Julia Gray turned a COVID-19 quarantine into a clothing brand.
While holed up in early 2020 with her family in Minnesota as a high school junior, Gray was inspired to give clothing designing a try, thanks to her family household of clothing brand owners, artists and graphic designers.
Gray told her parents that she wanted to try designing shirts and posting them on social media to see what would happen. Her parents said she could try to design something and see where it goes — but there were no promises.
“I am going to take that as a challenge,” Gray said. “I’m going to design.”
She began to pull inspiration from prints, colors and graphics that she enjoyed seeing on other clothing pieces. By the time fall 2021 rolled around, Gray was a 19-year-old University of Arizona freshman majoring in retail and consumer sciences — and she had sold out of her first collection. Now she’s working on her third.
‘Rainbows and smiley faces’
At the beginning, Gray started with six designs — young and trendy with happy vibes — after putting in the work to learn how to build a brand.
“I started designing rainbows and smiley faces,” Gray said. “I put in my own twist.”
Gray said she came up with her brand name, The Be Good Collection, on a walk with her dad. She started advertising her website in 2020 on Instagram, where she had a small following.
Gray slowly built her audience, working on marketing and posting her content, as she had nothing but time on her hands thanks to the pandemic.
But then she realized what her true goal was for the brand.
“Why not help people during this time?” Gray said. “I am young, I am healthy and I can try to help people through this brand.”
For each of her sweatshirts, Gray decided to pick a charitable foundation related to what the design depicts and donate 10% of the shirt’s proceeds to that foundation. For instance, Gray’s “Social Butterfly Sweatshirt” donates 10% of its proceeds to The Butterfly Foundation, which helps support people who have suffered from loss and hardship.
The Be Good Collection's “Social Butterfly Sweatshirt” donates 10% of its proceeds to The Butterfly Foundation, which helps support people who have suffered from loss and hardship.
With six different designs in her collection, Gray donates to six different organizations. The charities she donates to include the P.S. I Love You Foundation, the LiveLoveLaugh Foundation, the Smile Foundation, Big Sunday and the Animal Humane Society.
“I’m combining what I love with something good,” Gray said.
Gray says she has sold around 120 of these pieces and has been able to donate over $1,200 to the various charities.
Growing the brand
By this point, Gray had found her target audience and realized she needed to advertise to a different group of people than she may have been expecting.
“Most of my customers are between the ages of 8 and 18,” Gray said.
Because they are young, Gray knows she needs to advertise not only to them, but to their parents as well. So, Gray chooses designs that will appeal to her young audience as well as to their parents, especially to show that her brand is legit and authentic. With that, Gray began to find other ways to market.
She eventually began to reach out to Instagram influencers who had similar audiences to see if she could send them an article of clothing to help grow her audience and market her collection.
“You can’t always blow up by yourself,” Gray said. “You can’t have a business and expect people to just come to you.”
TikTok and Instagram influencer, Bryn Sato, helped play a part in Gray’s brand success. Sato has 1.7 million followers on TikTok, 97,900 followers on Instagram and 32,200 subscribers on YouTube. After Sato began to post The Be Good Collection on her accounts, people began to take notice.
“Once she started posting… her fans started following me,” Gray said. “Before I knew it, I had sold out of my first collection.”
Having now amassed almost 10,000 followers on Instagram, Gray sat down with her mother, Terri Gray, and began to design and advertise her second collection for The Be Good Collection.
While working on the second collection, Gray was contacted by a local Minnesota boutique, Urban Eve Medina, to see if they could sell her clothes in their store. This was a surprise and a motivation for Gray as she had only been working on her clothing brand for about a year.
“If I have gotten this far in a year, how far can I get in two years?” Gray said.
The third collection is on its way
With support and assistance from her parents, Gray continued designing shirts for her online and now in-store customers.
Currently, Gray is working on designs for the third edition of The Be Good Collection and is happy about how her brand has been received so far. She hopes to begin shipping internationally. Her dream is to have her clothes in Target.
Kathleen Kennedy, a retail and consumer sciences professor at the UA, is familiar with what it takes to start a business.
Julia Gray is a University of Arizona student majoring in retail and consumer sciences.
“Doing something this ambitious at 18 is impressive,” Kennedy said. “While she will likely face challenges, and I think every new business faces challenges, most can be overcome.”
The Be Good Collection’s customers often interact with Gray to let her know how excited they are for the pieces. Not only that, but some even message Gray for advice on starting their own company or just for ideas on how to be more confident in themselves.
“It’s been so exciting feeling like an older sister or cousin to all these girls,” she said. “That’s the most rewarding thing.”
