Two Walnut Creek Moms Launch Ap-peel-ing T-shirt Business

By Dave Allred

Entrepreneurship for almost anyone is a risky endeavor. Factor in the down economy and the chances of success become slimmer and, if you’re a full-time mom, the hill you are ascending suddenly becomes a cliff.

This cliff faces Raquel Stanton and Tia Riebling, founders and owners of Peel Apparel in Walnut Creek, which offers a unique brand of T-shirts for women. Yet in speaking with them, there is no fear to be found.

“We’re just having fun and getting all the details right,” said Riebling, a former actress and now a full-time mother of two, ages four and eight.  “Once we get a large following we will try to grow from there.”

Stanton and Riebling met through mutual friends six years ago at a Halloween party for their kids and soon formed a close friendship. Discovering each other’s affinity for unique T-shirts brought them closer.

“We started to have sort of a competition to see who could find the most unique, fashionable T-shirts,” said Riebling. “One of us would buy a new T-shirt and couldn’t wait to show the other.”

A little over a year ago, they began discussing the idea of creating their own line.

“We didn’t want just any T-shirts, though,” said Stanton, a graphic design specialist and also a mother of two, ages two and eight.  “We wanted to develop something that women could wear out and feel good about. Men have these skull and crossbone T-shirts that are so fashionable these days, but there aren’t that many T-shirts for women that are chic enough to wear out at night.”

“We wanted something they could wear that would really reflect their personalities,” added Riebling.

That something was fruit. 

That’s right. Fruit.

Stanton and Riebling created T-shirts bearing fruit with a message inside. As their website describes it: “By peeling off your outer self, your inner self is revealed.”

The T-shirts come in seven varieties and contain vibrant, splashy graphics of fruits chosen to celebrate the diverse personalities of women. Each shirt contains a poetry-style message written in the shape of a fruit. 

There are six fruits in all: grapefruit, apple, kiwi, banana, orange and watermelon, each expressing a different message and likeness, almost like fruit astrology.

“We wanted to create something that was meaningful to whoever was wearing it,” said Stanton. “The message matters to them.  It’s personal, it’s stylish and it makes women feel good about themselves.”

After only three months in business, the women have already sold nearly 300 T-shirts while utilizing very little of their marketing budget.

“We basically started wearing the shirts to swim meets for our kids and other moms started noticing them and asking about them,” said Riebling.  “Before we knew it we had flocks of women buying the shirts out of the trunk of our car.”

Riebling said that moms are starting to buy them for their teenage daughters: “This is a whole new market we hadn’t expected, so now we are starting to think about designing for younger girls as well.”

The women are planning on selling the shirts (and shoes) at local fairs and trade shows until they get a large enough following to increase their marketing efforts. Now they do not have a store and are selling the shirts strictly through word of mouth and online.

“Once we get more recognition,” Stanton said, “We are going to use Tia’s acting connections to hopefully clothe some celebrities.”

Riebling, who spent most of her life training and entertaining audiences through theatre and television, has an impressive resume and list of shows she has appeared on, including:  Will and Grace, Dharma and Greg, Providence, Caroline in the City and Seinfeld, among others.

“If we can get an actor’s photo in the tabloids wearing some of our clothing, that’s when we can hit it big,” said Riebling.

The two women bring different talents to the business. They share a creative vision and are still figuring out the business side of it all, and are dreaming big. 

“Once you get a system in place that works,” said Stanton, “you can just expand from there —  hats, bags, water bottles, any product we want to put the Peel logo on that gets our message out to women.”

You may contact Tia or Raquel at PeelApparel@gmail.com.