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

Alright, Dimarnae thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

Most harness shops, when you walk in they have premade gear tailored to humans of a certain size.

Here at DDHarnesses, I don’t have set sizes. Every order I make is 100% custom sized to your personal chest measurement. I don’t charge extra for sizing, I don’t have a limit to how “big” I can, or am willing to make something.

If you order from me, your gear will fit you and be adjustable every single time.

The only time I make a set sized piece is if a store orders wholesale from me, and even then I encourage the shop to send someone my way if they need a piece sized outside of those set measurements.

I also have no limits to what I’ll make custom, if you can draw it (roughly) I can make it come to life for you. I’ll never say no to a custom attempt

Dimarnae, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Me and my best friend Dan McLaughlin started DDHarnesses in 2019. (Hence the name Double D Harnesses. Dan and Dimarnae) Back then it was a lot of experimenting just because we could, I took that to Etsy and we started getting orders almost immediately.

I turned that into my full time job, took a giant leap and quit my well paying stable position to jump into the harness world where I’ve been for 3 years now.
Dan helps with Photoshoots and designs, but every order you see either on my website/Instagram/tiktok is made by me myself and I.

I make 100% custom hand made pieces with any material people want. All my gear is completely custom sized and there is no limit to what I can and am willing to create. I work 1 on 1 with people to make their dream gear.

One of my best selling and prize creations has to be my Trans masculine/ FTM harness. It was created with bottom growth in mind because it’s not something I’ve seen out in the harness world. I’ve seen full body gear, but never something specifically for trans masculine folks. I think it’s one of my most recognizable pieces because it’s something ftm/trans masculine people can use as a gender affirming tool which i think is grand

Anyone new to my shop/ brand I just want to know that I’m a 100% judgment free zone. Any idea or goal you have in mind that I can make come to life, I’m here for. I’d never say no to an idea.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I knew nothing about social media when I first started. I still know very little when it comes to platforms like Twitter, but we’re getting there.

My Instagram, I just started posting. We’d make Dan put on some gear, set off into the woods by my house and light some smoke bombs.
Dan himself already had a decent following on Instagram so he made sure to share to his page what we had been doing, which definitely helped begin our following growth.
From there I started reaching out to other people on Instagram who had larger followings than I did and that’s a great free way to grow your following for any business.

I reached out to someone with around 15k followers who was in the lgbtq community (because that’s who I wanted for clients , like minded humans)
I offered him free gear, in exchange for photos in that gear and honestly that’s how I still do it today with a lot of those same people I had first reached out to.
I haven’t had to pay any influencer for a post I’ve only sent them my product in exchange for photos and we’ve had great business relationships from day one.
I’ve had my pieces work on red carpets because of this method so I definitely stick to it and don’t plan to change it any time soon.

My biggest following is on TikTok, as of right now I have 116.8k followers on that platform, which is insane.
It was my personal tiktok so the username is @Kelstfoer and had nothing to do with DDHarnesses. But I started filming the process of building harnesses, and it just took off. People loved watching them being built and asking questions, so I try my best to film what I can now when working. Content is everything when it comes to driving your own sales outside of selling platforms like Etsy where people are already shopping for your product. If you want any your own website you need your own platforms to bring people to it

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

I have my own website, but I started and still make most of my sales through Etsy.

I think it’s is a great place to start a business, because people are already shopping through their website and looking for items like yours to buy.
Once you start making sakes and building reviews it makes it a great place for people to trust you and what you can do

BUT, Etsy has a lot of limits when it comes to what you sell. My first year on Etsy I was doing great sales but didn’t realize I couldn’t sell some of what I was trying to sell.

Others on Etsy were selling the same items as me, but mine kept getting flagged for some reason and to this day I have no idea what their criteria is for who gets their listings taken down and who doesn’t.

Pros;
– they have the traffic you need to grow your business

– you can pay for ads through Etsy which helps your exposure both on their site and offsite ads

– messaging through their website is very helpful to keep orders organized

Cons;

– they don’t care if you’re a one man shop, if someone opens a case and you’re past the initial deadline they refund them regardless of the situation which has resulted in a lot of waisted time and material for me

– it’s almost impossible to contact customer service

– their fees are insane

Overall I’d say it’s a great place to start but definitely try to grow your social platforms and sell on your own site as fast as you can

Contact Info:

• Website: DDHarnesses.shop
• Instagram: @dd.harnesses
• Facebook: @dd.harnesses
• Other: Tiktok: @kelstofer