![]() Then we sent this to maybe 5-7 manufacturers we found online–most of whom did not want to work with us because 1. We were eager to get to an MVP stage (meanwhile still working at our full-time jobs) so we put a very scrappy mood board collage of the first three shirts we wanted to make and Wesley put together an excel sheet of all the measurements he wanted them to have. Wesley and I didn’t have any fashion experience going into it – I was a graphic designer and Wesley wore dress shirts at his finance job– that was the extent of it. We also just recently added our newest smallest size N0 due to high demand and customer feedback. We created an initial batch of samples of these first 5 sizes and did a bunch of user testing and interviews to adjust. From there, we created a preliminary size chart with various measurements across the body for our N2, N3, N4, and N5 sizes. ![]() He was 5’5” in height and around 130 lbs at the time we were prototyping and became our, then, smallest size N1. We started with building our actually slim fit off of Wesley’s body. Photo of the behind-the-scenes shoot of our initial 3 dress shirts:Įmbed:instagram Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product. With my background in brand/design and Wesley’s in finance/data, we hosted a launch party with our 3 initial dress shirt styles in 5 actually slim sizes in NYC and left our jobs a month later. Once the samples came in, we had different guys try on the shirts and give us feedback on the fit, meanwhile collecting their measurements. We conducted an initial market, user, and competitive research to inform our sizes and produced samples with a manufacturer we found online. We clocked in at night to get our business idea to MVP before leaving our full-time jobs 6 months later. We came up with the idea in March 2018 to create a high quality “actually slim” dress shirts that fit off-the-rack without a tailor on the greater mission of increasing Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) representation in fashion. 14.5” neck / 32 sleeve length (usually the smallest size offered… which was still too large for Wesley) and we knew we could create something better for slimmer guys who’ve felt averaged out by the dress shirt industry. Traditional dress shirt retailers size through a function of neck size and sleeve length e.g. ![]() I saw the same issue with my father who immigrated to the states from China and always stated that “American dress shirts didn’t fit ” because they were either too baggy, long in length, or had excess fabric when tucked at the waist. He often had a hard time finding a well-fitting dress shirt off-the-rack that fit his build at 5’5” in height and 140 lbs in weight. My co-founder Wesley Kang is a slimmer Taiwanese-American who was at the time working in finance and had to wear a dress shirt every day to work. There are so many obstacles to overcome and take on on a daily basis and having the perseverance to get through them is, honestly, most of the battle. ![]() ![]() Most recently, I was a Senior UX/UI (user-centric interaction design and user experience) consultant advising for financial services clients at Ernst
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