They say the customer is always right, and while I seriously beg to differ after working years in retail, sometimes they truly beat the brand when it comes to innovation. So when influencer and founder of clothing brand All For Mimi, Sophia Begg (AKA Sopha Dopha) realised her customers were intentionally wearing her best-selling tank top the wrong way, she realised something needed to be done about it.
While Sophia already has a huge platform with over 2.2 million followers across Instagram, TikTok and Youtube, it was when her brand released a simple everyday tank top that helped separate her personal brand from All For Mimi and shoot the clothing company into a whole different ball park.
The $59 tank went absolutely gangbusters on social media. Customers raved about the softness of the fabric and the fit of the garment, and sold the product out multiple times.
Everything was sunny days, until a video of influencer Mia Croft wearing the All For Mimi tank went viral… because she was wearing it upside down.
The upside down (hello, Stranger Things) movement kept building momentum from there, with hundreds of customers flipping around their tank tops so they could double as a strapless number.
When PEDESTRIAN.TV asked Sophia why she released a strapless top, when she could’ve easily let her customers continue wearing the tank top upside down, she said that was her mum’s biggest argument against it, too.
“When it started happening, I started flipping the tank because I never would have thought to do that like if it wasn’t for Mia,” Sophia said.
“The AFM chat was going wild… we were kind of like saying, do we make it a product?”
Once they weighed the pros and cons of developing a new product, the team ultimately decided listening to their customers would be the move. They realised that if they let their customers stick to top-flipping, they were limited to wearing the top with high-waisted, baggy pants, since the thickness of the fabric didn’t allow for the straps to be discreetly tucked.
“My favorite combo is the tank and a midi skirt. And you can’t do that [flipped] because then you have the straps hanging out, and if you tuck them, the fabric is so thick and soft that you can see through it if you were to just tuck them under the tank.” Sophia explained.
So when they went to the manufacturer, they said one thing: cut the straps, and don’t change anything else.
“We got the first sample and never in the history of samples has the first sample ever been perfect. And it was perfect.”
While product development typically takes months before it hits the market, Sophia explained that the turnaround time for the All For Mimi Strapless Tank ($59) was far quicker than normal to avoid missing the demand. While customers were begging the brand to release a strapless tank in their comment sections, Sophia was quietly testing it out to see if she genuinely got wear out of it, and if it was worth releasing.
“It was a risk we had to take, but I’m glad we did because it obviously stayed in trend,” Sophia said.
“But it was such a quick turnaround because we already had the product basically. Like our manufacturer sent us the sample the day we asked because she literally just chopped the bottom off and sewed it up.”
The result was worth it for the brand, with the Strapless Tank launch being the company’s most successful in terms of social engagement, racking up over one million views and thousands of shares.
Sophia told PEDESTRIAN.TV that while she genuinely needs to love the products her brand is releasing, she thinks it’s equally as important for her customers to guide her business’ product offering in the right direction.
“It was almost like we asked them ‘what do you want?’ and it fell into our lap,” she said.
The strapless version of the OG viral All For Mimi Tank Top is currently in stock on the All For Mimi website, and given the viral nature of these products, I doubt they’re gonna hang around for long. If you wanna get your hands on one, you can shop the three colours (white, black and espresso) below.
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The post ‘It Fell Into Our Lap’: How A TikTok Trend Influenced Sopha Dopha’s Brand’s Viral Tank appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
