Last week, I shared how Kiyonna began appearing in fashion magazines at a time when there were still very few brands designing fashionable clothing specifically for women with curves. As our name started showing up more and more often in those publications, something interesting happened: women wanted to know where they could actually find us.
Enter my dad.
At some point in the late 1990s, my dad said to me, “Kimberly, you should make a website.” And I distinctly remember thinking this was one of those ideas that sounded great to someone from a different generation.
“Dad,” I told him,
Yes. I actually said that.
Looking back now, I can’t believe it either.
But my dad kept encouraging me, and eventually we built Kiyonna’s first website. At the time, we weren’t really thinking of it as a store. It was mostly a way for women who had read about us to find the boutiques and retailers carrying Kiyonna near them.
The idea that someone would sit at a computer, choose a dress without trying it on, enter a credit card number and wait for it to arrive at her house still felt pretty far-fetched. But the world was changing. Slowly, customers began finding us directly. And once they did, they started buying.
It was our own little version of
Over the years, our website went from being a place that helped customers find Kiyonna somewhere else to becoming the place where they found us.
Today, more than 25 years later, over 90% of our sales are direct to consumer online, which means there is really only one way to end this story:
Dad was right. Even though he’s 85 now, I’m pretty sure I’m never going to hear the end of it.
After years of keeping our heads down and building Kiyonna, I stumbled across something I never expected to find.
Spoiler: It was hiding in someone else’s closet.
