Volante Design started by going viral. In October of 2012 David designed a jacket he called the Kenway (which you can see in the images above, along with one of the first photos of David's hoodie designs posted online). I photographed it and picked out the fabric, and he put it on our then rudimentary website. We put up 100 units in stock, planning for each to be custom made, one at a time. We joked about selling 20, which was, honestly, more than we expected to sell! That isn't what happened, however: the site broke and we sold 132 at $345 per piece in 4.5 hours. It was the most money that we'd ever seen. We were flooded with emails, and lots of press outlets were reaching out to us to showcase what we were doing. To say we were unprepared is a joke — it was an incredible moment. We did the best thing we could think of: we took our housemates (yes we lived with six other people) out to the Dirty Truth for a burger and a beer. The rest, as they say, is history.

Little did we know what it would take to make good on our promises. We suddenly had to figure out how to do manufacturing and how to be a company. It took 14 months to deliver the last Eagle (by then the name had changed from Kenway), and about half of the orders got moved over to a production run. It was difficult, but it was damn good to know what we were doing was exciting people — something we hope to continue doing for as long as we're able.

- Willow