Creating our First Collection: Prima Tetra, Fall '21
Designing and dropping our first collection was something that Gio has wanted to do since we became business partners back in 2019. When I started Sacred Geometrix I was mostly just doing screen prints, and I always looked at my designs as being completely unique and not ever part of a "collection." But since we had begun moving heavily into making our own garments a few years back, I obliged. "Alright let's do this." How hard could it be?
Probably the best things that happen to us as individuals are the things in life that feel like they transpire naturally. In the process of beginning this collection, the color pallet happened after I was just doing what I normally do, playing with the different colored fabrics we have in stock and getting fabric swatches together and saying, "Does this look good? What about this?"
A color scheme we all particularly liked had one of our newest fabric colors we had custom dyed for us, titled 'Redwood.' The Prima Tetra Color Scheme was a combination of purple ribbing, redwood and solid black with antique brass finishings.
The colors had a rich Fall feeling to them, and as the Fall was coming up we knew it would be a perfect time to use these colors.
Our first deadline was came up way too fast, and we decided to push it back. The next major date coming up the next week was Black Friday. Since we pushed the dead line back, we decided this would be the official launch date.
Turns out we were a lot further behind schedule than we thought. But we had big goals, and had multiple new designs in the works that would be released as our first ever collection. We were excited, but also realized quickly we were falling behind schedule again.
One of our newest designs was called the 'Phi Crop'.
We had completed a few Photoshoots, but the last designs we wanted to shoot still hadn't been perfected yet. But as the release date got closer and closer, we were realizing something both good and bad.
We could create prototypes fast, but having them perfect enough to begin size grading them was another matter. We had four brand new products we were going to drop, and although in a picture they looked ready, the fine tuning of these garments were not. Our first Portal Zip Up Hoodie, the Side Panel Portal Dresses, and the Phi crop all needed to be size graded.
The Portal Zip Hoodie (Still Unreleased):
3 days before launch
It was 10 pm and Gio and I couldn't be stopped. Sure the caffeine helped, but we were jiving! Good Music and good vibes makes light of any heavy work load. We kept pushing late into the night. I realized I had wanted to custom make a gold screen print design for a garment me and Gio designed together for a something totally new and awesome. I set out to have the design made and ready to print before the night was over. 4 Hours later the 'Aura' design was born. It was the fastest design I had ever made, and was very happy with the result. Using the principles of the golden ratio I designed something that had a lasting impression.
Simultaneously Gio had been hammering out the last kinks in the Phi Crop pattern and we were amazed at how fast we could get things done. Gio is a master pattern maker, and he was cruising through his to do list too. Maybe we were going to get it all done?
But at every victory it seems like we had overlooked something else, and no matter how hard we worked, there was still more to do. We were beginning to see we didn't have enough time in the day (or night) to do it all.
2 days before Launch (night before last photoshoot)
It all came to head on Wednesday night, when Gina had stayed past her normal shift that ends at 6 pm. It was closer to 11 pm.
I had just cooked dinner for us and finished cleaning the dishes to come back in the sew room and I could tell something had shifted. "Whats up Gio?". He was sitting down at the currently malfunctioning coverstitch, with a defeated expression looking inside the machine. I asked again, "How it going guys? Lets do this! - Gina, you all good?" Before she answered I already knew. We had pushed too hard, and too long, and put too much on our plates. And hers.
Gina looked up with tears in her eyes and said "I think im burnt out!" I came over and said, "Okay I hear you, lets stop guys. Lets be done. We cant do everything we thought we could. Its okay! We did our best. Lets celebrate what we've got right here, and not worry about whats not ready." We all agreed we couldn't get it done. It was a moment of acceptance, and a giant moment for Gio and I as leaders. We can push ourselves deep into the night and deep into the Madness of trying to get it all done, but its a different thing to expect that from our other teammates.
Card stock from pattern making littered the floor. Half finished prototypes and seam ripped garments were strewn across the cutting table. Machines were malfunctioning. And the Photoshoot was tomorrow morning. Which was also Thanksgiving. Then we had to edit the photos and upload the listing to our Etsy page to be ready for the Collection to drop the next day.
Even stopping right then and there, and there was still so much to do.
Theres a song by Chance the Rapper and Cardi B and the Chorus has a line in it that says "Made a couple ends with my Best friends / Turned all my L's into Lessons"
It was hard to admit defeat, or rather accept we were too ambitious for what we had time to accomplish. But it wasn't an L (a loss), it was a lesson!
So what did we learn?
- Don't release your collection on Black Friday. Especially when you're not fully ready for the release. Trying to relax at Thanksgiving and also work your ass off doesn't allow one to work well, at all.
- The difference between being able to create a prototype and being ready for orders and production are two incredibly different things.
- Pushing yourself to loose sleep and pushing other to do the same doesn't honor the fact that different people have different burn out thresholds. When Gina was in tears and exhausted, I didn't have to ask myself if I was making the right decision. I knew I wasn't.
- It's better to have less garments that are finished, than any multiple of that number that are still in the prototype phase.
Launch Day: So what happened to Collection drop?
It dropped on schedule! *Phew*
.....but we had had to subsequently remove multiple listings from our shop - after we realized we weren't actually ready to fulfill our unique garments we made specifically for Prima Tetra. So it was a flop :-( And sadly a few of those garments are still not done today, but we will be releasing those garments soon!
The Good News:
The collection is very healthy now and we are very proud of all the lessons we've learned. Check out The First Ever Official Sacred Geometrix Collection:
All in all I can humbly say that creating our first collection was a massive undertaking and it was a huge learning process, more than it was a straight up "success." But, since we manufacture all of the clothing ourselves, the lessons we learned have only improved our strategy and momentum into our next projects. If your curious about how we design our garments or want to know more about our process, check out
"How Its Made - The Incredible True Story of How We Produce Our Clothing"