Today we’d like to introduce you to Julie McCullough.
Julie, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
In 2005 I began by opening a small sewing shop in Dallas called Make, we mostly taught classes and sold other artists handmade products. My initial love was creating handbags, which then grew into a desire to make clothing. I am a self-taught designer – seamstress with a background in Digital Marketing and Public Relations. After many years of doing this on my own, in 2012, I decided it was time to build a production team, find good fabric sources, polish the aesthetic, and work on the branding so that we could really perfect the process and begin to create small batches for retail.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Being self-taught and having to side hustle so that I could keep my team working as we built the brand definitely has not been a smooth road. However, after working with outside production houses, being able to work through all of the mistakes, growing pains, changes, and demands was much easier because we were doing it in-house.
We bought a small building in Oak Cliff and really buckled down, we took on a few outside production clients 50% of the time so that we could keep going without taking any loans. While this road took us a bit longer, I feel much stronger for it and it was easier to absorb any errors along the way. Because we make all of our products in-house, we can react to immediate demand and supply, that has really helped us grow without having to hold on to any extra inventory.
Folksie – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Folksie is a lifestyle brand that is mostly known for it’s easy to wear women’s clothing made from natural fibers and relaxed fits. Our clothing is made a very small batch (10-30 pieces per style at a time) and we design new pieces each week to continuously add to our seasonless collection. Most of our pieces can be layers or worn with other pieces in our collection, no matter the season.
We are also a company that believes in creating a change, we employ mostly single Mothers, we pay them between 11-15.00 an hour to work with us in our studio and we enjoy family lunch together almost every day. We believe in being a part of the change we hope to see happen in garment and textile industry.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
For me, the proudest moment is following this dream, not taking any business loans but growing it slowly and direct to consumer, not worrying about the trends or reports and really just focusing on being a good brand that takes care of its employees and helps them to create a product they are proud of. My second is seeing people on the street wearing our product and how they make it their own!
Pricing:
- Folksie pieces start at 88.00
Contact Info:
- Address: 401 N. Bishop Ave Dallas, TX 75208
- Website: www.thefolksieway.com
- Email: thefolksieway@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefolksieway/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thefolksieway/
- Other: www.harkensback.com
Image Credit:
Rebecca Hilliard, Tanner Davis Ellison
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