We were lucky to catch up with Taylor Randal recently and have shared our conversation below.
Taylor, appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
I moved to Portland, Oregon right before Covid. Prior to the pandemic I was bartending, but when everything shut down I couldn’t get a job. I had sold vintage on the side for years, and had collected a lot of old quilts and denim. With no form of income coming in, I had to get creative. A few years before I had made myself a quilt coat, and I thought why not make one to sell? I listed it on the reselling platform I used to sell vintage, and it sold within hours. The requests started to pour in, and I would take custom orders with quilts customers already owned. From collecting vintage for almost 10 years, I had a stack of denim that needed mending and I would use the scraps from the quilts I had for patches etc. It snowballed pretty quickly, and having to be resourceful – I started to use the vintage towels and table cloths I had collected as well. The world was shutdown, and it was difficult to source material in person. I was so grateful to have a stash to tap into during that time.
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?
I am a seamstress specializing in mending and reworking vintage textiles. I take material that would eventually end up in a landfill and turn it into clothing such as quilt jackets, towel shorts, and table cloth dresses. I also do custom work and mend customers clothing on the side.
My goal is to combined suitability and my creativity!
I try and be as size inclusive as possible but the material I work with can be limiting, so that is why I also offer custom work. Where I mend clothing from customers and make clothing out of material they already have.
Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?
I did the first two years of my taxes completely wrong and did not set money aside for quarterly etc. So I owe the IRS over $30k and Oregon State $8k. I now have an accountant CPA who does all the backend sorting and documenting for taxes and I hope to never make a big mistake similar to this again! I am now on pay roll through my own company, and am filing as a S.Corp this year vs L.L.C. I am learning a lot of the business side of things the hard way. They don’t teach you this stuff in highschool.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
After accumulating so much tax debt, I’ve had to get creative with finding some passive income. I can only physically sew so much! So I now teach classes, and have recorded classes for sale on my website. I also publish a paid newsletter customers can subscribe to on Substack. For the people who want to know more about my personal journey and how I got here.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.softpawvintage.com
- Instagram: softpawvintage
- Other: https://taylorrandal.substack.com/
Image Credits
https://www.instagram.com/taylormccutchan/?img_index=1