We recently connected with Simone Witherspoon and have shared our conversation below.

Simone , appreciate you joining us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

Candi Coated Couture was created out of desperation. I needed to brand myself and quick! I recall a few of my customers referring to my bustiers as “candy” because they were all so colorful. As the brand grew I began dislike the name, but that was what everyone knew me by. A rebrand would be too much headache! But Brooke Lynn Beary/BKLYN beary, that gave me a second chance. It was a name I pondered on for 9 months. I am from Brooklyn after all, and my mom’s middle name is Lynn! And so it was. Brooke Lynn Beary arrived on February 3rd of 2016 and her clothing line was already in the works as well. She’s now at the age where we can work on the line together! I take all of her input into consideration and she loves being the face of her brand.

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

Candi-Coated Couture is the brainchild of Simone Witherspoon. Simone hails from a family of seamstress who proceeded her and also attended the High School of Fashion Industries in New York City. From a very young age she had a very keen fashion sense and spent hours sketching models sketching models in various designs. After working in several Design houses such as Sears/Kmart, and for vendors that sold designs to Walmart, Nike and Levi’s, Simone decided to take her talent to become her own brand, hence CCC was born. CCC specializes in custom apparel for all shapes and sizes, as well as, providing graphics and styling services. BKLYN beary, a branch of CCC focuses on children apparel.

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

When I started there was only MySpace and Facebook was just getting their feet wet. I used both to connect with as much people as possible and soon the word has spread down the east coast about the girl who makes custom apparel, specializing in leather that caught the eye of motorcyclist. I made sure to post every piece I made.Social media now is even more instrumental in discovering people’s talents. Content content content! Be sure to post that content and be consistent!

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

CCC are custom one of pieces that are tailor made for the customer. Swatches of fabric, trims and a sketch are all presented to the client before production.

BKLYN beary- all graphics are done by me in-house. Then I work with various vendors to make the entire ensemble come to life. That took some trial and error, and many samples. I learned to be as detailed as possible in the beginning so there’s less room for error during production.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.candicoatedc.com
• Instagram: Candicoatedc/bklynbeary
• Facebook: Candi Atelier