The History of Stinky Gorl
The idea for Stinky Gorl was created in Emma’s basement in late August 2019. Andrew would create the first logo while Emma was taking an afternoon nap.
Andrew had wanted to make a clothing brand for a number of years and was heavily inspired by Emma’s creativity and her incredible dog. It didn’t take much deliberation before we were getting deep into the design process. We quickly got to work and came up with a number of designs between us and started exploring production possibilities. From the start the goal was always just to share our creations and not to make a huge profit. The joy of creating and getting to share that with friends and family was enough for us.
By mid-September we had production in place for patches, custom printed t-shirts, beanie blanks, stickers, and buttons, we were moving fast and everything was fresh and exciting. When the products were ready to go, we grabbed our friends Katie Hardy and Jack Harhhy and went out for a photoshoot with Georgia. Out of that photoshoot came the lookbook for our first drop!
With our first drop we had a lot of excitement and even got interviewed by an Atlantic Canadian business journal. We wanted to follow up quickly so before our first drop had been available for a week Andrew started pre-orders for a sweater design to drop right before Christmas.
The Sweater
This design would end up being our most popular drop ever with two huge boxes of packaged sweaters being driven around the Avalon Peninsula to fill preorders. The design was made by Andrew from a reference of Georgia wanting to be let back into Emma’s house after doing her business. We printed the design on pink, blue, and sand coloured crewneck sweaters printed at local printshop Living Planet and they were a pleasure to work with.
With some personal health issues going on with Andrew and the start of the Covid-19 Pandemic, things were slowing down for Stinky Gorl. We had a smaller drop in late Summer 2020 of baseball hats and drawstring bags featuring a new logo. When they arrived we did a photoshoot with Anna Corbett and Emma Calver in Sandy Cove, NL.
This drop would end up being our last due to changing interests by both Emma and Andrew. We would have a few pop-ups at a local coffee shop but the brand was definitely coming to a close around this time. While we may no longer be active with Stinky Gorl, Emma and Andrew are still together and remember the days of Stinky Gorl fondly. We hope our customers had at least half as much fun with our products as we did making them. We raised some money for charity, made some money ourselves, and most importantly got to share our art with the people we care for most. Stinky Gorl may be done, but we will remain inspired by this project and the little lady behind it for many years to come.
