We recently connected with Melissa Hettinger and have shared our conversation below.
Melissa, appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
While on vacation in Savannah we found the cutest pair of bell bottom pants for my daughter who was 2 at the time. Fast forward about 6 months, and as she grew (as kids sometimes do) the pants no longer fit. After searching high and low for anything similar, and being close to giving up…I had an idea. Why don’t I just make my own! However with no knowledge of sewing and a three month old baby, I knew I had to rope in an expert…cue Grandma. With my design background and grandma’s lifetime of sewing expertise we set out on a journey to create our version of these magical bell bottoms.
The early days were filled with late night pattern making on our pool table, and midnight sewing sessions while pumping in between infant feeding sessions. After what seemed like a hundred rounds of pattern revisions and testing; we finally had them…the perfect pants. They were beautiful and comfortable (for a kid to agree that’s saying a lot). Parents you know the struggle getting kids to buy off on clothing. But the best part was…they were OURS. If you haven’t felt that feeling, I cant describe the high from crafting and creating something with your hands and mind to solve a problem.
Melissa, 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?
Our brand is made up of three generations of women; my Mother in-law, myself, and my daughter. My background has always been design. I grew up borrowing my grandmothers pastel set and drawing nature scenes from her yard in the Santa Cruz Mountains. As an adult, I moved through my career doing a range of design jobs; from store-front retail displays, to various commercial interior design jobs.
My Mother in law grew up with her Mom sewing her clothes for their special school functions, Usually because they were on a budget but also the search for originality. She learned to sew and kept challenging herself with various projects. She’s always had the attitude of a hard worker and a strong desire to create successes. So when I asked if she thought we could make our own pattern and bell bottoms, she said “Sure we can!”; and with that the journey began.
As a parent/grandmother, our goal is to fill that need for fashionable, fun, clothing for kids that is comfortable. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve picked out an outfit for my daughter that was immediately shot down because it didn’t fit right or something was scratchy. We want our clothing to be a win for both the kids and the parents!
Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.
We started this business in one of the most interesting times of my life, while during one of the most challenging times for the world. During the early stages of the creation of our first product we weren’t really sure if this was something that would take off, or just be a fun project for us and maybe something to share with a few friends.
The unique situation we noticed starting this project during Covid lockdowns is people had few places they could go, they were looking for new things to try/buy, and were ready to shop. On top of all that, people weren’t leaving the house as much so they were gravitating towards loungewear. This product we were developing fit that niche perfectly.
It started by word of mouth from friends, then after we launched our IG page, local moms would reach out asking questions about the pants. We started doing porch pick-ups and drop offs. Then moved into pop-ups at various Livermore businesses.
What started out as a fun project to get to know my mother in law more, quickly turned into something far greater than we could have imagined.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
A remember like it was yesterday when we got that email. It was a weekday afternoon. My mother-in law usually came over to help us with the kids after school. I took a little break from kid-wrangling to check my email. We has just recently partnered with a sales-rep from LA, and there on my computer was an email from her saying that our bell bottoms would be sold at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville! We were ecstatic!!
Unfortunately shortly after that high our business scaled back quite a bit. After selling bell bottoms almost exclusively for a year, we had to pivot and develop additional products to generate more interest.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.maryjeanclothing.com
- Instagram: @maryjeanclothing