Turning Art Into Fashion that Empowers and Inspires with Chriztina Marie, Owner/Founder and CEO of Eagle Rock WERKSHOP
About this episode:
Owner/Founder and CEO of Eagle Rock WERKSHOP, Chriztina Marie,is helping women feel more confident, courageous, and embrace their individuality through her unique clothing brand. As an artist and entrepreneur, Chriztina produces unique clothing that is both stylish and functional to help women look and feel their best. Her products feature original artwork that highlight individuality, while enhancing mood and performance.
Topics Discussed:
How Chriztina funded and launched her business
Why she left her career in the fashion industry to create her own activewear brand
How her company sustainably sources their products
How Chriztina lives her joy
About Chriztina:
Chriztina Marie has been an artist her entire life. She does not recall a time when she wasn't drawing, painting, sewing, singing or playing an instrument. When she was younger, she always dreamed of being an animator. Today, instead of her drawings coming to life on paper, she helps them come to life on people through her clothing brand. She is the Owner/Founder and CEO of WERKSHOP, a clothing brand that is all about living your best life, embracing your individuality and giving it all you've got. She’s also an Etch-a-sketch artist you can often find on TikTok live.
Read a raw, unedited transcript of this episode:
Thank you so much for joining us today. Chriztina, please tell us more about who you are.
I am an artist and female founder. I started a company called Eagle Rock Werkshop, a brand of active lifestyle apparel, mostly leggings that features my original artwork.
We like to learn and know how you built it. Tell us how you grew your business into what it is today and what is the most meaningful piece of advice that you can share for someone growing a career in business?
I founded a werkshop via Kickstarter. I was preparing my Kickstarter campaign in 2013. Launched it in December of 2013, and then it was funded in January. So when I was developing my first collection for Kickstarter, I'm entirely self-funded. I would say bootstrapped is a dramatic understatement. I started the company on an 18 month, no interest credit card. So all of my sample fabric, everything was on this one credit card. And because of the Kickstarter campaign, I was able to pay off the card well before the 18 months and had a pretty good foundation to get going. The campaign was wild, I was working as a design director full time for a men's denim company. At the same time, I was developing werkshop and launched the Kickstarter. I remember that December I was like at work all day and then checking my phone to see the pledges and see what the status was on Kickstarter every chance I could get. And the Kickstarter did so well. I was able to leave my job and take a leap of faith and give werkshop 100 percent of my attention. Effective February 2014. Well, it's everywhere now. Eight years? Exactly.
Yes, it's so fun that you didn't let any fear of not being funded initially hold you back because I can see how it could in some cases and hundreds of people gave to your campaign to support your business in 60. Yeah, anything that's amazing. And explain to us about your apparel. It's your original artwork And tell us a little bit about your brand?
Yeah. So what we do is digital dye sublimation. Right now, 99 percent of our product is actually manufactured in-house in my little studio in Monrovia, California, so I usually start with pencil and paper. And so I'll just sketch my ideas on paper. I'll transfer it into Photoshop, finish all of the work in Photoshop and all of my leggings have a what's called an engineered print. So the actual garment pattern is in my computer, and I mask the artwork into every single size of leggings so that size extra small and size double x have the same scale artwork. The placements the same. Everything's the same no matter what size. We print all my artwork out on paper and then it's a heat transfer process. So we printed on paper transfer onto the fabric and so it all in-house and we package it in-house. We ship it ourselves. Everything is done in Monrovia. And just recently, as of November of 2021, I started developing a small program with a new manufacturing partner in Columbia. They have an entirely solar powered facility. It's against all my artwork, but everything is printed in Columbia. Using yarns from America. It's a really cool evolution in her werkshop.
Yeah, I love that and solar power too.
Yes. I'm so excited about that, and we're actually trying so hard to get the recycled fabrics going as well. The collection was supposed to launch in March 2021, and I had my heart set on recycled fabric, but it was the new development and we kept having quality control concerns. And so at the end of the day, I was like, Let's launch with what we can and we will introduce the recycled when it's available. So that is the goal to be solar powered and recycled. Hopefully, it'll happen this year. We're working towards that.
I love that. And you mentioned overcoming obstacles. What's a piece of advice that you can give that you've learned along the way? The biggest piece of advice I can give is don't give up on me. No matter how many times I got knocked down, you just have to get back up. I know that's easier said than done. but you just you have to keep going and you're going to have nonstop obstacles, nonstop challenges and. You just have to see your way through it.
I love how you say instead of your art coming to life on paper, your art now comes to life on people. How do you want people to feel when they wear your clothing and your art?
So I read this article a couple of years ago about how the clothing that we wear affects our mood and performance and can make you more courageous. The article I read was actually talking about clothing associated with intelligence and how if someone wears a doctor's coat or like a judge's robe, it actually makes them feel and act smarter than they would otherwise. When you're wearing clothing that truly expresses your personality, it makes you shine. Most of my designs, they speak to people. The clothing I'm wearing right now, is my new red panda design. When I wear this print, it makes me happy and makes me feel lighter and more playful. It’s not for everybody, but for the people who resonate with the artwork. It's special to them. I want people to feel special and feel more confident in who they are.
Coming out of COVID. I had one of those moments to wear for a week. I went out. I bought a really bright cell phone cover and then I went out, was buying these really bright sweaters and things, and I thought, Maybe I need color in my life, so I see how the apparel can bring out that confidence in someone.
Absolutely, the apparel industry is not an easy one to go into. What is your approach to leadership and building your teams so that you have continuous growth?
Well, the apparel industry is not easy. For me, as a team leader, I like to make sure that everybody's voice is heard. I have worked many apparel industry jobs.
Tell us a little bit about that too.
Oh, I've seen the spectrum. Probably 16 years ago. I got a job as a design director for a denim company, that's nowhere on my resume, their history. I think I was there for about six months only. I was the entire denim department because they were at startup and it was exciting. There were two owners of the brands two guidance. One of them was really polite and nice, And one day the nice owner put metal trims on my desk when I was out to lunch. It was buttons, rivets, zipper pulls, and I came back from lunch and I saw the box on my desk and I went over to ask them what it was for because I had already approved that from someone else, a week earlier. Right? Long story short, the mean boss got upset, picked up the bag of metal hardware and threw it at me. He missed. I didn't get hurt, but I stood there. It was the one and only time that I could quit on the spot. I just said, I'm done, I'm leaving. But that was probably the definition of how bad it can be in the apparel industry. It's passionate and people don't respect employees sometimes. I always treat my team like I would want to be treated. I know it sounds simple. It's the golden rule, but I feel like that really does keep the office morale positive and keep everybody excited to come to work. Those last few weeks at that diamond company, I was dreading going to work, and that's not a good feeling.
What roles have you held?
I was a fashion illustrator, associate designer and design director and for a while I was the lead technical designer for Roxy, Quicksilver and Roxy Youth.
What do you like most about what you do now, and can you share with us a fun client success story?
My favorite thing about what I do is seeing my art come to life. I call it werkshop in the wild when I see people wearing my designs either out in public or on Instagram, There's nothing more rewarding than that that makes me so happy. My favorite customer success story? It must have been a few years ago. At the time, I was only making triathlon leggings, which are performance compression garments. That's what I started with. For years, I was only making triathlon leggings and then I introduced casual athleisure leggings. And then I introduced this new feather light in Colombia. So it's been a slow growth. A few years ago, when I was just picking up the triathlon, I got this email from a woman and she was so sweet the email. I should have printed it out and framed it. I loved it so much. But she said that she was going through menopause and the life changes were a lot for her to handle. I can imagine. And she said that my triathlon capri leggings were the number one thing to make her feel good about herself because she said that she was gaining a little bit of weight and that the triathlon compression fabric like held her in and made her feel like she lost five pounds when she put them on. And in the email, she said that she wished that she could make a gift bag and shipped to every single woman across America going through menopause that had a pair of werkshop, triathlon leggings, a bottle of red wine and a box of chocolates. And it was just the way she wrote. It was so awesome. It was so sweet.
I love that. It's so heartfelt and real.
Yeah. I never would have really imagined that it could have that effect on someone that I have never met her in real life, so having this little connection with a complete stranger over the internet and with my product, it's really awesome. That's great. That's one of my favorite stories.
And you helped her life, too. She felt compelled enough to email you this beautiful email. So it's really great. You are also an Etch a Sketch artist and are often on Tik Tok Live. I have seen your Etch A Sketch art. It's amazing. Can you tell us about that?
I love my Etch A Sketch. For me, it's like meditation. There's something about putting your little hands on the dials and zoning out in the art. And you can't be distracted because if you look away or you let go of the dials, you'll forget where your line is on the screen, right? So for me when I etch a sketch, you know, maybe 10 minutes or maybe an hour at the time, it's my chance to completely zone out from everyday life and stress.
Running a business. I'm sure there's never a dull moment. And when your mind goes all day long, you have to have that one thing that really makes you relax. And it is not easy to do the Etch a Sketch art. See how when you say you have to stay focused. It's very detailed.
I think I have undiagnosed ADHD.
I think a lot of entrepreneurs do, where we wear many hats and juggle many plates.
I think that it's quite common cause I'm always doing seven hundred things at once.So to just focus on one little thing in front of me, it's a good break. I'm going to Etch-A-Sketch tonight. I need that. Yes. And listeners, if you haven't seen it, tell us where we can watch you because it's amazing.
On TikTok, I tick tock primarily, and my handle is Chriztina Marie with a Z. Z as in zebra. Got a lot of views too.
Yeah, for a while there last summer, TikTok was showing me a lot of love. I was getting quite a few viral posts. It was a lot of fun. So maybe I can get that magic back this year.
Great. Speaking of magic, magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy. What is one way you make sure that you find and live your joy?
I do think that joy is in the little things, it might sound silly, but cuddling my boyfriend on the couch, watching a movie that makes me so happy or if he's not over cuddling my dog against her will totally, it's it's just, yeah, I like to take the little things each day because without them, I just work 100 percent of the time. So true. It really is those little moments where when you look back, I think we remember those little things the most. I think it's so meaningful.
Absolutely.
You have built an incredible business and thank you for sharing your gifts with the world coming to life within your art and within your Etch-A-Sketch. Please tell our listeners how and where they can find you.
My website for Werkshop. So all things, werkshop are on werkshop dot com. And Instagram handle is werkshop and Facebook. It's Eagle Rock werkshop. And then Tik Tok, which I do have a werkshop TikTok account, but I do spend more time on the Christian reading for the Etch Sketch thing.
And Kevin Frick introduced us. If you're listening, Kevin, thank you so much.