After While Goods

From the hollers.

Starting a small goods brand was always somewhere in the back of my mind.

For a long time it stayed there. Not because I couldn't start — because I couldn't find anything worth starting. Every concept I turned over felt borrowed. Something that looked right but didn't belong to me. Didn't belong to anywhere. I wasn't going to take the time to build something I didn't believe in.

So I waited.

I grew up in Southwest Virginia. The kind of place where the mountains decide what the weather does and people have been making things slowly and well for longer than most brands have existed. Where you still know your neighbors. Where the long way home is the only way Where when you ask someone when they're coming over they say — after while.

Not soon. Not never. After while.

I heard that phrase my whole life without thinking about it. Then one day it was the only thing that sounded right. Two words that mean something to people from where I'm from and sound exactly right to everyone else. For the first time I felt compelled. Not to start a brand — to build something that actually meant something.

That's what After While Goods is.

One person. Small batch headwear and goods made slowly and on purpose. Nothing gets made before it's ready. Nothing ships before it's right. I'm not trying to build something fast. I'm trying to build something that lasts long enough to mean something to the people it was made for.

The goods are simple. The mark is clean. The roots run deep.

There is a time for everything. — Eccl. 3:1

After while.