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Getting
Ahead in Fashion
The Fresno Bee
(Updated Monday, September 5, 2005, 6:11 AM)
Merced
mother's baby hats are in demand in traditional
stores and online.
Two
years ago, Jamie Wells, a 30-year-old stay-at-home
mother in Merced, had a hard time finding small
hair bows to
hold up her 6-month-old daughter's scanty hair.
So
she started making them herself.
Then
winter came, and Wells thought of making baby
hats. She took one of her creations to a local
store that loved it,
she said.
In
January, Wells borrowed a sewing machine from
her neighbor. Along with the machine came some
sewing tips for
beginners from her neighbor and her mother.
Soon,
Baby Cappelli, a line of baby hats, was born.
Cappelli is "hats" in Italian.
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Baby
Cappelli now supplies to 33 boutiques and four online
stores, even as Wells works out of home and cares
for her
now 2 1/2-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son.
Wells
has been averaging an order a day in the past month,
each order ranging from 12 to 40 hats. The hats
retail for
$18 to $24 each.
She
said most of her clients responded to postcards
that she sent out, with pictures of her products
on them. She
spotted her potential clients on the Internet.
Seven
months into her business, Wells has recouped $6,800
of the $10,000 line of credit.
Wells has so far invested $7,000 to buy cotton baby
caps, which she then embellishes with various designs
of flowers
and rhinestones. |
"They
seem to have found a special place," she said
of her hats. Wells' home business, Baby Cappelli,
markets baby hats at stores across the country and
on the Internet.
Retailers
such as Twogether We Grow, a maternity and baby-clothing
outlet in Clovis that sells Baby Cappelli hats,
has seen some brisk sales of the product. Rhondda
Drilling, owner of the Clovis store, said she first
"fell in love" with the baby hats in March,
when she received picture postcards from Wells.
Her first order of 10 hats came in last week, and
Drilling has had to reorder, with three customers
already on a waiting list. "I can't keep them
in," Drilling said. "They are the cutest
things I've ever seen."
Darrell Wong / The Fresno Bee
Wells said she is diversifying from the traditional
pinks to fall colors such as raspberry and purple.
She has more coming for the holidays, such as hats
with sequin pumpkins and caps with feather boas. |
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