{"id":1774,"date":"2016-08-30T00:51:15","date_gmt":"2016-08-30T00:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/life\/roe-may\/"},"modified":"2016-08-30T00:51:15","modified_gmt":"2016-08-30T00:51:15","slug":"roe-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/roe-may","title":{"rendered":"Keeping it Local: Two Long Beach Natives’ Dreamy Women’s Apparel Brand Takes Off"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Pictured from left to right, designers and owners of roe + may Jackie Loughery and Katie Welty Fraser. Photos by Asia Morris. Images of roe + may’s upcoming\u00a0<\/em>Sunday Kind of Love\u00a0collection courtesy of the designers.<\/em><\/p>\n

Two Long Beach natives and Wilson High School alumni, Katie Welty Fraser and Jackie Loughery, are living the dream right now\u2014if you count that dream being working six to seven days a week to keep their budding women\u2019s apparel brand, roe + may, on its steady upward trend.<\/p>\n

\u201cJackie had moved home from Hawaii […] and I was like, let\u2019s start a brand,\u201d said Welty Fraser, who has over seven years of experience in the fashion industry. \u201cOf things that we want to wear and our friends want to wear, [clothes that are] effortless and cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt literally started on a walk over coffee in Naples one spring morning, and that was almost two years ago, that moment,\u201d said Loughery.<\/p>\n

The collection\u2019s strong social media presence<\/a>\u00a0caught the eye of Leah Justman, owner of Place Showroom<\/a>, an influential launching pad for budding brands as well as an ambassador for established lines, with offices in Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta and Dallas.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe wanted to sign us immediately, and she told us she had a bunch of people showing interest; she told us she had a spot that was open and she just loved the story of two girls, Katie and I growing up together, living in Long Beach, naming the company after our [grandmothers],\u201d said Loughery. \u201cSo she took a leap of faith with us and it [has] changed our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Another major turning point was when roe + may received a purchase order from Planet Blue, an international designer and retailer of women\u2019s apparel known for its bohemian vibe and Southern California background. The two remember exactly what they were doing the moment they found out, now carrying the realization that their passion project had quickly become career-worthy. Loughery, whose full time job was at Nordstrom at the time, had to take a moment to imagine her designs being sold by a competitor.<\/p>\n

“So here I\u2019m working in retail at a retail store and I\u2019m getting a company off the ground and someone like Planet Blue is coming in,” she said. “Oh my god, it was a life-changing moment, definitely.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since roughly January, the design savvy entrepreneurs have made roe + may their full-time job, a full turn around from their humble beginnings two years ago, when they were making bridesmaid dresses for friends\u2019 weddings and posting inspiration pictures on their Instagram in an effort to create the lifestyle image that propelled them forward in the first place. Pieces from their collections can now be found in 60 stores and have been picked up by major online retailers including Planet Blue and Free People.<\/p>\n

In Long Beach, you can find their designs at Twig & Willow.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think the hardest part was we started it from basically nothing,\u201d said Welty Fraser. \u201cOut of pocket, we had no investors, no capital, we\u2019ve earned every dollar ourselves[…] We\u2019ve worked hard together to structure it in a way that it grows in a positive way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Welty Frasure and Loughery are now are in the midst of launching their third collection, called Sunday Kind of Love<\/em>, set to pre-sale online in mid-September and to begin hitting stores in early October. It\u2019s based on partnership, warmth and holiday, three of the words the owners threw out to describe it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe love this collection, I love it,\u201d said Welty Fraser. \u201cIt\u2019s been one of my favorite [collections] that we\u2019ve designed. We have some really good versatile, effortless bodies\u2026We want it to be one of those lines that you throw on and you feel great; you feel feminine, you feel sexy.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019ve always from the beginning tried to be a suitcase collection, that you can just take around the world with you,\u201d Loughery chimed in.<\/p>\n

The clothes are designed in Long Beach and manufactured in Los Angeles, while their latest collection was worn by a Long Beach model and shot by a Long Beach photographer, Samuel Black. Next steps include opening an office space in Long Beach, where the two plan to hire Cal State Long Beach interns, and continue to support local creatives, professionals and the community as a whole that has helped their own dreams soar.<\/p>\n

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“You have to just go all in and jump off that cliff, it’s worth a lot of sacrifice,” said Loughery. “And as someone once told us if it were easy everyone would do it and let me tell you it\u2019s not easy.”<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of faith that it\u2019s come this far, that I think it\u2019s going to take us further because we have a strong work ethic,\u201d said Welty Fraser. \u201cWe work really, really hard. We kind of have no option, we want no other option.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sunday Kind of Love<\/em> will be launched online Thursday, September 15. You can visit the roe + may website here<\/a>\u00a0for more information and follow the brand on Instagram @roeandmay<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two Long Beach natives and Wilson High School alumni, Katie Welty Fraser and Jackie Loughery, are living the dream right now\u2014if you count that dream being working six to seven days a week to keep their budding women\u2019s apparel brand, roe + may, on its steady upward trend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":67155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[212],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hi-lo","tag-fashion","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1774"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=1774"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}