We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful T. Smith. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with T. below.
Alright, T. thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?
To be honest about it, the name “Precious Hollows” came to me in a dream. I remember when I began contemplating on beginning my business endeavor, I always knew what lane I wanted to cross in, and that was art and fashion something that I’ve always had a passion for since a kid. But coming up with a name was something that just wasn’t coming easy to me. I was just stuck at knowing what I wanted the brand (whatever the name was to be,) to be and that was on the lines of building a “Elite American Luxury Lifestyle” brand. Upon falling asleep and waking up the name “Precious Hollows” was heavy on mind. After deeply thinking upon the name and talking to a few People, running it across it began to have that luxury sound and ring to it. So one thing about me I’ve always thrived off high end high quality products, so I began building a high end lifestyle brand from it. The name is meant to put one in the mindset of nice luxury things and places. So being if a person lives a lifestyle of visiting nice places or obtaining nice things why not have that type style clothing to fit the bill?
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
As I mentioned a little before I come from a background of fashion and art. The Art background it comes from my father (R.I.H.). He was an artist himself, he began teaching me to draw at a very, VERY early age of my youth begins g with animals, I fell in love with it from there. Honing my skills I would draw a lot of things that fascinated me, like sports players, Michael Jordan tennis shoes, cartoon characters etc. The fashion come into play from my family in general. My family has always had a keen fashion sense about ourselves, learning from all the elder and older sibling was something that I picked up on growing love for fashion. So I developed a habit of keeping myself well dressed at all times. I just always loved high end clothing of various styles. I believe the way a person dress it can say a lot about them, like mood, personality, cleanliness, lifestyle etc. But as time moved on I and I grew more in depth with my talent I grew a passion for music and more for clothing but I treated fashion as plan B. Want to do music more than anything, sure I went on to move forward and pursued the Arts Institute of Chicago for fashion, but I let the opportunity to attend, not wanting to leave from home and my comfort zone, but as I said before I developed a strong love for music playing my art and fashion as Plan B, way on the back burner. I later attended the Arts Institute of Pittsburgh for fashion again after having my first child, but a lot of trial and tribulations started happening so I dropped the courses. Knowing I had to do something in life and something realistic other than music the love for the music industry started fading and I knew that I didn’t want to work for real for nobody but myself, being my own boss is what I’ve always dreamed of and something I try to instill into my son, and that’s being your own boss just as well as having respect, education, hard work and dedication. So being that I was down to only two realistically talents and ones that I could build and profit on I had the two I’ve always loved, art and fashion so why not combine them and go for with. I took what knowledge I had and hours after hours of research, from videos, seeking, and conversations I began applying myself with my dream I had as youngster. I began selling custom artwork for people and even some logos for their business, I then began selling custom tumblers but under the brand name “Precious Hollows” accumulating the money I started the LLC, then began proceeding with the fashion aspect of Precious Hollows starting with Professionally made Precious Hollows hoodies. I then began build the brand up with “SnapBack Hats,” “carrying bags,” “polo shirts,” “T-shirts,” even adding kids fashion to the mix. Upon building the brand I knew something wasn’t enough, I knew I had to be unique and try and come with an idea that can set me apart from others, so I came with a solution of adding family sets to the brand. Because when you really look at brand you don’t really see family sets. It’s something about the twin look that I’ve always love. Upon my child being born I’ve always tried to go for that look from shirts, pants, to shoes, but a lot was different when it came to getting our clothes so I would get as close as I could for our twin look. But that twin look is good for family portraits so it’s something different I brought to the line.
But as we speak Precious Hollows is under construction and is being rebranded, I have a lot of unique surprises upcoming. To me it all about appealing and reaching new heights and levels. It’s a brand that’s definitely going to be remembered and around for a VERY long time.
How’d you meet your business partner?
There is no cofounder/business partner(s). Nobody but me and my son thought he is an owner, he is mainly just a model far as his role goes. But this a very good question. As of now I strictly run it myself, from fabric selections, choosing what style of garments to come, all the way to creating the designs. But I say all that to say this. I’m not oppose to building a team, in fact I than to realize in order to have real success it’s going to take a team. Running a business by oneself it’s not good on an individual’s stress level. I’m constantly thinking, promoting, creating ideas etc. All in all I wouldn’t mind connecting with others as a whole solid team and seeing what new ideas and creations that can made and seeing what new direction we can shift Precious Hollows to. Is so much talent out here in world and I wouldn’t mind meeting those people and their ideas. In my opinion. One thing about it I can’t keep doing this by myself. Realistically.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
What helped me build a solid reputation in my market would have to be is once people actually started buying the clothing and seeing it in person and quality of my garments. I believe a lot of people thought I was doing this business from home and creating the garments myself. And even so today especially locally some people still might believe that is what I’m doing because regularly I have people who come to me asking for personal item, certain colors, and garments. Which leads to the lines of :
“it doesn’t work that way. I create and then it’s turned over to be created, I produce these garments on a high and professional level and I try to follow trends of the season.”
Maybe soon enough I’ll get to that point where I can create on a level were they can get a personalized brand garment of their choosing of certain colors, and things but far now it’s what you see is what you get. But once they get get their products it’s nothing but good reviews, so it spreads through the reviews and word of mouth about the quality. So I got a lot of trust I would say.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.precioushollows.com
- Instagram: precioushollows_official
- Facebook: precioushollows_official
Image Credits
Photo cred: Trace Atkins Photo cred: Lucine Films