activewear

Wait… Is This Really Happening?! You’ve been asking to see my clothes in Target for like… ever. For years I was like yeah me too except ummm that’s really hard to do. But guess what? IT’S HAPPENING. On December 28th, Blogilates is going to be in the front of all Target stores. All because of you!!   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Cassey Ho (@blogilates) Storytime. Four years ago, almost to the day, I wrote a blog post just like this one. My heart was bursting with excitement (mixed with anxiety), just like it is right now. In December of 2020 I was announcing the first launch of Blogilates at Target! It was a test program, and I was sooo nervous. I didn’t know what to expect. And then, you left the shelves empty.  You guys sold everything out before the test period was even over because of your enthusiasm, love, and care (thank you for cleaning the shelves with me, btw). Target decided to keep Blogilates in store and we’re still there today, 4 years later!  Fast forward to last year around this time.  The apparel team at Target reached out and asked to visit me and the design team to see what we were up to. They had seen the growth of POPFLEX and wanted to know more. Ummm what?! So I spent last Christmas making the most intense deck of my life while also living the most intense time of my life. Literally. We were in the middle of moving into a new office in LA, while also setting up a new design studio in Atlanta, while Sam and I were moving houses. All while doing fittings, photoshoots, and launches. It was insanity.  But we did it! The Target execs flew out to come see baby lil us at our Atlanta design office and yes…we were all FREAKING out but knew this was our only chance to prove that we could really be a brand at Target. We decided to pitch an affordable activewear line – something you guys have been asking for since forever!  So we got to work and prepped a 108-slide deck to show every reason why an apparel partnership at Target would make sense, leading first with YOU guys. Thanks for leaving comments all over my pages for the past few years because these comments are the exact ones I led the presentation with! I’ll never forget the energy of our team the evening before our presentation. It was like a group of college students cramming together for a final project, except the energy was unlike anything I’d experienced before in school.  Everyone wanted it BAD. The entire team gave it their all, not a single slacker in sight. Even my nails cooperated as I applied them in the car.  On the big day, we presented and luckily we were not met with crickets. PHEW. There were questions and there seemed to be genuine enthusiasm! After the 5-hour meeting, we were SO happy but also kinda delusional. TBH I thought we aced it! But then afterwards we didn’t hear from them for weeks and we were scared we did not, in fact, ace it. I told myself if it was meant to be, then it would be and tried to stay positive. And then, I GOT THE CALL. Target wanted Blogilates front and center at the gateway space right when you walk in. At all 1800 stores. A FULL ON COLLECTION. They wanted to bring my vision for affordable activewear to life. I died. And got to work immediately. Then, for the next several months I died almost every week trying to figure how HOW do we actually pull off designing for 2 brands at the same time. First off, this was a much faster development timeline than POPFLEX. We usually give 1-2 years for one style and this time we had to get it all done in a matter of months, which was really scary.  Keep in mind that the entire product development team that worked on this collection was literally 7 people. SEVEN. We’re not big at all. We’re very much a small business now working with one of the biggest companies in the entire world.  Were we intimidated? Yes. Extremely. But it was clear early on that we had to face this head on and transform from small biz to acting like a big biz overnight if we wanted to make this happen. There was no rest and no training period. We just had to GO and learn and make mistakes as we went. There were a lot of fires along the way and problems piled on week after week.  I’m so exhausted. The team truly gave everything to this collection. And now we’re two days away from launching my second clothing brand, Blogilates exclusively at Target.  I can’t believe I’m saying that. I can’t believe that boom, just like that, Target is going all in and putting my designs at the front of the store. And craziest of all, in all 1800 stores. ALL 1800!! I feel so grateful, so exhausted, and like I won the retail Superbowl.  Well, actually let’s see if you guys like it, and then I’ll feel like I truly won.  December 28th is the day! It’s going to be a 6 week test, which means if you guys show that you like it (by buying it), then Target may want to bring the brand back in store. If not, it’s over. That’s it.    PREVIEW BLOGILATES FOR TARGET My intention for this collection was not only to bring you affordability, but also a romantic take on activewear that is of course functional. I can’t wait for you to see everything in real life! And to try things on before you buy!! In the meantime, you can go to Target.com to preview all the styles and heart your faves before it goes live. Oh and please go in-store to