A very manic Monday

While most of you are right smack in the middle of summer and the heat that it brings, we are are thinking about winter.

We have been very busy working on our finishing touches to our fall pieces and even our winter items.

Keeping ahead of the fashion curve can be down right challenging.  We study trends, forecast style changes and even guess at what will be the next "it" item.  It can be hard.

How do you introduce new styles, you may be asking.  Well, it is a lot of trial and error.  For instance, this week we have a few new styles arriving in a variety of sizes and inseams.  Those styles, which have been carefully chosen to begin with, will spend the next two weeks being hard tested by the best cowboys and girls we can find.  After the "trial", we will then have to sit and listen to the good and the bad about what each jean has to offer.  We go into each meeting hoping to hear more good than bad, but, sometimes it is the other way around.

So, this particular Monday is even more manic than normal.  With new denim being tested and hopefully approved, we are all on edge, making sure that the final product is a home run.

What do we do when an item doesn't meet our standards?  Well, after a good cry, we archive the item in question, and block it from our memory.  We like to go back and look at the items in question after some time has passed and see what we have learned.  It can be quite comical to re live some of our "whoops" moments. Sometimes, after the wound of failure has healed itself, we can see how truly wrong we were.  Most of the time, however, it doesn't take much to right the denim wrong and try again.

The point is, no matter how hard we try, sometimes we too, get it wrong.  We never, ever like to admit it publicly, so don't tell.

Mr. Kimes and myself have learned a lot of lessons the hard way, and we believe that those lessons are the most valuable