FS Community: Dallas based Maternity Brand EMME Duo Make Their Entire Collection from FS Linen

We started working on EMME during the summer of 2019. Katarina was in her third trimester and made a lot of jokes about how much she hated everything she wore while she was pregnant (wearing sweats and unflattering, baggy dresses got old fast!). After talking about it so much and doing some research into current options, we felt like there needed to be a sustainable, slow fashion brand for mothers.  Pregnancy is beautiful, but frequently we hear women express that they aren’t feeling confident in the clothes that they’re wearing. There are many women who are pregnant or nursing for years and want to wear clothes that are functional, comfortable, and beautiful. Our body is constantly changing with pregnancy, postpartum, nursing, and all the demands that come with being a mother.  It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking, “oh I’ll wait until ___” to invest in clothes that I love. We wanted to create clothing that honors this meaningful (and vulnerable!) stage of life because mamas totally deserve to wear clothing they love! All of our pieces can be worn before, during, and after pregnancy.

Why use linen (and why did you choose FS as your source)?

We knew right away that we wanted to use sustainable, high-quality fabrics for our clothing.  Linen is so wonderful because it’s strong, low-maintenance, and only gets softer with time. Not all linen is created equal though. We initially ordered linen from a different place and received a message from our pattern maker (who we adore and trust) that the fabric was bad. Then we found y’all and we remember her saying that the linen was gorgeous, high-quality, and so soft. Good fabric makes all the difference. We want these pieces to last for years for our customers.

Who is your team and how do you go about in your every day?

Currently, it’s just the two of us who own and work on Emme. We must say though, we get so much help and advice from our pattern maker, manufacturers, fabric suppliers, and our husbands! We live really close to each other, so we meet a few times a week to discuss what needs to get done. Hailey is mostly over operations and Katarina is mostly over marketing. We share a lot of responsibilities and try to work around nap schedules!

What is the best part about being your own boss, what is the hardest?

Our favorite part of all of this is the freedom that it gives us to work for ourselves. We love being able to work from home and we just love the overall flexibility that it allows us to have on a day-to-day basis. That said, there are definitely many late nights and weekends when we’re working to make sure everything is taken care of. We really don’t miss our old jobs one bit! We’re happy we took the plunge.

How did you figure out the logistics of your production line?

Figuring out the first steps to start a clothing company wasn’t easy. We spent a lot of time in the early days googling whatever we could and talking to people who had done this before. Eventually, we decided it would be best to find a pattern maker and manufacturer who were local. We live less than 30 minutes away from them and we love it! They have really mentored us and it’s made this experience hands-on and very personal. It’s not uncommon that we meet up with our pattern maker for a quick fitting or stop by our manufacturers to check on the progress of our pieces. Having our clothing made locally is more expensive, but we think it’s important and we highly recommend it. We love the level of transparency that we have as a company.