The November Breakdown

Dear Blogspot,
It's been one month since our last entry. Here's what's new:

>>COMPLETE INVENTORY...you name it, we've got it in stock. Currently we're sitting on well over 1000 shirts & onesies from our fall collection.

>>NEW SALES!! Including some great guys from a Boston-based street wear shop www.borntopurple.com. We also drove down to NYC two weeks ago, and met Tyi, one of the buyers for Yellow Rat Bastard (we're up on their sales floor). She was awesome! Thanks for hooking us up, Tyi (pronounced Tie-EE, just in case you're on Broadway in Soho, drop by and tell her we sent ya ;).

>>Beginning talks with E-COMMERCE SOLUTIONS professionals. We've given in to everyone who asks why we don't sell directly on our site, and with any luck we'll have our own store up and running by the new year.

>>NEW PRODUCT SHOTS up online. While the drawings of our clothing were fun, we want people to see the goods, ya know? We shot the real McCoys with some help from our splendid photographer Nick Ryan. Good lookin out, Nick!!

>>On the flip-side, we're also beginning to see some of the nastier side of this industry — already we've got a store that seems to be ducking us for payment. Not naming names (yet), but it seems clear they don't realize we're deeply affiliated with tons of the brands they carry! R may have to call in some favors, embargo their asses and TEACH THESE MOTHERFUCKERS WHO THEY DEALING WITH. And I hope they're reading this, too.

No sweat, tho, we're doing great! Still getting great press, still getting calls for orders and we haven't even started making sales calls yet! More news as it happens, kids!!!

B

Big Poppers

Big Poppers

Hello Friends!!

I am pleased to say that I am writing to you from the Boldfacers Magazine Street Noir Pop Up Shops in Channel Street Center in Boston!! We have just set up our booth for the first time and we are so proud!! We will post pics very soon! Brian in his infinite madn…I mean wisdom hauled a chain-link fence to the venue for this and we were up until 2am creating our backdrop out of teeny-tiny iridescent smiley face stickers…sounds like an aneurism waiting to happen I know…you can’t imagine the dreams that I has last night!!!

It’s been a while since we last shared our happenings with you and BOY is there a LOT to tell!! We have landed 2 more large accounts that have placed orders with us and so we are in the midst of getting those out the door…look for us VERY soon in a certain fab SoHo, NYC boutique 

We have our soldier on the ground now too…of course I mean the ever lovely and talented Miss Stella B, and so we are inexpressibly excited to get her set up and ready to rock, because we are sure that when it comes to representing Pre-K Apparel, she will Shock & Awe!

We also have gotten some AMAZING press (that we had nothing to do with )…that we would love to share, check out:

http://www.sojones.com/streetwear/pre-k-apparel/

We are also developing more crucial facets to our business that we are quite keen on…more shout outs here to Masterlegal and The Sheeb, you are invaluable to us and thanks for believing in that “other level”…once we get there you can say “I told you so!”

I know it seems like we are always shouting people out in this blog…but you know what, we have to because we would be nothing without these True Believers.

I am constantly amazed at the level of support we have gotten for our project so far and even more amazed at the response we have had in the past month and a half of being “live”…the key is to not get overwhelmed, because between B & I, we have a lot going on.

So, here we are poppin off at the Pop Up Shops…a lot of familiar faces and industry friends…Brian fussing with his fence and cleaning up my “messes”…we are excited to show off our baby and let me just say, Pre-K is looking DAMN good today 

More as it happens!!

<3
Renatta

The force is with us

Hello friends!

This is an incredibly exciting time in the world of Pre-K!!! We have just gotten our slaes force together...namely the fabulous and talented Miss Stella Burchard!!

She will be representing Pre-K interests thoughout the US and where possible abroad and we are so happy to have her and her expertise on board!

She has been our #1 fan from the get go and have been priceless with the advice, contacts and all around loveliness! So welcome Stella...you have crossed the line into madness and we can't wait to work with you!! hehe

We also have our look books printed and they look amazing...thanks for all the help we have gotten with this...you know who you are ;o)...please contact us if you would like to have one of your own.

As you can see things have been developing rapidly on our end and we are excited to keep you on top of what's going on with us and Pre-K Apparel.

Until next time, keep it fly!!

<3
Renatta

Big Fans

Every week for nearly a year I'd keep hearing how incredible PRE-K Apparel is, but every time I'd just say "Thanks, Mom...love you too."

A much more recent development has been the thrill of a different phenomenon, when people we actually DON'T know — and better yet, people we've heard of and respect — get in touch to compliment our work and find out more about PRE-K.

Now, I'm sworn to secrecy by Renatta because she's afraid we'll jinx some of the good fortune that's been coming our way, but suffice it to say stores we love have been inquiring. Ain't that some shit? Gotta say, it's a relief to finally get some feedback from people inside the industry but outside our fan-camp. (BTW, speaking of fans, if you find yourself reading this, go ahead and click that little "follow" button up top-right...we've got nearly 150 fans in our facebook group so far, and a lowly 2 here on our blog! :)

In other news, our first batch of look books came off the presses today. They look great! If you'd like to have one for your very own, just shoot an email to info@prekapparel.com and request one & we'll pop it in the mail for ya.

Oh yeah, also, we made another charitable donation last week to the Doug Flutie Foundation to help in the fight against autism. "An Evolution of Style," a charity benefit on Sunday night held at Bond in Boston, featured six of our onesies in the silent auction. I never got the final tally, but walked past the clipboard at one point and saw a bid for $110...not too shabby!

Finally, we're printing 200 more pieces today and into next week. The guys over at One-Off apparel in Millbury, Massachusetts were working their asses off yesterday when I was over for the press check — and the newest "I Feel the Baby's Kicks" features an all-metallic print that looks unbelievably cool! (Also on the presses will be "Cribs," "Word" and even more of our current best seller on Karmaloop: "The Tux.")

So, that's the news for now. Again, please don't hesitate to reach out and say hey if you're reading this. We're never above hearing from people who are into our brand (even if it is just you again, Mom).

keep on keepin on

hi friends!!

it has been a while...but i suppose that's good since it purely because we have been so busy!!

it's fashion season everywhere, so it's more than enough to keep B and I incredibly busy, between events, travel,day jobs and of course our pride and joy PreK Apparel. We have been fortunate enough not only to be retailed on www.Karmaloop.com, but we have gotten significant blog support from the Karmaloop family and beyond...so HUGE thanks and props to the talented and lovely folks who have invested in the success of our brand by blogging and spreading the word about our big Debut...this means you Andrew, Dina, Greg and Stella the Stellar :o)

Things are really rolling along too! We've sold enough on Karmaloop for them to place a reorder with us after less than 2 weeks!!!!!!!!! We have already fulfilled and shipped that out to maintain this incredible momentum...and we will see what happens next!

We have also been approached by other streetwear retailers interested in carrying PreK and so we are in the process of making that happen as well...we are also about to keep it 100% local by sourcing our blanks right here in good old Mass USA...which will help us on a number of levels!!

Our lookbook has gone to print and once that is done we will arm Brian with them and send him out into the world to spread the PreK gospel...hopefully to a receptive audience.

I just have to keep thanking everyone who has shown support of any kind to us and our effort because we really could not have not gotten anywhere without you all. Even if it was just listening to us obsess about our ideas and the details of this process...you helped us get through and not lose our damn minds...although we may not be out of the woods on that count yet hahahahaha

Here we are working again on the weekend...but you gotta be a warrior if you want to be anywhere close to success... so, we will keep on keepin on and grind as hard as time will let us...despite the long hours this season demands, we love it and would not change being involved to this extent for anything in the world!!!!!!!

Happy Fall Fashion to you all and I hope that you enjoy this season as much as we do!

More as it falls in our lap :o)

R & B

The test

Well it's been quite a whirlwind since shooting our lookbook! We have scarecely had a chance to sleep let alone blog...but finally here I am finally!
We have since shot our lookbook, which went shockingly well!! I am so impressed with our little models and to an even greater extent, the parents who really knew how to engage these kids so we get our shots...I sure as hell am not as capable!!! Mad props to you guys!! Also our Photog Joe knew just how to get in and get those and get back out
We did our product and model shots at Karmaloop's headquarters last Monday and that also went well, you can check it out here on our product page...

http://www.karmaloop.com/vendor.aspx?VendorCode=PRE&bysex=2

It's a scary time...this is the test that will tell us whether we alone appreciate the product we have built and whether we have any hope to continue on after this round, and whether spending so much time on the details was even worth it...It's ironic, it being a line for young kids and new parents because we feel like we have nurtured this baby for so long now; making it into what we want it to be and trying to have it stand out from the rest and now we're exposing it to the critique of so many by turning it loose into the fashion world...will anyone love it as much as we do?? Repect it for what it is?? Read to it at night??...ok maybe I need to step back and not obsess let it go :o)

Only time will tell I suppose...

Kids and Animals

The phrase "never work with kids and animals" is dead wrong.

Sure, when working with kids you sometimes experience the occasional melt-down (from the kids, too), and I've found that animals don't take direction very well. But this weekend we discovered that working with kids and animals together is a mutually beneficial arrangement.

This past Sunday morning we set out to Boston's Franklin Park Zoo to shoot our line for our "look book." At ten sharp we marched a group of nearly thirty people — parents, kids, models, photographer, et al — through the zoo gates. The nine children in tow sported our gear paired with lots of unbelievably cute items for kids (photos to come).

The idea: dress 'em up, let 'em roam and shoot away. Joe Prezioso was our photographer, and God bless him, he hardly had a moment to breathe. He flitted from one cute kid doing a cute thing to the next, and it went on this way for about two hours.

Anyway, my point is that there's nothing handier than a zebra to keep a kid from having a full-blown melt-down. "Look, a giraffe!" and suddenly any tears teetering on a child's bottom lids are actually sucked back into the ducts. Miracles, those wild creatures are.

Generally, animals like being around kids, too. Kids are ever-likely to unwittingly drop bits of food here and there, not to mention the extra morsels they seem to constantly have sticking to their faces and hands.

So yes, working with kids AND animals proved to be quite a success on Sunday. Now I've just got to manage to work like an animal to put this book together without throwing a tantrum of my own.

Getting There

Alright! Today's a big one...we've closed another chapter. Today we wrap up production with our silk-screen shop on our first order. We're currently sitting on over 200 onesies & T's, each as sharp and vivid as the next. I've really got to say "hat's off" to OneOff Apparel in Worcester, those guys work magic.

(I was about to post some shots via my web cam, then thought better of it...you'll just have to wait until next week to see them being modeled online ;)

So right now we've got stacks and stacks of six designs:
Pop Tot
Safety First
I Get Lifted
Kinder Keffiyeh
Lil' Grill
Tux

We're very proud to be able to present single samples of another 6, for a total of 12 from our 18 original designs! It really means a lot to have the product in hand rather than just on a screen or on the page. I just couldn't be happier with how our first line is turning out.

On Friday we'll have our first large order tagged and bagged and shipped off, and are planning on shooting the merch for karmaloop.com on Monday. Then, well, I guess we'll be up and running!

But we're not resting. Our next steps are our look book shoot (this Sunday) and approaching many other premier street & baby vendors with our samples.

Oh, it also looks like we'll be doing some PR pretty soon. Boldfacers, a beautifully done Web zine focusing on local movers and shakers (co-produced by Adam Larson, designer extraordinaire), just contacted us about covering Pre-K! Our first write-up!! :)

So that's the news for this week, kids. Thanks for checking in, we'll keep you posted.

B

the final countdown

WHAT A WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!

I cannot believe that we got through this alive! Maybe more Brian than me, because he had to deal with me being a stressed out beeeeyatch all week long...hahaha

anyways, the look book is falling into place nicely, all of our models have confirmed, we are finalizing outfits and let me just say...as per usual, no expense was spared to make this the dopest ever!!!

As Brian posted last week, we will be heading to the zoo with some of our dearest friends and their tots and we are going to dress them in some fly outfits that we have been building all week! So far the supposrt has been overwhelming, with WeSC, Reebok, Goorin Bros and Keds all pitching in to help us make this happen.

The styling will have some surprises for ya'all...but I guarantee it will be enjoyable to look at...I'm excited to give copies of these images to our friends so that they can have them in albums etc as their little ones grow up and show them what they were a part of from such an early age.

As far as production of our initial order for Karmaloop goes, we had some serious scares this week, but nothing we couldn't handle and didn't come out of...my parents threw us a life line too at one point so you gotta love that! thanks Moozie & Daggles!!!

So, yes...the countdown is on...how is look book gonna turn out? Will we have all of our clothes and shoes ready to shoot it? Will our order meet our Karmaloop deadline? Will our stuff even sell once it gets onto www.Karmaloop.com?

The next week will answer ALL of these questions...we will keep you informed...

Look Book

Now that our samples are coming off the presses, we're finally able to move beyond showing blueprints of our line — in about a week, you'll start to see the actual product!

(We initially produced several samples digitally to get the general feel. We're proud to say we'll NEVER sell digitally printed pieces, however, as the quality of screen printing is far superior.)

So with our clothes in hand, it's time to plan for our look book.

Right now we're scheduled for an August 30th photo shoot at the Franklin Park Zoo featuring several children ranging in age from one to four-years old. Renatta is putting together outfits as I type this, coupling our pieces with those of WeSC, Cre8tive Rec, and more. I can't wait to see the final outcome.

This weekend we've got to get ourselves over to the zoo to scope out some potential locations, and of course we're in the midst of coordinating with parents, kids, photographer & crew, but I think we've got it all in hand.

More to come!

Man Hands

Hi friends!

As we at PreK apparel get ready to go into production, and we fuss over the details big and small, we are also striving to keep on top of our day jobs….me handling the Karmaloop Merchandising department and Brian designing and concepting for another new brand KLP (Klothing Liberation Project)…while we’re stressed and strapped, I feel like it has been bringing out the best in us…I myself find that I am better under pressure, and Brian, well it’s teaching him to organize and discipline himself and his methods.

It seems as though this is all not enough for us, we are constantly sticking our fingers into other pots... looking for new and unique ventures to get involved with, ( we have been speaking to a charitable organization to raise awareness on “baby shaking”), we are constantly seeking reasons to throw parties (last weekend was my “10,000^th day alive” surprise beach bash, followed by a “we can’t finish all this food” BBQ), and of course new and interesting ways to get ourselves noticed, (Brian designed a Shephard Fairey inspired “911 is a joke t-shirt” to commemorate Shep’s arrest in Boston last February and was the talk of the town last Friday night). It's a good thing we both have such big hands, they just can't seem to get full enough!!! But like I say...it's better to have "man hands" than to get manhandled hahahaha!!

We both seem to hear a clock ticking somewhere and are working like devils to stay ahead of it and everyone else; every design trend, every seemingly pop phenomenon, every catch phrase, every idle thought and suggestion we sock away in our minds and notes for a possible RE-appropriation on a onsie or a tee…like I said it forces us to stay sharp and not discard any exposure that we find ourselves getting.

And there’s more…we started rounding up our troops today, babies, models, photographers, new parents; for the next step in the launching of PreK Apparel…OUR LOOKBOOK! I am heading up this project and am SUPER excited about it! The concept we have come up with is pretty freakin dope I think, and we cannot wait to execute it with all of our favorite people.

We are still working out the dates and details, so stay tuned and you will see what we have up our sleeves!!

More as we do it,

Renatta

The new coolness

It's becoming clear. Two distinct markets. Polar opposite challenges.

On one hand you've got a thousand kids boutiques selling rock 'n' roll clothes to baby-mamas, but barely ever rap or R&B. So while every parent/uncle/friend wants to be "the cool one," we've got to wait for the shopkeepers to get with it, and honestly most haven't heard of M.I.A. (and no, she ain't wearing Ed Hardy)

On the other hand you've got a thousand street wear vendors on the razor's edge of street fashion, but they're too used to being niche. Their clientele traditionally consists of young, early-adopters who would likely see the novelty in getting a kid they know hooked up, but most street vendors haven't considered any audience outside what's worked already. If it ain't broke, don't fix it — not a very forward-looking stance for trend-setters.

Here's the thing — I hate being a convincer. You either see something or you don't. But it seems crazy to me nobody is thinking about how every single trend in fashion history has somehow "trickled up." Same old story; youth stakes out some territory, and then slowly it seeps upward into older, more conservative generations until it finally gains "normality" in some altered form throughout society.

Take baseball caps. In the '80s if you're wearing a hat you were probably of college age or younger (unless you were at a game or a truck driver). Now I swear there's an army of dudes in their 60's wearing that shit in their BMW convertables. Sure, maybe it helps hide the bald spot, but that wasn't happening even 10 years back.

Flash forward to today, and older generations "don't get" kids wearing the same hats kicked to the side. Here's a message to all you older folks: we wear it that way because you don't get it. We do it to separate ourselves from you. As always, youth creates the new coolness. You broke in long hair — thanks for that.

And it just so happens that the new coolness of the moment is street wear, which happens to be Pre-K Apparel's advantage, and our challenge.

We're sick of all the cliche kids' wear out there and are trying like hell to break the new coolness for them. But to do that we somehow need to do two things: help kids' apparel stores be okay selling street wear and help street wear stores be okay selling kids' apparel. As of right now it seems both vendors are too busy with business as usual, so nobody's breaking through to be down with both (except you, Karmaloop, you nasty visionaries —props!).

I guess being the first ones to the party can really blow sometimes, but we're not trying to wait around for company. Fuck it — I may just have to suck it up and become a convincer.

baby steppin in style

Since Brian's last blog entry in June it seems like everything has happened yet nothing has happened...but in the grand scheme of things we have taken a million baby steps and every single one of them has brought us that much closer to making this brand the entity we want it to be and launching it in the style we feel it deserves.
from shooting our birth announcement (see my profile pic), to getting our line sheets together, to making sure the website meets our standards, to getting picked up by Karmaloop.com...(yes even I cannot fully believe that we are going to be launched next to the likes of WeSc, Hellz Bellz, Crooks & Castles and LRG)...it has really been a labor of love...not just on the parts of Brian and I...we've probably never fought so much trying to agree on designs, treatments and marketing etc...but from our friends, family and business contacts, all of whom have offered some part of themselves to help us make this happen, and for that we cannot be grateful enough.
so you can be sure, once Pre.K drops in late August on www.karmaloop.com all of this love will be evident because as we've been saying from the start, we do it the right way, or not at all, we sped the time and the effort to make it happen or we just sit on it and let someone else live our dream...in essence we go big or we go home...

and we are not readyto go home just yet...

More as it happens!

Renatta

The way we see it, there are two kinds of kid's T-shirt designs in this world: clever lines and cool designs.

The way we see it, street wear is often a brilliant combination of the two, while you have to choose one or the other for the youngsters.

The way we see it, regardless of the subject matter, street wear's colors/patterns/prints are inevitably striking, and so often you're relegated to soft pinks, blues and yellows in kid's apparel, especially for babies.

With this gaping disparity in mind, we came up with PRE-K...a company devoted to pop re-appropriation for kids. We're interested in creating clothing that deals with the world of the 5-and-under set — you know the lexicon: crayons and cooties, monkey bars and time out. Time to remember the world of the kid without making it into a joke — I swear if I see one more "got milk?" onesie I'm gonna get all Wayne Brady up on somebody.

Anyway, I digress. We're really excited about our first line of onesies and T-shirts that we've created to this end. Right now, we're in the final stages of production and are starting to get the word out to vendors we think will be interested in what we're offering.

The point of this blog will just be to keep you abreast with all our newest activity — be it the latest stickers we're producing to changes to our Web site, getting the word out about our latest charitable donation (happening tomorrow...more to come) or whatever else is happening for PRE-K.

So that's it for now. We'll be keeping up with this regularly, so come on back soon!

Peace.