We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Evette Preston a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Evette thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

The name Preston and James partially comes from my last name Preston. I’m one of 10 girls with no brothers. After the passing of my father, I wanted to celebrate our family name and give homage for it to carry on in a non traditional way.

Preston is a old British name that embodies a sense of regal antiquity as well as the everyday life, which represents the brand’s aesthetics. Preston and James is a brand for everyone, humans and aliens a like. Our designs are effortless in style but elevated with great fabrics, fun styling and my love of color.

When I decided to use my name I wasn’t completely aware of the meaning of Preston. After researching, I’m thrilled it aligns perfectly and couldn’t more proud of what it stands for.

As for James, James is a name I have always loved. It is regal, smooth, classic and is the perfect match for Preston. I didn’t have anyone in mind when selecting, although I do have several friends named James that I adore…adding James was random. However it worked out perfect.

Evette, 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?

For me, fashion has always been on the forefront as my career choice and path from when I was a little girl. Surrounded by trend, art and vintage growing up it influenced me and helped shape my own fashion identity pushing me to be more unique from my peers and define my personal style. Which in turn helped me in the brand creation and identity for Preston and James.

I started Preston and James in 2017 with my love of fashion, art, sustainable living and effortless style. I create collections that are either small batched or handmade using vintage and sustainable materials. I wanted the look to be fun, non mundane and a little weird, as I saw a need for uniqueness and to be distinctive from my customers.

I create a little bit of everything, my style of art is all over the place, it’s honestly hard for me to describe the brand’s art style besides saying fun. I literally paint and design whatever is on my mind or the mood of the day. Most of my designs come from my interests but can be anything from nature, to shapes, to food, to astrology, to silhouette portraits, to dark and edgy ideas. In addition to my own ideas, I love working with customer concepts to create their own custom clothing either with painting or through designing and sewing.

Preston and James brand style will always be effortless. That is the one design choice that I will always hold true to. There’s a need to be casual but also fun, I feel most effortless brands stick to the basic simple silhouettes without adding variety in body shapes. For Preston and James, I’ve added dresses, various tops styles, skirts and fun fabrics in additional to the normal T-shirt for more elevated collections.

I love that I have the opportunity to create unique styles and for others to not only appreciate it but to support it. It truly means the world to me to have this brand, my brick and mortar store in Denver, CO and the love from my local community.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I started Preston and James after over 20+ years of working in corporate fashion and art industries. Seeing how fast fashion was starting to have detrimental effect on our environment and knowing the non glamorous details of industry lead me to make the much needed changes for something that was more aligned with my life values.

In turn, I formed Preston and James a brand that I could not only feel good about but it would also have the sustainable values and community based mindset I so desperately needed for myself to continue working in the fashion world. Leaving a corporate salary and starting a venture as an entrepreneur was and still is the hardest thing I have ever done. Having nothing but myself to fall back on is a constant reminder to always work hard, stay true to myself and realize that I cannot do this alone. I must be willing to ask for help when need be and the comfort zone of just wanting to create and be behind the scenes is a thing of the past. To succeed I have to be willing to play each role necessary in my business and own every single one of them!

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

My best advice for managing a team is to treat your members like a team. Managing a group can be complicated with several personalities you are interacting with.

If you work with each team member and assign their roles bases on their skill set for the job at task it allows not only the team to feel appreciated but also keeps morale high.

Each member was hired for a reason, they have a knowledgeable skillset. Allow them to use it, team effort comes with team support. With each member feeling appreciated and owning their own task it helps remove the toe stepping and competition that can play a role sometimes in a group setting.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.prestonandjames.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/prestonandjames
• Facebook: facebook.com/prestonandjames

Image Credits
Rita Labib Zosia GS Emilynn Rose