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Dave Pearson
My name is Dave Pearson, I’m from Lincoln, England, I’m 25 and I’m the co-owner
of Paint the Stars Clothing and Breakout Distribution Ltd. I’m also a freelance
designer. I’ve been in the apparel industry for about 5 years.
Just Winging It
I’d be lying if I said that we started PTS with a long-term goal. I have the utmost
respect for people who can say that they started their brand with a 5-year plan
and made it happen, but in our case it was the fact that my friend Martin and I
were super bored in our little hometown one day and creative outlet that wasn’t
playing in a terrible band.
I’ve been into art since I was a kid and was dipping my toe in the design pool
and had done a couple of t-shirt designs for fun. Martin was a year into a degree
in Media and I was helping him with some Photoshop techniques for his
coursework, which he instead used to mess around with designing t-shirts. As
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we were both messing around with designing shirts we decided one day to
start a project and design some clothing that we would wear, as we couldn’t
see anything else out there that grabbed us. We put a few (awful, awful) designs
together, mocked them up, sent them to some stores to see what they thought
and they all put in a bunch of orders which paid for our first print run. The tees
(somehow) sold well which got us a solid fan-base, and the rest is history!
“I think it’s pretty cool that two dudes who don’t have a clue
about designing for the apparel industry can wing it and be
reasonably successful.” —DAVE PEARSON, PAINT THE STARS
I remember having a conversation with Martin at the time and saying, “We’ll
give this two years, we’ll more than likely be a flash in the pan, so two years
is realistic. Maybe we’ll come out of the other side with some business experience,
some good times, and maybe a little bit of money if we’re lucky.” We
weren’t naive or arrogant enough to think we’d still be around after 5 years, but
things just seemed to get crazier and bigger with each year, so we’re genuinely
humbled that it’s worked out and that all of the hard work has paid off and that
we’re still here.
I think it’s pretty cool that two dudes who don’t have a clue about designing
for the apparel industry can wing it and make a genuine go of a project and be
reasonably successful, because to me that says that there’s hope for everyone,
and I’m always quick to draw on that point to reassure anyone who doubts
themselves or thinks that it is an impossible goal.
Breakthrough Moment
Our breakthrough moment was probably when we started hearing from international
stores who wanted to sell out stuff, because we never even imagined
our brand would get recognized outside of our hometown, let alone outside of
the country. This really inspired us to step up our game and made us realize
that we were on to something. It all got very serious after that whereas before
that we were having a bit of a jolly and just taking it for what it was.
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