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About Us
About Our Clothing & Accessories
Important Note about Drawstrings
Our History
About Us
LikeWear® is a modern day fusion of a high quality, casual boutique children’s clothing line and a more traditional party plan direct sales company. We offer a flexible, fun way to have your own clothing “store” without the risk of carrying inventory.
As the first and only direct sales company to focus on selling officially licensed products, we offer merchandise that is completely unique to the party plan business. Yet, unlike other items sold in this channel, our merchandise doesn’t require much demonstration as its designs feature family friendly, super well-known brands like Lucky Charms, Tootsie Roll, Jr. Mints, Dots, Honda motorcycles, the Pillsbury Doughboy and many others. So rather than presenting, our Independent Sales Representatives simply help people shop for “what they like”!
And we’ve got a lot to like! From modern day and vintage package art, to exclusive designs and unique twists on popular culture, we’ve created 100+ images that can be mixed and matched with different garment bodies and colors. This makes for fabulous fun and a unique twist at parties when our reps help their customers design!
LikeWear was founded by mompreneur, Lisa Gold, in April, 2007 when she decided to turn her entrepreneurial "hobby" into a business opportunity for other moms. What started as a keen idea to embellish children’s clothes in her kitchen, has evolved into a fast-growing direct sales company that is looking for founding representatives to help it expand nationally. LikeWear is a proud member of the Direct Selling Association (www.dsa.org).
~Lisa & Ken
About
Our Clothing & Accessories
LikeWear is actually more of a clothing “embellisher”
than a clothing manufacturer. We source high quality
blank apparel and accessories from the leading suppliers
to the decorated apparel industry and embellish them
with unique images that you and your kids would like to
wear. We do all the design and conceptualization
ourselves (which is the real fun part!) and have the
images custom made into heat transfers to our demanding
specifications as well as those of the CPSIA (i.e., no
special washing instructions, no lead, no phthalates,
etc.). We design our images to appeal to a wide audience
– from kids to adults – and as such, make the majority
of them in a variety of sizes so they can fit on the
full range of sizes we offer because we believe that
everyone should be able to “wear what they like”.
IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT DRAWSTRINGS!
You may or may not be aware that the Consumer Product
Safety Commission (CPSC)
has issued guidelines regarding the inclusion or size of
drawstrings in children’s clothing. While we only source
garments from manufacturers that follow the CPSC’s
guidelines for drawstrings in children’s clothing, we
recognize that some children might need an adult size,
or just like to wear their clothing big and loose. As
such, IF YOU SHOULD PURCHASE AN ADULT-SIZED GARMENT FOR
A CHILD THAT CONTAINS A DRAWSTRING, WE STRONGLY
RECOMMEND THAT YOU COMPLETELY REMOVE THE DRAWSTRING.
Please visit
http://www.cpsc.gov/CPSCPUB/PUBS/208.pdf) to
learn more about the CPSC’s recommended guidelines for
drawstrings on children’s clothing.
Our History
 In May of 2004, Ken Gold returned home from a weeklong trade show to find his entire dining room filled with blank apparel, iron-on transfers, fabrics, rhinestones and ribbons… his wife, Lisa Gold, was hunkered over a sewing machine creating her own clothes. It turns out that while he was away, Lisa decided she was tired of just being an at home mom to their three kids and wanted to start a small business selling embellished children’s clothing. She called it Good As Gold’s and her plan was to make the product herself and sell it at local sales events and house parties in and around northern New Jersey.
Over the next couple of years Lisa built a respectable business and a local following for her line of casual kids’ apparel. She even started to sell to some small boutique stores. Then, as a result of her products being given as gifts, she began receiving unsolicited requests from women who wanted to sell her clothes at sales events and house parties in other markets, some as far away as Boston and Chicago.
Ken supported his wife’s entrepreneurial “hobby” and helped her out on the side with accounting, marketing and computer design work. He also lugged her tubs of inventory around to the various sales events and parties she attended and made deliveries to customers. While there, he’d frequently walk around and check out the other products and vendors. As a marketing professional with licensed product experience, Ken noticed that there were very few licensed apparel products at these events or at the local boutique stores his wife sold to. And if there were any, they were quite often counterfeit.
The Gold’s did some research and came to realize that Lisa’s business was very similar to the home business opportunity that Direct Sales companies like Mary Kay or The Pampered Chef offer their independent representatives. They also learned that Direct Sales is a $32 billion category and there were no other companies focused on selling licensed apparel via the channel. It quickly became apparent that there was a real business opportunity here. If they could acquire the apparel licensing rights for brands and properties that people really like, they could provide a turnkey business opportunity for moms to sell licensed clothing in their local neighborhoods all across the country.
The Gold’s formed an LLC in June, 2006 and true to their vision of having people “wear what they like”, named the company LikeWear. Ken was working full time as VP of Marketing for a video game publisher, but in his spare time, he hired a network marketing consultant, started writing a business plan and installed a professional heat press in their dining room. He also used his industry connections to set up meetings to pitch the idea at The Licensing Show in Manhattan. The concept was very well received by the licensing executives they met with because it was non-competitive with their existing licensing deals, incremental revenue, a unique way to “market” directly to their target audience and had the side benefit of rooting out license infringement at a grass roots level.
Shortly after the show, the company signed on its first licensing partner, Tootsie Roll Industries. With assets from recognizable candy brands like Tootsie Roll, Blow Pops, Dots, and several others, the Gold’s worked together to create a unique line of licensed clothes and accessories. When it was ready in April, 2007, Lisa stopped doing business under the name Good As Gold’s and LikeWear entered its “soft launch” phase.
The first few collections were very well received. They signed on 12 independent sales representatives in 6 months and the company started to grow. Lisa handled everything by herself during regular business hours, while Ken stayed up until 4am almost every night working on invoicing, computer design and all the other demands of a growing business.
Fast forward to present day and LikeWear is a proud member of the DSA (www.dsa.org) with independent sales representatives in 12 states and apparel licensing deals with Tootsie Roll Industries, General Mills, Honda Powersports and The Topps Company. The company has recently implemented a new Compensation plan and is looking for founding representatives to help it expand nationally and help women across the country to have a flexible, fun business of their own.
LIKEWEAR,
the LIKEWEAR logo, WEAR WHAT YOU LIKE and the Smiley
Icon are registered trademarks of LikeWear LLC. © 2010 LikeWear
LLC. |
