Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Aubri Steele. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Aubri, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of the most important things small businesses can do, in our view, is to serve underserved communities that are ignored by giant corporations who often are just creating mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Talk to us about how you serve an underserved community.

It has long been my personal mission to create a company that would serve as a platform for good, something that would enable me to focus my efforts in the direction of the underserved and those who need a helping hand. I can’t say Civile Apparel is yet at a place where I have the luxury of doing the kind of work to the extent I would like to, but it has indeed created a small platform, and associated connections, that have enabled me to begin that mission by starting small.

For the past year, the Civile team has been volunteering our time with Seeds of Hope San Diego, which helps low income refugee families become more self-sufficient through the transition of moving to the United States. The students at Seeds of Hope are absolutely incredible and the opportunity to teach them pickleball has been an adventure and a gift. This month, we had the pleasure of partaking in a fundraising celebration where the kids were able to show off their hard-earned pickleball skills in front of a live audience, and even had the opportunity to play with a few pickleball pros like Callan and Jen Dawson, Brandon Nsekpong, and Meghan Dizon.

What an honor it was to be a part of something like this. Giving back to our community, and the global community remains a constant driving force with Civile. Spreading love, kindness, and understanding through pickleball is our ultimate goal.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Everyone agrees, 2020 was an incredibly difficult year. The part I found the most challenging was being a parent amid the divisive sentiments of our country. It felt impossible to stand firmly behind the beliefs on which I was raised. The instructions of our own parents to, “play nicely” seemed distant aspirations, at best. How could we possibly ask this of our children when the world-at-large seemed to be slipping ever so swiftly into a pattern where manners didn’t matter and rigidity of beliefs exacerbated controversy, inappropriate behavior, and a seemingly infectious absence of empathy.

This is not a political statement, this is a reflection of the human experience. As a human race, we seemed to have lost our way. As a parent, this was a heartbreaking glimpse into a future I did not want for my children.

When my husband decided to paint a pickleball court in the front driveway, it seemed a fun but insignificant gesture at the time. Knowing little about the sport, we thought it would be a fun way to engage our five teenage children and to keep them active amid the closure of schools, sports, and their social lives.

Pickleball was a sport we knew our parents and their friends played. The smaller court and dink-style play allowed for varying levels of exertion and therefore was accessible for people of all ages. We quickly became well-versed in the game and began inviting neighbors and friends to play, all while maintaining social distance and excessive sanitizing of equipment. This was the sport we could play with our parents AND our children. Birthdays and holidays in 2020 were always spent eating outdoors and rotating through a few games of pickleball. Simply put, pickleball brought us together

Civile Apparel was born out of that tragedy and darkness of 2020. From the heavily polarized sentiment of our nation, to the isolation and exclusion that was forced upon us as a result of the pandemic.

Upon diving further into the fashion behind the sport, I noticed that there was no urban-facing apparel brand that married my active lifestyle with who I am as a woman, and definitely nothing out there that felt as multifaceted as I do. I want to be able to go from my office, to the pickleball court, to the store, golfing with my husband, and maybe out for drinks, all with a great performance fabric fashion piece as the base.

We at Civile Apparel see pickleball as the unifying sport that offers everyone an accessible, fun, and competitive outdoor respite. We’re just making it more fashionable.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Civile is only about a year and a half old, and in that time we’ve had to pivot slightly a few times to stay ahead of the curve and out of deeply saturated markets.

With that said, a few months ago we realized that we had begun to stray from who we are as individuals and began to make things we “felt we needed to make” because of other brands, ultimately leading us away from what made us unique. Our largest pivot to date, all things considered, is an effort to steer the ship back on course to stay true to our personal aesthetic/style, true to who we are as a team, and to what makes us so desirable and unique in this space.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Customer service, customer service,…and customer service. There is no question in my mind about what keeps our customers coming back, and that is the level of service they receive. As a customer myself, the service and attitude of any team/company has made and broken all of the decisions regarding where I choose to spend my money. I make it a personal goal to give respectful, personal attention to every customer I come across. Our entire team stands proudly behind what we make and we honor and value feedback of all kinds in order to help us grow into the business we hope to become.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.civileapparel.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/civileapparel/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/civile-apparel-llc/