Fondu Update. Note to Self

I'm really quite taken by small clothing companies that have taken their brands to that critical next level, the "it's now my job" level. I think most of all I'm really attracted to the branding aspect, because in my head it's everything. From the clothes themselves to the look and feel of the site etc. It's all about cleverly branding everything so as to attain a cohesion between all aspects of the business.

To me anybody can design and sell a Tshirt. If you look at all of the "Busted T" styled sites, that's often the case. It just kills me when I see a T Shirt for sale and whoever is selling it hasn't even bothered to remove the tag from the manufacturer (Hanes Beefy T). UGH! It's all in the details and if you don't care about them then I just don't understand.

AS for the Fondu, it's been going well lately I think. We've finally started some test prints and it looks like our set up will be more than adequate for our needs. The prints are turning out well and just need some fine tuning. I don't mind taking it slow either because I want to get this all done the right way. Plus when you're bootstrapping it, you have to take things as they come. If we had limitless resources that would be different. So we muddle through. We're on to something good here.

As far as some fine examples of good branding and just how cleanly everything flows together to make the whole image of the company, slick here are some examples:

Loyal Army Clothing These guys are great. Steph loves these guys. True the whole brand is marketed towards the teenage "cute" girl crowd and not so much for boys, especially ones my age. Then again, Steph rocks clothes made for bubbly 15 year old girls like nobodys business. Loyal Army is located here in S.F. and they manufacture locally which is awesome and something I strive to do. They recently opened a brick n' mortar in the Haight. As an aside, long ago when my buddy and I were dabbling in clothing lines, we were discussing using the name "Royal Army."

Babycakes Clothing comes to us from far, far away in a land of Druids. The U.K. Babycakes, is another example of starting small and building the brand until you get big. Their designs are uber flashy. I think they like going to electroclash parties. Anyway, I their stuff looks very clean, it's just uber loud but that's the brand they've built up. They've also heard that having peeps with good style and nice hair model your clothes is a good idea. I totally subscribe to that theory.

Lastly, we come to my favorite current brand I am Colin This guy just has it down. He's also from the U.K. and he makes clothes for super electro-nerds, basically clothes for me. I think dude is in the AD game for his day job so it doesn't surprise me he'd have a firm grasp on how to brand things properly. As for his lgo, meh, I'm really not into the whole skull n crossbones thing. I've thought it was played out since it started to become popular. His logo is a pretty clever play on it though.

So yeah, it's nice to have some successful models to kind of gauge things by. No biting, just a litmus test to hold up against our own stuff.