Thought about retail? Starting an athletic apparel brand

I grew up living and breathing retail. My mom had a gift shop she ran with two other local ladies, and my first year of life was spent sleeping under a cash register.

This week on the Sisters Talk Shop podcast Lisa and I interview two ladies from our hometown of Farmington, Maine who also decided to go into retail. Only they started a clothing brand. 

Have you ever been frustrated that certain items of clothing only come in say black or blue? After not finding running leggings that were both comfortable and colorful, they decided to make their own. 

Their Spandits! running gear is sewn in Maine and comes in durable and FUN fabrics. We talk to them about how they went from an idea to a full-blown operation.

If you have ever wondered what it is like to start your own business selling a real-life product, this episode is for you!

Stream the episode on iTunes here!

Glorious Webpage Finds

Speaking of retail, I stumbled across this drool-worthy retail website that blew me away when searching for US distributors of Emma Bridgewater pottery. Be sure to visit the site, because I couldn't fit the amount of eye-candy on this site into the little above-the-fold screenshot:

What I love about this site:

Custom Illustrations - even the "I accept cookies" bar at the bottom is on brand and has an illustration!

Serifed Fonts - They are using Goldenbook for the navigation and Canela Light for the paragraph text sprinkled with some Engravers Gothic Bold/Engravers MT Pro for interest. Aren't they dreamy when paired with the custom illustrations? 

Dramatic color scheme - they do a nice job of using some very dark shades paired with some extra-pale shades.

Can you guess the season? It's a retail site - so they have gone with Autumn, but with a Winter palette to communicate that they are upscale. However, the colors seem to be on the border of warm and cool, so they lend themselves wonderfully to an Autumn-styled brand. A real delight!