High school seniors Talullah Johnson and Aila Kaibara are busy preparing for college and pursuing their passion for sports.
At the same time, they’re also developing their own sustainable and innovative athletic wear brands thanks to FABRIC Tempe’s incubator program.
FABRIC, a nonprofit fashion incubator, offers an Apparel Entrepreneur Membership program that gives members access to the group’s no-minimum manufacturing services and road map, which streamlines the process for burgeoning fashion moguls to launch their brands.
While most of the work is done digitally, Johnson and Kaibara are involved and invested in bringing their visions to life, especially as they both begin to manufacture the first iterations of their lines.
Finding solutions
A senior at Phoenix Country Day School, Kaibara is the captain of her basketball team, a two-time state champion and is even committed to play at New York University next fall. The sport has been a pillar in her life, playing competitively since the seventh grade.
From that young age, she says she remembers never liking how long basketball shorts were, with a lot of her teammates echoing similar complaints about how they fit.
Dime Time, Kaibara’s brand, aims to address the lack of stylish, comfortable and eco-friendly basketball shorts for women.
With women’s basketball rising in popularity with players such as Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese bringing a new style to the game, Kaibara was inspired to find a solution to the basketball short dilemma that her and other players have faced for years.
“There’s two issues: one is I don’t like the fit, second is I don’t like how it looks,” Kaibara said.
She noted that a big turn off for girls when it comes to playing basketball is that it’s aggressive and contradicts the idea of femininity for high school students.
One of the samples from Aila Kaibara's brand Dime Time.
Courtesy Aila Kaibara
(Courtesy Aila Kaibara)
The classic, long style of basketball shorts don’t do much to help that image.
During the past year, Kaibara, with the help of her mom and FABRIC, researched and developed a new style of basketball shorts that could be flattering on a variety of body types and provide an alternative to the classic style.
Her design takes into account the range of bodily proportions with hip and waist measurements by using an elastic waistband, similar to yoga pants, so that it can shrink to the size of any player.
On top of adjusting the way shorts fit, she hopes to bring in color, designs and customizations to her shorts as she gets further into the manufacturing process with Dime Time. For example, she’d like to be able to offer inseam adjustments for players and non-players with different fit preferences.
“They are short enough and have the right comfortability that they could just work out in them and you wouldn’t be able to tell that they were specifically basketball shorts,” Kaibara said.
Sustainable technology
Johnson is also a serious student-athlete, having been a club volleyball player for roughly 10 years. A senior currently enrolled at ASU Prep Digital, Johnson also previously played varsity at Arcadia High School before making the switch to online schooling after her sophomore year.
With her passion for volleyball and ambitions to play in college, she began developing her line, Talullah Roxie, as a way to attract recruiters and fill a gap in the volleyball clothing industry.
Her product is a sustainable t-shirt with a digital product passport that allows players to upload whatever information they would like, whether that be a short introduction to themselves or a link to their highlight reels. This helps coaches to easily learn more about and interact with a player.
Talullah Johnson is currently developing her brand Talullah Roxie with help from FABRIC Tempe.
Courtesy Angela Johnson
(Courtesy Angela Johnson/Jenny Kaufman)
“Connecting the two — volleyball and sustainability — through Talulluh Roxie has been my whole jam recently,” Johnson said.
Like Kaibara, she’s also begun the manufacturing process, but she’s run into a hurdle with the sustainable fabric she identified for her shirts.
This fabric, as Johnson explained, was practically perfect on paper. It was the right texture, was composed of sustainable fibers and her first design sample was just as she had imagined. Ultimately, the material did not agree with the printer at FABRIC, and she’s back to the drawing board trying to find a solution, either with a similar material or using a deadstock material FABRIC has been holding onto at its office to maintain the sustainability component.
“I’m excited to use it myself, to perfect the fabric and everything, and to hopefully design other ones and expand,” Johnson said.
Once the design and production has been sorted, she’s looking to sell them to different sports clubs, schools and individuals.
Bringing it to life
But both Johnson and Kaibara are still a ways away from having their lines on the market.
FABRIC founder Angela Johnson, who is also Talullah Johnson’s mom, says it’s important to understand that sewn products require at least a year or more of development. Revision after revision and sample after sample, perfecting a clothing design is much more involved than many may think.
“It’s not for the faint of heart. It’s really complicated, and it’s full of expense because each time you’re paying for all of that,” Angela Johnson said.
Like with Talullah’s fabric woes and Kaibara getting further into the manufacturing stage, it can be frustrating when the concept has to constantly shift or be tweaked to come to fruition as it was intended.
Talullah Roxie incorporates digital technology to connect players and coaches more easily.
Courtesy Angela Johnson
(Courtesy Angela Johnson)
The fashion industry can be expensive for new designers, from the time spent on fixing conceptual issues to manufacturing costs. For example, normal manufacturers require minimums for sample orders, typically ranging from 500 to 5,000 pieces, which is no small price.
FABRIC helps to ease these issues by providing designers within its Apparel Entrepreneur Membership program with the right tools and support to bring them through the manufacturing process.
Manufacturing samples doesn’t require such high fees and designers can produce as few as just 10 samples through FABRIC’s resources — both Kaibara and Talullah Johnson said that FABRIC has been a great partner in pushing their brands forward.
“Even with all that, it’s very hard, so the fact that a high school girl can go through it and do it amazingly… it’s been amazing to see,” Angela Johnson said.
Reporter Caroline Yu can be reached at cyu@iniusa.org. To voice your opinion on this story, connect with us at AzOpinions@iniusa.org.
Meet Caroline Caroline Yu joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2020 as a summer intern covering Scottsdale. As an intern, she continued her coverage of Scottsdale, Paradise Valley and Tempe. After graduating in 2022, Caroline became a full-time reporter for Scottsdale and Paradise Valley. She is currently reporting for the Tempe market.
Community: She is a supporter of the environment and tries to get involved with related community events.
Education: Arizona State University with a BA in Journalism and Mass Communications, with a minor in French.
Random Fact: She used to be a ballet dancer for 10 years.
By 
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here