We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Rob Amato. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Rob below.

Rob, appreciate you joining us today. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

The time I took a risk is when I started my brand was at the end of 2018 when I found out the company I was working for with a salary was going to be shutting down and I decided to gamble on myself and take a chance and start my own Streetwear brand, It was always a passion of mine and I had a talked about it several times over the years, this was a chance to do it, so I started designing again since it was the 1st time I had gotten back into it since I was in Architecture design school in 2006. Starting a Streetwear brand has been a huge risk because of the time and hard cost investment that it takes to create a brand and I was very naïve of that, but the risk turned out well because of the support of my friend and family supporting the brand when I officially launched the brand in early 2022.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I became interested in Fashion/ Streetwear when I was young growing up in NYC my father was a Project manager in construction that would handle high-end/ Fashion retail and I go to the stores when they were close to being finished, and the pieces were being loaded into the store as well as when the stores were open, getting to see the designs and sometimes getting to meet the designers themselves. During college I started in Architectural Design when I was 17 and was always Interested in deign and taking an idea to a real product, While in college I changed my Major to Business and Hospitality while working in sales and marketing in the Alcoholic Spirits industry, not doing anything with design. In 2017 I was working for a spirits brand that was tied into street artists and I started to get back into design again, and had kicked around the idea of creating some t-shirts, but didn’t, until the end of 2018 when the company had closed it doors and I was out of a job, that is when I decided to go for it, and when I do something I go in 110%, Something I learned from my grandfather that if you going to do something and your are passionate it about it why not go all in, so I didn’t just create some T-shirts I created a whole collection of Hats, T-shirts, Hoodies and more. The thing I am most proud of is that I am doing this all on my own, I do have the support of my friends and Family but I had no connections and have learned this business from scratch and by doing and making the mistakes sometimes they are happy accidents What sets my brand apart is that when I create a design it has a story behind it, they are also limited and once they are sold out that design or colorway may never be available again.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

We Sell on our own website, the pros are that we are able to utilize SEO to get people to the website and ecommerce tools to generate sales, The site is just dedicated to Lost Laundry and we don’t have other brands to compete with on the site. The cons are are getting people to add to cart and complete the purchase,

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

What helped build my reputations is by delivering quality products every time. Also working with some brands outside the industry that allowed me to co-brand the pieces, so it was good exposure for the brand as well as getting potential customers to know the quality that we deliver.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.lostlaundryapparel.com
• Instagram: lostlaundryapparel
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Lostlaundryapparel/