Meet KT Kint Briars | Founder/Owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with KT Kint Briars and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi KT, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I had always enjoyed fashion, since I was a young kid but never did anything. It wasn’t until I was in college and one day I had been looking for a mix of surf and causal wear and couldn’t find anything. So I just said if I’m going to find what I want I need to just make it. So I made up a few designs on a scrap paper and looked up some places to see if they could design and print for me and printed 12 shirts and sold them all in 2 days.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I have worked in retail a majority of my life. But always enjoyed designing and coming up with ideas for apparel, which is why I started my own brand.

I had to start out with my scrap piece of paper and showing up to a company to help me design and print, I had no idea what I was doing. Had no clue what the average cost was, or if it was better to screen print or embroider but I went with my gut and trusted my first printer and they let me learn how to print, design, even let me print the screens which was awesome.
I really wanted to see the process and understand how and why they charge what they do and if there was ways to cut cost but bring the quality of the product up.
The first few years were tough, i completely consumed myself with really finding the best products and making designs, and building social media , that was prolly the biggest. Social media. Instagram at that time didn’t have influencers or brand ambassadors and that’s honestly what I was doing. Finding people online whom I thought would fit what we were envisioning and really went at it. We were grabbing peoples attention and started building our brand.
We really blew up in the wakeboarding / wakesurfing community and took off.

I really learned a lot by just being involved and I love it. Everything I/we do , we think about , we really put love and care into the designs and concept into the brand.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I would take them first to our best friends donut shop, called Sugarbox Donuts in west hills/ agora hills. Sounds crazy but they are the best donuts ever, they are made out of potato flour !

Then would take them to the newly opened top golf in LA! Have some drinks and some good snacks !

Would take to angel city soccer game , and have some amazing margaritas. Those games are so awesome and so is the LAFC games , so much energy and soccer is amazing.

Take to Javier’s in century city and get some great quality Mexican food.

But the biggest thing would be to just hang out at our pool and enjoy some quality time and enjoying the water and just being with family.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Honestly, it was friends and family whom really helped the progress of the brand , they would give honest feedback and it helped motivate me more. Also want to shoutout to the wakeboarding/ wakesurfing community for really having open arms to a new brand.

Website: Www.straylia.us

Instagram: Straylia