Today we’d like to introduce you to Solomon Ngo
Hi Solomon, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I immigrated to the United States with my family of 4 when I was little in search of the “American Dream.” Coming from a typical Asian family, I was expected to study hard to become a doctor, dentist, or a pharmacist. And so that was all in my plans and goals up till my college years. I became the first generation in my family to enter a 4-year university, and as expected, I entered the biomedical program at the University of California, Riverside. I studied hard and did what I thought was right for me, though I have always felt like something was missing or wasn’t exactly right deep down inside. The passion I thought I had for a medical career wasn’t there, but instead, I was always drawn to fashion, style, and was always sketching in my free time and downtime. This passion that I didn’t realize I had actually stemmed from way back, ever since I could remember being back in Southeast Asia.
Back in Southeast Asia, my mom owned a small tailor shop. She worked hard and was talented. I grew up watching her make clothes for the locals piece by piece and everything was so organic with so much meticulous hand-work. I saw how she worked the sewing machines, the embroideries that were done by hand, the buttonholes, etc. The impressions and excitement shown by the customers as they tried on the clothes they ordered. That inspired me. My mom’s talent and work ethic inspired me. I wanted to make beautiful clothing like her. I wanted to see the smiles, excitement, and even confidence of the people putting on clothes. I decided to change my career path and so, instead of studying to enter medical school, I applied to FIDM, Los Angeles for fashion design. And that was the beginning of my fashion career.
After 18 years of working with many fashion companies in different markets, I finally got enough courage to break free and went on my own. After the pandemic of 2020, many people worked from home and dressing up became unnecessary. This was the time when I felt so strongly that I needed to take action and motivate people to dress up again. I wanted to make clothes for working ladies who are busy with work and family, and just the events of life in general. Clothes that people can just put on and look like they’ve spent hours in front of their closet contemplating. And with that, I want to be able to provide them with quality, exclusivity, and most importantly, value. This is where Solgo Atelier begins.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I wish the American Dream is easier to achieve. The road has been rough. I went out on my own with a bit of savings and the rest through business loan so financially I did not start out strong. With today’s market, there are so much competitions and the fast advancement of the online markets. I struggle to keep up. I struggle to learn what’s working at the moment. How to communicate our message out to the world, how to tell our story so that it’s compelling. I am actually at this point still not so confident about my story, our story, but one thing I do know for sure is that it is completely true. And that I am telling it from my heart and not my head. It is a simple story of a simple dream with passion. The struggles of a business owner is endless and especially for someone like me who thinks more creatively. Our biggest obstacles right now is still how do we reach our audiences, and finding our customers. We are also looking for connections and ways for us to get into local stores. I feel that this path is getting much harder compared to before where you can just show up and talk to the owner of the store. These days we have more stages in between and getting the opportunity to just show your collection is already a challenge in itself. Unless you know the right people. And this, I definitely need so much help with since I am too shy of a person.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Solgo Atelier?
Solgo Atelier is a modern Women’s Contemporary Clothing Brand for a work-life balanced lifestyle. We specialize in high quality clothing at amazing value. We use the best materials we can afford, and we pay the utmost attention to all the details and finishing that we use on our garments. We produce them in small batches, and we don’t plan to restock them. Therefore, the chance of you running into someone at a party wearing the same piece is next to “zero.” We also ethnically choose our factory for production. We are producing overseas because I was lucky enough to have made a great business friendship with a great factory many years ago, so when I talked about starting my own line, they jumped right on board. But I do hope that we will expand and grow enough to be able to produce products here locally. We specialize in clothing that is effortless. And easily transition from place to place and occasion to occasion. We want our customers to have that boost in their mood, their confidence when they’re wearing our clothes. What sets us apart from others in our market is that we are able to offer great quality, from materials to craftsmanship at the best value possible. We use mostly natural silk, cotton, and eco-conscious materials because we want to pitch in the effort to preserve our planet and eliminate fashion wastage. We use mostly silk lining as well, because I know that lining sits right on our skin and if we wear silk, we need to feel how good silk feels. We also use natural seashell buttons as our basic buttons. And most importantly, we make our clothes last. We want them to be as sustainable as possible. Many of us know that clothing these days is nothing like the way it was. The quality is just not there anymore compared to 10-20 years ago. We use high quality materials for this very reason. We want you to own our pieces for many, many years.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I am not too sure for today many aspects of our lives are right on the screen. Perhaps, what most people, besides the business owners themselves, don’t know is that, as owner and designer, I do everything. I run the company’s errands, take care of all the design aspects and production. I do quality control on our productions, and I even became a photographer. I come into our office every Saturday to have some quiet time to finish up some work, and to clean up the office, such as mobbing the floor, taking out the trash, watering the plants, running office errands, etc. I probably don’t look or act like a designer, so unless someone knows me, he/she would not know I am a fashion designer. There’s nothing glamorous about “Solomon.” I am also somewhat of an anti-social, so I work hard on reaching out to people and making meaningful connections. Connections in design, in marketing, in business venture, in collaboration, I am very open. So if someone reads this and feels like reaching out to me, please do. That would really help me out by taking away the initial step, which is the step that I don’t have confidence in. Lastly, I enjoy being busy. For me, being busy reduces my stress as a new business owner.
Pricing:
- Our pricing are typically lower than the average Moderate Contemporary Brands out there.
- Currently we are running an Archive Sale that was curated to show customers our quality and styles more than to sale for profit.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://solgoatelier.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/solgoatelier/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/solgoatelierllc
