As some of you may or may not know. I used to run a clothing firm called City of the Sun. I was certain we had a good thing going and that we had what it took to make it a credible success. We had solid ideas, what we thought were great designs and a group mentality that we were friends at the end.
Well that last bit basically attributed to our demise, it shut us down. Out of the 6 involved, i am only in contact with 2. Those 2 i have been friends with for more than a decade so therefore we have a strong relationship. I, once in a blue moon, speak to a third member who i wish i was in more contact more with. As for the last two, i don't know what happened. We were all so close, spent a lot of time together, even had a holiday together which obviously had its good & bad moments but we got on with it.
After a resignation and many arguments later, the group dwindled itself down to 4 members. It's not like i didn't want to speak to the other members but after us all agreeing that we "will have our friendship no matter what"... we learned the hard way that things don't always pan out the way we would like them to be.
You could say we had some success, we were in magazines, our sponsored bands had shared stages with the likes of Lostprophets, Paramore to name a few, but we never really hit the jackpot. Not even with all the help and support we had from a hardcore few (you know who you are) that were at every event we were at, bought every single design that we released and generally spread nothing but love for us.
My verdict of what happened to us was pretty much Accidental Death. We imploded and crashed landed because of our delusions of grandeur . Our internal squabbles would effectively lay the ground work for a failing company. I recently went through EVERY email i ever received from other members of the group regarding decisions, absence from meetings, petulance and everything in-between.
I never knew it could have ended like that. I never knew 6 men, could have had such petty arguments and cause so many issues on such trivial issues. Maybe some of the disagreements were legitimate but we never seemed to find a middle ground. I am not singling anyone out, collectively, we dropped a ball. I am sitting on lost investments, shirts in boxes doing nothing. A constant reminder of a business venture gone down the drain.
But even after i analyze all of this, i still don't regret doing it. I had some great times, seeing some of our hard work actually pay off. I can honestly say that there is no better feeling for a designer or businessman to see your product being worn by someone you don't really know, walking down the street, or when you see a band member on stage doing what they love and choosing to do it in your shirt.
As for future ventures, i am not sure where we will all be in 5 years time. I'd like to think we all took something positive away from this and can build on it to make our lives a little more exciting. I am going to sell off the remaining shirts over the coming weeks on eBay, for pretty much the cost price.
Knowing our luck, we will probably hit the jackpot and demand for our shirts will be higher than it ever was. A boy can dream can't he?
T-Shirts have always been something i enjoyed making, and i am looking into the prospect of doing something along similar lines, to coincide with my portfolio getting updated which is still a work-in-progress.
I think i have gone on for long enough now. Plus its 3:07am and i should be sleeping, so night people.
BTW, go watch District 9, it's actually a really good film!!
