CC Book Review: Lolly Clothing

From Fishing to Fashion: Reeling In an Unlikely Fashion Success

By: Jeff Stewart

Publisher: Myrtle Street Publishing

Based out of Seattle and Los Angeles, and started by brothers Todd and Chad Kimball (Broadway star, and Tony-nominated lead of Memphis); Lolly Clothing has been adorned and loved by fashionistas from around the country. From urban trend-setters to career women, from working moms to travel aficionados, Lolly Clothing has quickly emerged as one of the fastest growing West-Coast based clothing brands in the US. Just three years after its launch, Lolly is carried by over 500 boutiques across the country. The brand has proven that you don’t need to stick to traditional models of fashion merchandising, seasonal collections and mass retail to be successful.

So how did it happen that Lolly succeeds where others fail? For young entreprenuears hoping to get into the business of fashion, what is the key to creating demand in one of the most notoriously difficult and fickle industries in the world? How did a group of fashion misfits – including a group of Alaskan fishermen – find success?

The Lolly implementation though was not easy and not without its ups and downs. Lolly: From Fishing to Fashion – Reeling In An Unlikely Fashion Success, is a book by award-winning author Jeff Stewart, about the dreams, heartbreaks, and the beginning process of an unknown fashion company started by two brothers with a drive for success, a penchant for unconventional methods and the most unusual group of executives imaginable.

Summary:

The gulls glide on the wind and land on the famous rock planted in the tides while the ocean reaches for Asia.

In a pub one mile inland and north, a writer’s chance meeting with the owners of a clothing company ignites an agreement that plants the seed for a novel about the blood, work, fate, and unyielding vision that confounded the fashion industry and left it examining the path of Lolly.

Jeff Stewart navigates us through the start, deconstruction, and rebirth of Lolly Clothing, the salvation from the bottom of survival to the methods of their success. Told in a beautifully raw, stripped-down style, Lolly: From Fishing to Fashion, Reeling in an Unlikely Fashion Success takes us through the insides of the fashion company and their people with humor, heartbreak, and prose that introduces the fashion process through the world of the writer; moving us along from the effects of guts and consequences to the cathedral of Lolly, and the power of never listening to the odds.

Excerpt:

There’s a storm in the Bering Sea.

The boat is roughly 75 feet and the swells are tossing it around like a plastic ball. The boat crashes through the center of the storm, its eye beating down upon the deck, and the crew pulls together to keep the haul secured and the nets and ropes from being absorbed by the ocean. The captain screams into the storm from the wheelhouse, the crew bites down on their cigarettes and clutch their rosary beads. The storm began as a light rain before sunset, and now its arms and breath are dealing blows into the boat without mercy.

The sea rages beneath the roar, and they ride the storm out for hours and sit in the galley. A bottle of whiskey is produced and the shots get poured, cigarettes get lit, and the cards come out of the box for a hand of seven-card. The captain has nothing past the ante, but his mind is on the ocean, their slip of fate from the storm behind them, and talking to his men about investing in a high-end contemporary women’s fashion company...

CC Review:

Absolutely adored this book!  Beautifully told in a stream of consciousness style that makes it easy to read and hard to put down, the Lolly Clothing founder tells lovingly and honestly of the genesis of the company and the family ties that bind.  CC highly recommends this little novel to her fellow fashionistas!

Happy reading, darlings!

xoxox,

CC