I wanted to create what people wanted, and I didn’t want to put that in a box. I have a very specific passion for bedding, because I think that sleep and mental health are so closely linked, and waking up in a space that you really love can have such a meaningful effect on your psyche. And I feel the same way about clothing. Feeling like you look great—whatever that means to you—can have such a profound effect on how you go about your day. I straight up loved those old-school monograms on vintage printed linens and wanted to make them at a more accessible price in some really cool colors, so we started there. But I think from the very beginning, I wanted to figure out what products are going to make people feel happy and joyful and make their lives easier and make them feel great about themselves. With fashion, at first I thought I didn’t know enough—I never studied it, or I don’t have good enough taste, all those insecurities—but in the end, I’m so happy where we are, and I wouldn’t change a thing.
If I had gone into it thinking, this is going to be the hero product that’s going to change our brand, then I probably wouldn’t have named it The Nap Dress, because people might think it’s a nightgown. But in the moment, it was a name that was so personal to me and really made me giggle. It was aligned with my whole idea that I’m like a Victorian ghost who can nap anywhere—like, I need a fainting couch. I wanted a dress that, at any moment, I could take just lay down and take a nap in, because I’m that comfortable. I never thought the name would catch on like it did, but one thing that business school taught me is that regardless of whether you think something is going to resonate or not, if you come up with something, you trademark it. There’s this blind confidence that you have to have with everything you do as an entrepreneur that almost makes the hits indistinguishable from the misses. Every time we launch something, I’m proud to introduce it to the world, because it feels really special and has the opportunity to become something entirely different once people actually live in it. For example, the first round of Nap Dresses didn’t have pockets, and pockets very quickly became essential to the product and something people can’t live without.
Commenti