we’re celebrating 10 years of oliver + s!
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Wow, ten years already! Today marks the beginning of our big ten-year anniversary celebration for Oliver + S. Have you checked out the special anniversary homepage on our website yet?
Many of you have been sewing with us for most, or all, of our ten years. But many others have only recently joined this wonderful sewing community. To celebrate today, I thought it would be fun to take a trip down memory lane and remind (or introduce) you to some of the key milestones in our growth and development as a brand and company.
Thirteen years ago, when S was born, I was working as a clothing designer in New York City. After graduating from design school at FIT, I began my career at Ralph Lauren before moving on to freelance gigs, including an exciting stint with Esprit in San Francisco. Eventually, I landed at Tommy Hilfiger. I loved my work and my colleagues, but I was also eager to spend more time with our newborn.
If you're curious about the full story of my journey as a new mom, you can listen to it on The Longest Shortest Time podcast. In short, soon after leaving my job, the lovely folks at Purl SoHo invited me to teach sewing classes at their new fabric store. Through those classes, I realized there was a need for well-designed, professionally-drafted sewing patterns for kids with clear and detailed instructions. That's how Oliver + S came to life—my second baby!
Initially, I thought this little project would be something I could manage during naptime and evenings. But it quickly became apparent that this would be a full-time endeavor.
A year later, Todd left his demanding job, which kept him away from home so often, and we decided he would join me in growing this company. This decision has given me the freedom to focus on pattern development, writing tutorials and blog posts, and exploring other projects I wouldn't have had time for. Todd now handles the day-to-day operations and financial management of the company, ensuring we stay on track despite our tight margins. For those interested in learning more, we discussed this extensively in Creativebug’s Building a Creative Brand class.
Working together as a couple has opened up opportunities I couldn't have pursued alone. I've been able to write two books, travel to teach classes and workshops, record online and video classes, and even design fabric collections. It's also allowed us to travel and live abroad!
Over the past ten years, our business has been based in four different locations. It all started on our dining room table, which quickly became unfeasible. I then moved to a rented studio space a few blocks from our New York apartment. A year later, we relocated to a larger space in Brooklyn. Now, we have a combined live-work space here in the heart of Madrid. While I miss the energy of our Brooklyn studio, working from home has its conveniences, at least.
In the past ten years, we've achieved quite a bit! Here are some stats:
- Number of Oliver + S patterns released: 50 (plus additional Oliver + S Singles patterns created from several of these)
- Liesl + Co patterns released: 20
- Lisette patterns released: 22 with Butterick and 15 with Simplicity in our early days
- Straight Stitch Society patterns released: 9
- Fabric collections I’ve designed: 4 with Moda, 1 with Robert Kaufman, and more than I care to count under the Lisette brand
- Books written: 2 (one self-published for an extra challenge!)
- Online and video classes filmed: Two sewing how-to videos with Interweave, approximately 24 Creativebug classes, and a handful of one-minute tips and tricks videos for fun.
- Plus numerous magazine features, podcast interviews, classes, and workshops. Not to mention all the blog posts, tutorials, sew-alongs, etc. It’s been a busy decade!
- New friends made through our business: countless! You're all over the world!
It’s been fun revisiting old photos to see how much S has grown and to reminisce about some really fun times we’ve had. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might recognize some of these photos.
There are so many memories.
You know I’m always honest with you, so I won’t stop now. Financially, our best year was 2014, and our business has trended downward every year since. Last year wasn’t profitable for us (even though we managed to cut our expenses significantly by leaving New York), and this year is also looking challenging. We’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand why this is happening, and we believe it’s due to a combination of factors. The main one is the overall contraction in the sewing market. Everyone in the industry—from manufacturers to distributors to retailers—is feeling the pressure. It’s a constant struggle to keep this business going, but we do it because we love it and enjoy running a small business. We hope we can continue, and we truly appreciate your support.
How can you help? Word of mouth remains crucial for our growth. Of course, continuing to buy patterns helps too. Happy customers who share their experiences, teach others to sew, and spread the word about the quality of our patterns and their value are worth more than any advertising we could do. We'd love to be here for another 10 years (or more!), and we’ll need your help to achieve that.
I’ll be back on Wednesday to talk more about you and what you’ve accomplished these past ten years while sewing with us. It’s been amazing, and I’ve had so much fun looking through your photos and reading your comments.
Here’s to the past ten years, and hopefully to more. Thank you for joining us on this journey, and let’s see where it leads us next!
Be sure to check out the blog tomorrow. We’ve got a special anniversary treat for you.
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