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I have a beautiful granddaughter who was born with Down syndrome. She has enough challenges to face in her life and I want to make sure that finding appropriately fitting clothes will not be one of them.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Our First Shipment Arrives...Oh No!

The air shipment containing 5 of every size jean and tee arrived between Christmas and New Years.  I immediately start calling our models to see how soon they can come into the shop for a fitting.   Our first model to arrive was Timmy.
Timmy fits the Charlie/Michael style pant.  Once we determined his size we have him try them on…right away we see problems.  The pockets were too small and too low, the thigh portion of the legs were a little too tight, the elastic wasn't tight enough and the back rise was about an 1 ½” too short.  This was not good!  Boy, it appears we have made some miscalculations.  But, in spite of these issues, Timmy still looked great.  Because he is so small, the problems weren't that noticeable.  He really loved them.  We put him in one of our T shirts and the shirt was a great fit.  At least something went well.  We hem his pants and get some photos.  What a handsome guy he is! 
Our next model to arrive was Kelleen (the “Diva”).  We have a small problem with the pockets on the ladies jeans also.  They weren’t graded properly and I’m not happy with the placement.  We try her in both the Diva jeans and the Emily Dip Downs and she favors the Dip Downs.  Our little Irish girl loved the Kelly green T-shirt so we get her dressed for the fitting.  We put a hem in pants and she loves how they both fit.  She just loves her new clothes in spite of the pocket issue.  We get more photos.
A few days later, Charlie and Sheryl come in for a fitting.  The Sheryl jeans fit Sheryl very well, just a quick hem and she was ready to wear them.  She chose the pink shirt. Charlie on the other hand was not so simple.  His shirt fits great but again the jeans aren't right.  Oh dear, we have problems for sure.  

We tried to get Jonathan in for a fitting but he just couldn’t make it.  We managed to find another model his size, but he wanted to remain anonymous.  But at least we got to test our big men’s size jeans…and again, the pockets are too small, the rise is too short and the waistband is just too loose.  I’m really at a low point now!
Michael and Emily have their fittings and, of course, Michael's jeans have all the same problems but Emily's fitting was great.  She feels most comfortable in the Diva style jeans. 
Lori was away until April so I was unable to fit her in the Lori Jeans.  But I was about her size, so I test the fit.  Wow, they really felt good and I loved how comfortable they were.  Everything seemed okay with the Lori Jeans but once Lori gets back, we’ll do a proper fitting on her and get photos.
By this time the balance of our shipment arrived.  The truck pulled up to our warehouse door and we were ready to unload it.  But inside that truck I knew there was 1300 pair of jeans with problems.  I can’t explain the bitter/sweet feelings I had on this special day.
So I made a hard decision not to sell the men’s jeans online at all.  I had about 600 pair of men’s jeans that were a complete disappointment.  Because of the pocket problems with the women’s jeans, I decided not to sell them at full price; I just didn’t feel they  were up to standard either.   
So we finished the website store with photos of our ladies jeans, our unisex shirts and our women’s full figure shirts.  Since the men’s jeans had so many problems I made the tough decision to have them all remade.   I was really upset over this, but there was nothing more I could do.  I knew I must continue to move forward.

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