Where have we been?

​​Opinion has been quiet in 2023-2024, and I feel like I owe you all an explanation. 

If you don't know, my name is Nolan Rockers and I am the founder of Opinion Clothing, and I started this brand in 2018. The past 6 years have been a wild journey of learning, failing, succeeding, and everything else under the sun that comes with running a clothing brand, but I don't think I have ever shared the full story of the past 6 years and why Opinion has been quiet so recently.

I started Opinion after college when I was having a hard time breaking into the job world and decided to start this brand as a way to learn skills that jobs said I didn't have experience in, hoping to build a resume to present to other jobs while also building something that I was passionate about.

I ended up getting a job in marketing from 2018-2020, all while trying to grow Opinion late nights after work and on the weekends. 

As hindsight is now 20/20, I realize this might've been a mistake, but you never know if you never try, and I left my marketing job to try to do Opinion full-time. Let me preface, Opinion was nowhere near being able to support myself financially, but I was so determined to make it work, and I wanted to give it a shot.

Over the next 3 years, I had an array of part-time jobs. I painted houses, worked at a screen printing shop, worked retail, and finally worked at UNRL in their warehouse.

All of these jobs had a purpose, and it was to learn as much as I could about different aspects of the clothing industry, but with part-time jobs, pay was not the best, and like I said, Opinion was nowhere near able to support me financially, so I made the decision to get a full-time job.

After working for a year, I was unfortunately let go in July of 2023, and was unemployed for almost a full year. Now let me make this clear, this is not a pity blog for people to feel bad for me, but to share with everyone what the ugly can look like when you have the dream of running your own brand or business.

Living on my own and having bills to pay for a full year with almost no income, I was basically drained of all financial stability and Opinion had to take a back seat.

During that year my mental health suffered pretty badly. I have trouble with bad negative self talk and was telling myself that Opinion was done, and that people didn't care that we had gone silent.

In June of 2024 I was blessed to get a job offer and have been working full-time for the past 6 months getting my feet back under myself.

It was crushing me over the past year knowing that I still had ideas for Opinion, but I just couldn't afford to make all of those ideas come true.

Oddly enough, this month, I hit a point financially where I thought I could make another attempt at it, and out of nowhere we started to have people messaging us asking if we were going to restock certain items, it not only lit a fire under my ass, but it showed me that there really is a community of people that enjoy this brand even though my negative self-talk was telling me differently.

With a full-time job now, we are going to restock our Home Team Hoodie and look towards spring/summer to release some new stuff!

There is no set plan for how owning a business or a brand will go, a lot of things on social media is only positive, and I wanted to make sure to share my story to show a side of entrepreneurship that isn't talked about enough.

Thank you to the people who reached out asking about Opinion and asking if we are going to restock certain items, I don't think you understand, that really flipped a switch in my brain and showed me that people do care.

It's funny that our slogan is "you are your biggest critic" because that's exactly what I have been struggling with, but guess what, just because I'm the owner doesn't mean I'm excused from experiencing what we are trying to help people understand.

I have no idea what's in store for Opinion, but I know that we aren't going anywhere.

Thank you.