THE OSB ACTIVEWEAR COLLECTION… IT’S HERE!!
NOW AVAILABLE TO SHOP – CLICK HERE
This might be the first time I’m speechless… One of my childhood dreams came true. I officially have my own clothing line!!! Holy cow where do I even begin?! I still can’t believe it really happened and it’s officially here! I’ve been keeping this secret for almost 6 months now…
Last year, I was asked a lot about where I saw the future of One Small Blonde going as a brand? Ummm… No idea? But, I always thought I’d love to have my own line of products. I originally was thinking hair products because y’all know I’m all about great hair, and that’s what EVERYONE asks me about the most.
Nope…it’s not hair products. It’s an activewear clothing line! Who would’ve thought?! Me. The uber food lover who is NOT by any means a fitness blogger or even close to looking like I’ve got abs. BUT… My life has changed a lot in the last year learning about my body, working out hard core, and eating much cleaner. So I guess it kinda sorta maybe makes sense?! Haha!
So let’s talk about how this all began…
I had zero intentions of pursuing my dream of launching a product line until I got an email that I almost DELETED… Not a joke. It kinda looked like spam or some foreign company asking me to promote their products. Thank the Lord I opened the email and actually took the time to read it. Much to my surprise, it was an email asking if I’d be interested in creating my own clothing line collection.
And so it began… I set up a FaceTime call with the lovely owner, Sarah. She was absolutely delightful to chat with and I knew in minutes she was legit. As another female entrepreneur, if I was going to work with someone on my own clothing line she is the type of person I’d want to work with. When she told me she personally chose me out of 600 other bloggers she had been researching I think I actually said, “wait why?”. Haha!
I guess it was because I am just an average (literally 5′ 4″ size 7 1/2 shoe) woman who has had to work my ass off both personally and professionally to get where I am today. If you follow me on Instagram you know the struggle is real when it comes to the balance with being healthy and eating pizza/drinking wine…
THE DESIGN PROCESS
The very first thing I had to do was research what activewear brands I loved, and think about what I’d wear everyday. Honestly, that wasn’t too hard for me… No prints, no patterns, no bright colors!
I knew a basic pair of black leggings were an ABSOLUTE MUST. Also, I knew a high neck sports bra would need to be in the mix because I may not have an ass, but I do have boobs. Trying to take spin class in a lower cut sports bra…no bueno.
But, what else? What colors? Well…I’m a pretty neutral girl so black and grey were at the top of the list. Then I thought about the OSB brand colors…black, white, and gold. Only problem was finding a good gold fabric. No success. So what was my next favorite color? Burgundy.
Now that I had my colors picked out, I sent the design team some ideas of items I liked or things I liked about stuff I already owned. Then they sent me 3 different design ideas to choose from for each item. This was 100% the hardest part…
I really liked all 3 design concepts they came up with, but what would I really wear all the time? I ended up combining all 3 design collections, and coming up with an entirely new legging that had the mesh stripe.
Next up, time to make the samples! Luckily, Sarah has an amazing partnership with one of the best manufacturers in the world. the fabric choices were top quality. The first samples arrived and I was SO excited! I tried them on and really thought only a few things needed to be tweaked.
We’ve made almost 10 revisions to the samples… oops! Until you start wearing the stuff you don’t think about the little things! I wore the leggings to workout in, but they kept falling down so the waistband needed to be tighter. Then I got the tank top samples, and originally wanted the mesh V in the front but what about boob support? Hmmmm…how would that work?
Luckily, my girlfriends at VIVE where I workout helped me decide to make the tank top reversible! That way I can wear a sports bra with it when needed, but you could reverse it with the mesh V in front and sticky boobs to wear for athleisure.
The original idea was to make this collection an athleisure line, but it’s really more of an activewear line. However, I did want a fun piece to wear to-and-from the gym or just running around town. That’s where I came up with the velvet sweatshirt with ribbon detail!
After all the revisions had been made to the samples (which was last week!) I had to think about pricing… Okay… What would I spend on a quality pair of leggings? Definitely had to be under $100. And, if I’m buying leggings then I’d usually like to buy some sort of top without spending too terribly much.
I can promise the OSB collection is going to be affordable without skimping on quality!!
Lastly, the best part about this entire process is I don’t have to worry about the behind the scenes details like shipping because I’m part of an amazing company.
Now we just have to wait until next Friday, February 1st for everything to be available to purchase! Yippee!!!
How awesome! Congratulations!!!
WOW!!! Congratulations! So exciting and so proud of you! Can’t wait to purchase some.
Good for you, Brooke! The collection looks fabulous!!
Everything looks so good! So happy for you & all your successes! Yay!
Congratulations. A wonderful achievement and they all look fabulous.
Amazing, Brooke! I’m so excited for you!