Team Spirit With Sparkle

With three children and a successful on-line apparel business, Angela Fiorelli knows what it’s like to be a modern mom. That’s why she created Fashion Mommy, a home-based clothing company located in Oakley, California that caters to the demographic many have come to know as the “soccer mom,” every kid’s number one fan.

Fiorelli saw a business opportunity in the crucial role mothers play as fans in the realm of youth sports. These days, moms are often seen cheering proudly from the sidelines decked out in fun, flashy fan wear. Fiorelli decided to launch a trademark brand for these “trendy moms” who like to get involved with their children’s activities but still look fashionable. In 2004 she launched her online store, selling hip rhinestone-decorated and plus-size apparel to her fellow moms.

Fashion Mommy’s rhinestone apparel was a huge hit from the start, but it wasn’t until Fiorelli purchased a Roland EGX-350 desktop engraver in 2009 that the company really took flight. After years of outsourcing large quantities of stock, cookie-cutter designs, Fiorelli decided to try Roland’s R-Wear solution to serve customers with smaller, custom orders. “We were quite big before the economy fell and the Roland brought us back up again because we are able to offer a service that not many other sellers have the capacity for,” said Fiorelli.

“It is completely cost prohibitive to outsource the designs,” said Fiorelli. “With the EGX-350, we can handle smaller production runs, sometimes producing just one unit.”

Serving the custom order market has allowed Fiorelli to increase sales and simultaneously reduce costs by eliminating the need to purchase hundreds of units at a time. “It is completely cost prohibitive to outsource the designs,” said Fiorelli. “With the EGX-350, we can handle smaller production runs, sometimes producing just one unit.”

Although Fashion Mommy now serves customers across the U.S. and internationally, many of their orders come from local sports teams and businesses. Word of mouth is a large part of Fashion Mommy’s success. “One mom will go to a game with a custom rhinestone t-shirt and return with an order for the whole team,” Fiorelli said. Her customers are drawn in by the quality of the product and designs, and many return because of Fiorelli’s commitment to ensuring that their custom orders turn out just the way they intended.

Fiorelli uses Roland’s R-Wear Studio software to keep her clients involved in the design process from start to finish. Fiorelli relishes the challenge of creating a design exactly the way the customer is envisioning it. “I love taking a flat picture and turning it into a sparkling rhinestone design,” said Fiorelli. “The R-Wear Studio software makes the process really easy.”

When a customer contacts Fashion Mommy with a request for a design or custom graphic, Fiorelli lays out the design using R-Wear Studio software. She then sends the client an image of the design with dots in place, showing the correct sizes and colors for the stones. The customer can approve or revise their design to perfection. This process reduces material costs and ensures that Fashion Mommy clients walk away completely satisfied.

Fiorelli’s business continues to grow thanks to the ease of use and dependability of the EGX-350. “All we’ve had to do is clean the machine and change the blades and it works perfectly,” said Fiorelli. “Having the Roland on site drastically cuts the time and costs involved in creating and producing our designs.”