Meet Lili Pham & Alex Lunt of Nettle Studios

We had the good fortune of connecting with Lili Pham & Alex Lunt and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Lili & Alex, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
Alex and I started Nettle Studios back in 2016 while we were working in the fashion industry and found that we missed the truly creative process we had in art school. We missed the physical sourcing of fabric, the draping of garments on form, and we just missed the freedom of creating what we wanted, when we wanted. At the time we were both gravitating towards linen clothing and the feel of linen against our skin, but we couldn’t find many options locally that gave us the right “fit experience”. The easiest way we saw to get what we wanted, was to make it ourselves.

We’ve grown a lot over the last few years, and we like to think that we’re adding a bit of joy into the world. We focus primarily on fun, bright, comfortable fabric in fun, comfortable, and cool shapes that work on every single body type. We want Nettle to be an unapologetic option for those who feel their tastes and body types are not represented at other brands. Based on the positive feedback that we get from our customers, we feel like we’re achieving our mission thus far.

Fun prints and great fabrics aside, the thing that really makes us different is our size inclusivity and how our clothing fits on the body. We really push the limit on what is “possible” or “traditional” to do what’s right for us and our customers. If we had listened to everyone who told us that what we were doing didn’t make sense or didn’t follow the rules, we wouldn’t be as successful or as popular as we are amongst our fan base. We can only hope to continue the trajectory that we’re on with our new and upcoming styles.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
We’re really excited for our new prints that just launched called Sourpuss & Dottie— we had a lot of fun designing those and we’re loving being able to design and print our own fabric. We are exploring knits and knitwear for the upcoming season, as well as peppering in new linen colors and new prints. Spring/summer 2024 is going to be lots of fun!

I feel like it’s easy to say ‘oh we’ll be successful if this launch sells out or we reach a certain monetary goal’—the reality of success is a lot more vague than that to me, and I feel like it’s that vagueness that keeps me motivated to continue setting goals and goalposts. Success to me, is the continued positive reception of the pieces and clothing that we design. In this economy, the continuation of our brand feels like success. As long as people keep finding joy in it, we’ll keep making it.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Colorado is such a vast and interesting place to explore!! We’re based in San Francisco, and TBH if we were taking a trip to CO, we would hit up Shoutout Articles (like Grön Kulle!) to create our itinerary!! =)

The food diversity in the Bay Area is the best part about it, so we’d seek out ways to enjoy a different version of this in CO!! We recommend Hop Alley, named after Denver’s once-Chinatown and run by Denver-native Chef Tommy Lee. Plus, we love anywhere you can get a whole fish!! We also recommend Wildflower for their Mexican-Italian seasonal fares with foraged ingredients and veg-forward, community-driven dishes.

Alternatively, if anyone from CO is visiting the Bay, we’d say you HAVE to check out: New Eritrea restaurant (best Ethiopian and Eritrean food), Kingdom of Dumpling (hole in the wall dumplings) Oakland: Jo’s Modern Thai, Arizmendi bakery (vegan pizza), and Nettle Studios in the Mission of course!!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
We want to shout out our amazing community— we have folks who have supported us since the beginning and believed in our vision with us. Our community deserves all the credit because something we hear over and over is that we’re the first brand they’ve found that makes joyful, gender fluid clothing that fits, and that should be remedied. Beyond that we are personally supported by our partners and families, and they continue to be our greatest cheerleaders when times get rough.

Website: https://www.nettlestudios.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nettlestudios

Image Credits
Micaela Go