The PLSTK team is proud to finally introduce the First Article.  The result of a collective effort that focuses on men’s Footwear and Accessories.  This project has been 6 years in the making.  When I first started this project 2 years ago, I really had no clue what I was about to get myself into.  Other than my love for shoes and clothes, I had no context around fashion design or manufacturing apparel.

Mark, one of the original founders of PLSTK, approached me with an offer to help run PLSTK.  I saw this as a once in a lifetime opportunity and partnered with Mark in 2009 as head of Business Development, Manufacturing, and Sales while Mark led the Creative and Marketing Group.  We quickly started the work on reconstructing the PLSTK Team.  We started with recruiting the design talents of Barry Lai, founder of Design Rehab.  Without skipping a beat the three of us began reviving PLSTK’s original footwear project, mapping out a plan for leveraging the 4 years of manufacturing expertise acquired by the original team.  A quick brain dump and post-mortem provided the baseline for what has become the product lifecycle for the First Article line.

I’ll go over the story on how we came about the name in my next installment, but for now let me add a little bit of context behind the meaning of the term.  First Article, by definition, is a widely used manufacturing term used to describe the testing and approval process for goods or prototypes that eventually lead into production.  They become the benchmark for quality and the conformance for the remaining goods that come into production.  So how does this translate to PLSTK?  This line represents 6 years of  planning and hard work from everyone who was ever involved in the creation process.  The time, money, and energy we’ve all invested to get us to this milestone is culminated in the very first shoe that rolls off that line… that’s the first article.

We had no idea how shoes were made, in all honestly we had no idea how anything was manufactured when PLSTK first kicked off this venture.  We started with no knowledge of how any thing worked, but over time with hard work and motivation provided by a small group of knowledgable individuals, armed with nothing more than sheer determination – we went from wondering to delivering.  It represents our principal tenet, that we share with anyone willing to listen, that we are all capable of doing what seemingly appears to be difficult things as long as you work as one collective putting your best foot forward.  Everything we’ve done up to this point… is for the First Article.

In these next installments, I look forward to sharing with you my story, my experience, the adversities, my insights, and most importantly the principles and the people behind the First Article brand.  Thanks for the support, it is truly appreciated.  Much love.

- Jaymer