The year is finally draining away, we’re in the darkest part of the year right before we begin to shift back towards longer days and warmer weather. 2018 has been an incredibly difficult year for me, probably in the top two worst years of my life thus far- but I have also propelled myself through so many enormous professional and personal challenges I feel a bit like I’ve been dipped in steel now. Resolute, armored, and determined.

This is a great time to look back at the year behind us before running full tilt into 2019. As much as I talk about how difficult 2018 was there have also been some incredibly wonderful, inspiring, thrilling, and fun as hell moments. So I want to highlight some of those today! I’ve included links to the corresponding blog posts where I can. 🙂

Antique Market Road Trip- One of my favorite days this year was exploring an enormous sprawling antique market and an abandoned prison with someone delightful. I took tons of photos and it was the best distraction from how complicated my work life was this year. (link)

New Website!– It was bittersweet letting go of the system I’ve used on the back end of Gloomth since 2007 but honestly our new website is so slick and fun to edit! I had two talented friends help me comb through my design and make it the best Gloomth site we’ve had yet (thank you Jon and Matt A.!) (link)

The Stock Arriving- This was a huge moment for Gloomth and for myself. It’s been a staggering learning curve moving our operation to manufacturing but when the boxes arrived at our studio and I finally got to touch the clothes in person I was beyond ecstatic. I can’t wait to keep expanding our collection with the new system!!! (link)

Other favorites include attending a cemetery tour with my friends (and giggling so much we had to creep off so we didn’t offend the mature attendees), the photo of me above is from that day. We worked some super fun shows for Gloomth from a Harajuku event at a virtual reality studio to the Kensington Market Art Fair, and our own parties and shows!

Thank you to everyone who’s modeled for me, attended our events, shopped our collection, listened to me freak out about work this year, or simply read our blog. Your support and friendship keep me upright and propelled.

-Taeden