m not naming specific brands in this post because I’m not here to bad-mouth anybody’s work. But there are two massive brands in particular who are crushing it with their customers and with their bottom-line revenue, but make really sub-par products. The fit is uncomfortable, the fabrics are not special and the quality of their sewing is poor. I’ve had several of the products from these brands fall apart after just a few wears and washes, and I’m not super impressed. This combination is basically causing a false sense of customer care. And where I believe brands can really thrive is to find a way to bridge this gap. Focus on your product first. If your brand makes high quality, durable, long-lasting garments that will serve your customers' needs for years to come, then you're already a step above most others out there! Spend your time making one or two key pieces at a time instead of trying to make a full product assortment all at once. Slow, steady, purposeful and thoughtful fashion design is the path to success if you can have the patience for it. If you can start there, that is when you should start leaning into the examples of effective marketing that these brands are using. One of my favorite examples of this is: "America's Best Tires brand wasn't given that name by someone else. They didn't win an award naming them America's Best. The brand named themselves America's Best and leaned into their confidence in their brand of tires right off the bat!" Don't be afraid to tell the world what is the most amazing, best, first or newest detail about your product to help them see how fantastic it is. Bring your confidence and knowledge about quality to your customers. Over time, they'll not only hear about your amazing brand, they'll truly see, feel and wear your product for years and become loyal customers.

In June of 2022, I branched off within my coaching company to do an intensive focus group on becoming confident on camera. Before this point, every time I’d think about turning on the video setting of my phone, I’d get into my head about everything that could possibly go wrong, and I’d tell myself I’d do it next week. When I forced myself to be held accountable and stopped procrastinating, I found that what everyone tells you about video is absolutely true: You are going to be awkward at first. The first videos will be bad. You will someday look back on your first videos and laugh at yourself. But most importantly, you have to start doing the dang videos to get this part out of the way. Being awkward and nervous in your first few months of videos is kind of normal. I’ve met a few people who chose to keep these videos private and didn’t start their YouTube channel or their Live video schedule until they were feeling better about the content. I chose the opposite option: Just start getting content out there! Start the weekly posts to get into a groove. Make that weekly consistency part of your new expectations so your channel starts to gain a little traction. Without any followers (or very few at first), the awkward content isn’t exactly reaching too many people, but maybe by the time you DO gain a following, your videos will be much more polished and professional. I’ve been publishing at least one video to my YouTube Channel now every week since June. They’re not all winners. I’m still working on my presence, my messaging and figuring out proper camera settings and placement. It’s a work in progress, but I’m also now looking for some better ways to get my personality across to my community. Believe it or not, I have the ability to be kind of funny. I have a dry sense of humor that is speckled with sarcasm, movie quotes and a decent dose of swearing. I also have the tendency to get extremely enthusiastic about a hot topic of discussion, waving my hands all over the place and making stupid faces that give away every emotion I’m genuinely feeling. My personality can be big with the people I know best, but my shy self is showing up on video. Someday that will change and my personality will come through in a variety of ways. But for now, I’m looking toward a new format that will allow me to bridge the gap. By the end of Q1 2023, I have plans to launch “The Business of Apparel Podcast.” I’ll be recording the very first interview episode this Thursday, and it is with a very good friend of mine. Where I’ve struggled to bring out my personality as a solo video subject, I am hoping that this new format will allow me to come out of my shell a little bit more. Going back and forth with a friend, talking through current industry topics and issues should not only bring relevance and interesting opinions to the audience, but I hope you all get a chance to know me a little bit more, too! Keep an eye out for the launch announcements this year. I hope you’ll tune in and join us through comments and suggestions as it progresses.

The first week of December, 2022, my husband and I hopped on a flight to Maui for a week of rest and relaxation. It had been a few years since we took a proper vacation, and it was extremely nice to focus on “doing nothing” as our goal for the week. When we travel like this, we seek out boredom. Laying on comfortable lounge chairs, chatting about our lives or about nothing in particular while we occasionally read a chapter or two of a juicy fiction novel is the plan. It’s weeks like these that help us reset our priorities and remember when we come home that work isn’t the only important thing in life. There are two key features for a trip like this that we look for when we’re researching a place to stay. Hawaii made these standards a bit challenging in a couple of areas, but in the end, we figured it out. Here are my top two priorities when searching for a beach vacation resort: Sandy Beaches My husband and I are beach-goers. The pool-side vibe is not usually our preferred option when we’re in a tropical destination. So it is always important to us to research the kinds of beaches we’ll get to encounter on our trip. Hawaii has a lot of rocky beaches, so we did a ton of research to figure out which ones had gorgeous soft sand. Waikiki and Wailea Beaches came up through our searching as some of the best sandy beaches, and we ultimately decided to head to Wailea Beach in Maui. Food Options We are used to spoiling ourselves, heading to all-inclusive resorts where the food and drinks are easily accessible, never-ending and already paid for. Heading to Hawaii, we knew that wouldn’t necessarily be the case. The restaurants at the resorts tend to be owned and staffed by some of the best chefs in the world. A meal or two there is definitely worth it, but if you’re not looking to take out a loan to afford Michelin-level meals three times a day, then you’ll want to check out what else is available. Lucky for us, the resort we chose was a five minute walk from a grocery store and shopping area with several restaurants. We were able to grab coffee and breakfast for a very reasonable price at the grocery store every morning, which not only saved us quite a few dollars, but also kept us from over-eating all week. Something new that I learned on this trip was to make sure and research one more crucial element before heading to your destination: Look into any local laws that might affect your stay. Hawaii has recently passed a law that requires all tourists to use Reef-Safe Sunscreen to prevent any unwanted chemicals from getting into their oceans. We had brought our own sunscreen in our luggage, and ended up carrying it all back with us because we couldn’t use it. I also think it would have saved us a little money if we’d brought our own reef-safe sunscreen instead of having to buy it locally. In the future, I will be adding this element to my research list to make sure we’re keeping with the local community’s requests and doing our part to abide by their rules. If you want to see more about the location we chose and the beach we found, be sure to check out my YouTube video being released this week: https://youtu.be/DmF6JaXL9CU .

Throughout 2022 I learned all about the levels of ambition and tenacity that I’m willing to put into my work. The dreams and goals that I set tend to be gigantic, and I get really excited to start on small parts of every future project on my list. My business consulting company, Unmarked Street, met and exceeded its annual revenue goal in the third quarter of the year. We are now picking apart the financial details of our first full year to figure out how to improve and continue growing in 2023. The success that we saw by working directly with our amazing clients allowed us to start planting the seeds of two additional business dreams of mine. RTQ Apparel is a Travel Apparel line that is built from the travel “uniform” that I wear whenever I fly. Development of the first two pieces from concept design to full approval was funded by Unmarked Street in 2022 and we’ll be opening up a new, separate business entity in early 2023 to launch our website and start selling. On top of that, Unmarked Street funded my quest to acquire my California real estate license. It took me 6 months to do my classes and another 2 months to study for the exam, but I did pass and receive my license in October. As I move forward into 2023, my New Year’s Resolution is going to learn how to slow down. For the first time in my life and in my career, it is very clear to me why it’s important to take on less to focus more. Launching a new apparel brand is a huge endeavor, and I need to be concentrated on it just as much as I am on delivering above and beyond for my clients. My real estate license is going to be put to good use to help us move in 2023 as well, but I need to practice patience on fully diving into that world. I’ve learned that I have a truly entrepreneurial spirit. I have dreams to write a book, start a podcast, expand the apparel line, open an apparel fit studio, help my husband start a photography business and open a bakery / brewpub that sells our very own beers and recipes in our city. Plans are on paper for all of it, but I can’t keep trying to take on little parts of all these varying dreams at one time. Looking for long term success is the right way to move forward. I had a mentor of mine tell me recently that all big businesses take 10 years to become an overnight success, and that I just have 9 years to go! It’s time to lean into that thought, practice slowing down, enjoying life, success and focus properly on what’s happening now. So if you see me going off the rails this year, feel free to remind me that slow and steady is the plan. Happy New Year to all of you who are reading this blog. I am eternally grateful for the community we are building together, and I cannot wait to see where we end up this time next year!

Throughout 2022 I learned all about the levels of ambition and tenacity that I’m willing to put into my work. The dreams and goals that I set tend to be gigantic, and I get really excited to start on small parts of every future project on my list. My business consulting company, Unmarked Street, met and exceeded its annual revenue goal in the third quarter of the year. We are now picking apart the financial details of our first full year to figure out how to improve and continue growing in 2023.  The success that we saw by working directly with our amazing clients allowed us to start planting the seeds of two additional business dreams of mine. RTQ Apparel is a Travel Apparel line that is built from the travel “uniform” that I wear whenever I fly. Development of the first two pieces from concept design to full approval was funded by Unmarked Street in 2022 and we’ll be opening up a new, separate business entity in early 2023 to launch our website and start selling. On top of that, Unmarked Street funded my quest to acquire my California real estate license. It took me 6 months to do my classes and another 2 months to study for the exam, but I did pass and receive my license in October. As I move forward into 2023, my New Year’s Resolution is going to learn how to slow down. For the first time in my life and in my career, it is very clear to me why it’s important to take on less to focus more. Launching a new apparel brand is a huge endeavor, and I need to be concentrated on it just as much as I am on delivering above and beyond for my clients. My real estate license is going to be put to good use to help us move in 2023 as well, but I need to practice patience on fully diving into that world. I’ve learned that I have a truly entrepreneurial spirit. I have dreams to write a book, start a podcast, expand the apparel line, open an apparel fit studio, help my husband start a photography business and open a bakery / brewpub that sells our very own beers and recipes in our city. Plans are on paper for all of it, but I can’t keep trying to take on little parts of all these varying dreams at one time. Looking for long term success is the right way to move forward. I had a mentor of mine tell me recently that all big businesses take 10 years to become an overnight success, and that I just have 9 years to go! It’s time to lean into that thought, practice slowing down, enjoying life, success and focus properly on what’s happening now. So if you see me going off the rails this year, feel free to remind me that slow and steady is the plan. Happy New Year to all of you who are reading this blog. I am eternally grateful for the community we are building together, and I cannot wait to see where we end up this time next year!

I love the holiday season. Every year, the twinkling lights on neighbors' homes and inside on our tree just make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. The smell of cinnamon and nutmeg mix with peppermint and pine. I feel my mind and my body find a sense of calm and joy that just can’t be compared to any other time of the year. After a roaring 2022, the holidays this year are a time for quiet focus for me. Wrapping myself up in a blanket to read books and magazines is high on my to-do list. Jigsaw puzzles are finding their way onto countertops and I feel more compelled than ever to spend time in mindful meditation. I need a reset before diving into 2023, and I’m beginning to wonder if this is my new normal? Last year, after I left my 20-year corporate career to start my own business and become an entrepreneur, I spent the entire month of November “doing nothing.” It was purposeful. I wandered. I took aimless walks that found me standing at the edge of the ocean or exploring bridges and trees near our home. I put together puzzles during the afternoons and cooked extravagant dinners for my husband and me in the evenings. I came to call this “float time,” and I did genuinely feel like I was floating through life. My days were airy, light and carefree. I had nothing to do, so I did whatever my body or my heart wanted to do. Float time eventually disappeared from my calendar throughout this past year, and I find myself craving it more and more this December. It feels like a perfect way to spend these chilly months while clients and companies are closed or slowing down. But this year, it feels more like a priority to figure out how to maintain the practice of “float time” every week, not just every December. Is it possible to maintain this feeling throughout the entire year? Can I make stress melt away by honoring this slowness in my life more often? I think it might be my holiday gift to myself to figure this out and make it a priority for 2023. What is your holiday gift to yourself this year? I would love to hear all about it!

This time of year is a wonderful time for a little rest, relaxation and a reset before the new year begins. No matter what holiday you celebrate, the colder weather, shorter days and general surrounding festivities often offer days off from work and a bit of a break from traditional long weeks. In the apparel industry, we tend to see a big slow-down of work in December as we see coworkers and teammates take weeks off at a time throughout the month. One key item to remember at this time of year is that our manufacturing partners around the globe also take time off from work for many different holidays this time of the year. Even into the early months of the upcoming new year, this is a key calendar component that all brands should be considering if working with overseas partners. From December through February, holidays like Chinese New Year, Christmas and Hanukkah will affect development and production timing for your businesses. What I like to do in early October of each year is to reach out to all of my suppliers, factories and any other manufacturing partners I am working with and ask them what their holiday schedule will be for the next six months. Not only will this allow you to understand what days they will be offline or unable to work, but these are key dates to work into your annual calendar. For example, at my last corporate job, I was tracking two different factories’ time off dates for Chinese New Year, all major holidays in India and the extended Christmas holiday weeks that are typically taken in Central America and Mexico. If we were expecting to receive any samples or production orders during these times, it became crucial for us to understand that there would be delays. Working in such an international industry is an amazing experience, but all of the important cultural differences need to be respected and taken into consideration at your company. I hope that you and your teams are taking some time to unwind this December. 2022 has been a difficult year for so many brands and businesses. I wish all of you the happiest of Holidays, no matter which ones you observe. May the remainder of this year be full of warmth and love for you and all of yours.

RTQ Apparel is setting aside a full month for wear testing our first two garments before we launch to the public. We are looking for honest and open feedback from a key group of women to ensure the product we plan to sell is meeting all of the standards we’ve put in place, and nobody is having major issues with fit or functionality. As we plan to receive our wear test garments in January of 2023, we’ll package and ship all of the testers their kits before February 1, 2023. A small, virtual launch party will be held the first weekend in February to celebrate the kick-off of this important stage of our process, and then testing will be under way! So what the heck is a wear test and what does it entail? Many of the best apparel brands throughout the world will incorporate this process into their calendar, and it’s a set amount of time for them to work with a chosen group of ideal customers to receive their feedback and thoughts on the pieces. Some brands employ full-time teams just for organizing and implementing wear tests, and the feedback they receive can be the most important part of their development timeline. Other brands figure out how to incorporate the tasks into existing teams’ workload while others choose to hire contractors to take on the additional work. As apparel developers and designers, we tend to get tunnel vision when working on new products. We’re so intimately familiar with the products in design reviews, fittings and presentations that we have a hard time seeing the details objectively. We can forget how the garments will feel or look to our target audience, and we only see the issues the garment once had and the improvements that have been made. Wear tests can take anywhere from a week to a year. All of this will depend on the size of the brand and the timeline that they’ve put in place. Larger companies can build in so much more time and process into wear testing than smaller brands because they can develop early, hire more people to take on these extra tasks and some even pay their wear testers as brand experts or ambassadors. RTQ Apparel will be holding this initial wear test in just a month. We’re really pleased to be able to offer the test kit for free to our testers as payment, which is not always possible for small start-up brands. We will be asking 20 women of all different shapes and sizes to wear and wash their test garments at least 4 times in a month. Ideally, that would be once a week but we’ll be super happy if the team can wear them even more. In just a month, it is difficult to insist that everyone travel at least once in the garments, but we are trying to choose testers who travel often to fit in some airport security testing and in-flight testing as well. In regular surveys, the testers will be asked to rate and give feedback on fit, functionality, construction and advise on any issues they’ve seen with the garments. Did any of the stitching break or pop? How is the heat transfer label holding up to washing? Are the garments too tight or too loose anywhere? Do any of the seams feel scratchy or irritating? What are they using their pockets to store? At the end of the month’s testing, the RTQ Apparel team will compile all of the feedback and apply any necessary updates to future production runs. We can make improvements and changes to ensure that the items going out to the world after we fully launch the brand are the best they can be!

A Top of Production (TOP) Sample is typically the very first garment that comes off of the Production Line at your factory. Oftentimes, this is the first time your piece has been made outside of the factory’s sample room, and everyone needs to make sure that the quality of production is matching what you approved through your development processes. Most major apparel brands work with a TOP process. It is a very standard practice that is worked into each season’s timeline and it is a necessary approval step before the factory is given the green light to move forward on any more bulk units. The one issue I tend to see with smaller businesses using TOPs though is that it can really make your calendar tricky. At larger companies, when a TOP arrives for review, it is standard to turn comments around in 24 hours. Same-day review and approval is needed, so that the factory’s production line isn’t held up any longer than necessary. Smaller brands don’t always have the luxury of being able to turn comments around that quickly though. What I recommend to my clients who need a little more time is to shift their TOP Process to a Golden Sample Process. Similar to a TOP, a Golden Sample still needs to be made with all of the production approved goods: fabrics, trims and packaging components are all required to be from bulk lots and shipments. However, instead of waiting for the factory to set up their full production line, sew a garment and then send it out for approval, we allow the factory to use the production goods on two samples in the sample room. These two samples are then inspected at the factory for any issues and shipped to the customer for their signature on the (usually yellow) Golden Sample Hang Tag. That signature on the piece is a key component to this alternative process because it gives the factory permission to proceed to bulk production immediately, as long as all quality of sewing and construction match what has been signed. This can gain your brand a couple of key weeks in the crucial production timeline. So if you’re cutting it close to the timeline in this area, those two weeks could make or break your launch plans. I am a full advocate for both processes. If your team is dialed enough to implement a proper TOP process at your company, then it truly is the approval that gives you the clearest picture of how production will turn out. However, if you are rushing and could use a little more time in your plan, you might want to consider this alternate option and see if it works for you!

Right and Three-Quarters is now officially: RTQ Apparel. Back at the beginning of October, I started working with Baylee Buchanan at Buchanan Design to redevelop and redesign my Shopify website for the initial apparel launch in 2023. Fonts, colors, logos and naming were all huge topics we discussed throughout our time working together on this project, and I could not be happier with the results! One of the first issues we noticed with the current website was the whimsical and almost child-like feeling of the colors and fonts. And while those feelings aren’t bad in any way, it was not really matching up to the kind of apparel I was planning to sell. The garments are very technical and sophisticated. They are designed for professional women who travel for business, and “child-like” was not even close to a good way to describe them. So we made changes. The new slender type-face and soft but warm colors on the website evoke a much more appropriate feeling about the products it will feature. We also spent a lot of time working to simplify a very complex set of benefits these garments will offer to the traveler. Instead of writing a ton about it though, I encourage you to go check it out!! https://www.rtqapparel.com