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Filosofee

A streetwear brand built end to end: sales in month one, then a first wholesale order.

Own brand · Product, store and growth · 2024 – present

  • E-commerce
  • Brand
  • Product design
  • Photography
  • AI production

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Range, store, payments, shoot and marketing for a South African streetwear label.

Three frames from the Filosofee product shoot: the wordmark hoodie and tees on a plain studio backdrop.

Everything from range to store

I handled every part of the business: the range, the online store, Paystack and PayPal payments, the photography and the marketing.

The store

Homepage through category to product, as it ships.

Early sales

Two early results showed there was demand.

Month one
First salesLocal and international orders through the online store.
20 units
First bulk orderThrifty Adventures, designed and produced as their branded apparel.
2
Revenue linesDirect-to-consumer, and business-to-business off the same production setup.

The numbers are small, but they show people will buy. The bulk order mattered most because it came from a business.

First wholesale order

A tour operator ordered twenty branded units, Filosofee's first wholesale order. It showed the same production setup could serve business customers, who buy more per order and reorder regularly.

Reusing the product shoot

The product shoot was the brand's biggest first-year cost and produced its best images. I now use it as the reference for AI-generated imagery, which supplies the volume social media needs in the same look.

Studio shoot and generated images

Left: the studio shoot. Right: an image generated from it.

  • Side by side: a photographed hoodie shot from the studio shoot, and a generated model shot in the same lighting and staging.
  • Three Filosofee graphic tees on hangers: the African Queen print, “may all your delulu come trululu”, and the coffee slogan piece.

Dropping stickers

Stickers took as much packing and courier admin as a hoodie for a fraction of the value, so I dropped them and focused on garments and wholesale.

What I'd do differently

I'd pursue wholesale from the start. Businesses buy more per order and reorder.