Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Taylor Barkinn. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Taylor, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s one of the most important lessons you learned in school?
Most of the lessons that shaped me didn’t come from a classroom — they came from what people call the “school of hard knocks.” Not because school wasn’t valuable, but because there’s only so much you can truly understand in theory.
I was lucky (even if I didn’t realize it at the time) to start building a business in high school and carry it through college-and into my life today. That overlap changed everything. Instead of learning concepts in isolation confirm like marketing, finance, or operations, I was actively applying them in real time. If something didn’t work, there were immediate consequences. If something did work, I could feel it right away.
One moment that sticks with me happened during a business class where the day’s work felt like busywork — assignments that made sense on paper but didn’t reflect how things actually function in the real world. I asked my teacher if I could leave campus to attend a mentor meeting with someone who had already built a business. They said yes. Sitting across from someone who had lived through the exact problems I was trying to solve taught me more in that afternoon than any worksheet could have.
That experience reinforced a lesson I still carry with me: learning is most powerful when it’s paired with action. Because I was building something while being educated, I learned how to leverage relationships, ask better questions, and understand how ideas translate into reality. I wasn’t just studying business — I was becoming a business owner. That hands-on, trial-by-fire education shaped how I learn, work, and build to this day.
Taylor, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My partner, Tanner, and I met when we were 14 years old. While a lot of our peers were going to parties, we were in his parents’ garage learning how to screen print and talking about building an apparel brand. Even then, we knew we wanted to create something of our own.
From the beginning, our strengths complemented each other. Tanner is driven by art and illustration, and I’m energized by the business side — strategy, operations, and building something sustainable. Together, we leaned into those roles and started bringing our goods to local makers markets, slowly building a foundation one customer and one relationship at a time.
Over the years, we taught ourselves not just how to make products, but how to run a business — from sourcing and production to wholesale, storytelling, and community building. We built an outdoor-inspired brand rooted in our love for the nostalgia of the American West: road trips, small towns, hand-drawn graphics, and a slower, more intentional way of living.
What sets us apart is our commitment to keeping our craft in-house and staying deeply involved in every step of the process. We’ve built this brand from nothing, without shortcuts, and have stayed true to our values as it’s evolved. Today, I’m most proud of the longevity of what we’ve built — not just the products themselves, but the community around them. I want people to know that our work is made with care, intention, and a genuine love for both the creative process and the business behind it.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Without a doubt, the most defining test of our resilience was surviving the pandemic.
At a time when many creative businesses around us were deciding it wasn’t worth fighting anymore, we knew ours couldn’t end that way. It just couldn’t. We were scared, overwhelmed, and deeply uncertain about what the future would hold. There were a lot of tears and very few answers. What we thought might be a short-term disruption turned into years of nonstop pressure, as one domino after another kept falling.
But underneath the fear was a certainty: we had a business to save and a life we wanted to protect. Giving up wasn’t an option, even when the path forward was unclear.
So we got creative. We asked ourselves one simple question: How do we keep this thing alive? That question led us to cut up our own shirts and turn them into masks almost overnight. We built a team quickly, reorganized everything we knew about our workflow, and executed a mission that was purely about survival.
That decision — to fight instead of fold — was the hardest one we’ve ever made. But it’s also the reason we’re still here. What started as a last-ditch effort became a turning point that carried us through the chaos and into stability. Looking back, that moment didn’t just save the business — it proved to us that we could endure, adapt, and keep building even when the odds were stacked against us.
Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?
Yes — we manufacture the majority of our products ourselves.
Every design begins the same way: pencil to paper. Every illustration is drawn by hand, with no exceptions. From there, we screen print our apparel in-house, pour our candles, and embroider our hats. That hands-on approach isn’t a marketing angle — it’s how we’ve always worked.
We started this way out of necessity. We were two broke high schoolers who couldn’t afford to outsource manufacturing, so we learned how to print apparel ourselves. What began as a constraint quickly became something we loved. We fell in love with the craft and became determined to get good at it — not just “good enough,” but truly skilled.
As the business grew, we were often told that staying involved in manufacturing would hold us back, that we’d never be good at business if we kept spending our time making things. For a period, we listened. We outsourced parts of production, thinking it was the “right” next step. But it didn’t feel right. Our soul wasn’t in it anymore.
We realized we didn’t want to be a company that simply facilitated dollars. We wanted a life that existed working with our hands. That clarity led us to bring production back in-house and recommit to making our core products ourselves. Today, the majority of what we produce is made in our Denver workshop, with a small number of accessories outsourced only when it truly doesn’t make sense to produce them internally.
The biggest lesson we’ve learned about manufacturing is that quality and integrity come first. When you’re responsible for the making, you’re accountable in a different way — and that accountability shows up in the final product. For us, manufacturing isn’t just about control or efficiency; it’s about staying connected to the work, the process, and the values that built the business in the first place.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://moorecollection.com
- Instagram: @moorecollection
Image Credits
Grant Lemons