"A fresh white button up with the Statue of Liberty and those ice pops I was obsessed with when I was 12 years old."
That's probably what the idea for "Bomb Pops and Freedom" sounded like when it popped into my head sometime in 2013.
As crazy as it sounds, this style button up shirt was definitely not all the rage around that time and since the idea in my head was incredibly specific I just decided to make this kick ass 4th of July shirt myself.
How hard could it be, amiright?!
I learned quickly that the prototype process was pretty grueling. I didn't go to school for fashion or technical design so I totally winged it... as usual.
After watching a few YouTube videos on how to make patterns I figured out how to lay out Lady Liberty and a crude Bomb Pop icon on Photoshop, did a ton on vendor outreach and after a few months of back and forth this bad boy arrived.
It actually looked pretty decent but for some reason I was too embarrassed to wear the shirt out in public. It's hard to explain why, but I feel like it's similar to when someone tries to sing a song they wrote in public for the first time.
I finally put this s̶o̶n̶g̶ ̶d̶o̶w̶n̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶p̶a̶p̶e̶r̶ shirt into production but the idea of showing it off to the real world made me sweat. I am sure everyone has been through this situation at one point in their life. Instead of sucking it up and wearing Bomb Pops with pride I buried it on a shelf somewhere.
More than an entire year later (wtf!! I had this shirt for a year and was too shy to wear it! what is wrong with me?) my buddy was having a bachelor party at Austin City Limits so I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to debut the insane shirt I had made.
Better late than never.
It wasn't until the very last day of the festival that I decided to get out of my own head and actually wear it. I'm glad I took that leap.
This was the first time I saw the RSVLTS effect in real life. I couldn't go more than 100 feet without someone saying "cool shirt"... it became a running joke. Somehow this stiff, rough, non breathable cotton prototype was stealing the show and the proof of concept was validated in real life.
The early RSVLTS shirts were extremely rough, any of the OGs in the RSVLTS community will attest to that, but it shows how far we've come and our endless drive to constantly improve our product.