We’re a small fashion brand that believes that we all deserve cute, comfortable, ethically made clothing regardless of size. What began in 2013 as a small side hustle selling bookmarks and art prints between college classes has blossomed into a unique, body-first clothing company that has brought body euphoria to thousands of people who are nearly always excluded from the fashion landscape.

Our Sizing:

Traditional fashion sizing is both inaccurate and outdated. Much of the research that has gone into grading for plus size bodies is either extrapolated from straight sizes or is based on data from nearly 100 years ago and assumes that the wearer is dressed in traditional shaping undergarments like a girdle or corset. Our size charts are based on modern bodies and preferences.

Most fashion brands, including some plus size focused retailers, base their measurements off data extrapolated from straight sizes and therefore fail to account for the way that fat behaves on a human body. They forget to add room to pant legs, sleeves and collars, they neglect apron bellies, and completely overlook adding extra length to garments that cover breasts and stomachs. This leads to ill-fitting, unflattering clothing that seems like it should fit based on the bust or hip measurement, but that is too tight in the arms, legs or neck, constricts movement, and often ends up too short or looking like a completely different garment than the one the straight size model is wearing, which frequently results in customers feeling body dysmorphia and shame.

We use our own unique grading system based on real measurements from over 2000 of our customers in sizes small thru 6X. Using our own grading system means that we’re able to make clothing that fits and feels better. This is clothing made to fit bodies—not clothing that tries to sell an “aspirational” body.

Our Ethics:

Our clothes are designed and graded in house in the US and are then produced in Turkey in a factory that is both SEDEX and OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certified. These are both third party audit certifications—meaning that an accredited and unaffiliated outside party routinely inspects the factory for infractions against the standards set by these certifications.

SEDEX certifies ethical labor and business practices within a company’s global supply chain, including ensuring that workers are properly compensated and have clean and safe working environments, that child or coerced labor is not used, and that the company is sourcing ethically produced and extracted materials that are then handled with environmentally responsible methods.

The OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certifies responsible textile production, verifying there are no harmful substances (like formaldehyde or lead) used in the creation of our garments and ensuring that the clothing is safe for both human health and the environment.

Currently the majority of our clothing is made in Turkey but we are also working on some garments that would be produced in the US.

Our History:

Maya and her co-owner and wife Devin are based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Maya started out selling small batch art trinkets at local comic and anime conventions between college classes around 2012. In 2015 she designed her first ever skirt: a “one size fits most” pocket-less skater skirt with an elastic waistband and a dream. Later that year, after Maya suffered an injury, Devin started helping part time to fulfill online orders and make marketing suggestions. In 2017, the same year they got married, Devin joined full time and took over strategic management of the business and order fulfillment so Maya could focus on social media marketing and creating the artwork.

From 2017 to 2019, the business grew rapidly, doubling its sales three years in a row. Thanks to that momentum, we were able to become an entirely online business just before COVID hit. We were still tiny, still shipping orders out of our basement, still walking our shipments down to the post office ourselves, but things were moving and in early 2020 we signed our first commercial lease.

And then, not even a full month later, COVID shut down the world and we thought our business was toast. At the time we were still using our previous factory in China, which closed indefinitely during lockdown. As we sold through our quickly dwindling supply of skirts, we had to face the likelihood that the business would not survive the pandemic. Luckily, the opposite happened. Our factory eventually reopened and we ran our first ever preorders, which were wildly successful. In the span of about two weeks, we made the same amount of sales as we had made in the entire previous calendar year. Shocked, grateful, and more than a little intimidated, we got to work.

We survived like that for about 16 months: running preorders, releasing the leftovers in small batches, and shipping stuff out from our office space. We even hired our first ever employee during this time to help with fulfillment! But issues started popping up, primarily with our factory. First, the consistency: we would notice changes in the fabric or elastic and inquire about it and be told that everything was fine and no changes had been made. Then, the quality issues started. They were small at first, but quickly became egregious, to the point where we were thoroughly quality checking every single garment and between 30-70% of them would have to be significantly discounted due to quality issues. And the factory rep maintained that nothing had changed and everything was fine… so we decided to move on.

It took a lot of time, money, and effort, but with the help of our newest addition, Ash, in 2022 we were able to find our current factory in Turkey. They not only had the certifications we wanted, but the quality of their materials and of their sewing was much better and much more consistent. They were also capable of working with a wider variety of materials and construction methods, which meant we could finally expand into more apparel items, something Maya and Devin had been wanting to do for ages. Ash proved invaluable in this as well, using her pattern drafting skills to help us create many new garments and to pioneer our unique grading system. She is now our COO and there is no aspect of our business that she does not touch in some way shape or form.

Since then, we have worked diligently to be able to transition from in house fulfillment to working with a third party, enabling us to have warehouses not just in the US, but also in Canada and the UK (and in the future we hope to also have fulfillment in the EU and Australia).

And at every step we strive to maintain our standards for ethical production and labor, for quality garments, and for transparency as a small business.

Have questions? Email us at hello@mayakern.com