Thanks for Five Great Years: Truly Wild is Retiring

It's time to say goodbye to Truly Wild.

Five years ago, in the photo above, it was February 2020. Cristina and I were in the Kalahari Transfrontier Park in South Africa in a remote camp called Gharagab. A pride of lions with little cubs had just been playing outside our tent. We were happy campers.

We had been traveling for over a month and were still blissfully unaware of the term "COVID-19". But by the time we got home to Asheville, NC, the world had changed. Within weeks, the vacation rental business that had been sustaining us shut down. Tourism came to a screeching halt. We were afraid to leave the house to go grocery shopping. We needed a way to survive.

Cristina suggested we start a clothing brand since I had many years of experience running clothing brands in the BMX industry. We decided to give it a shot. New Plumage was born.

We focused on using only the most eco-friendly shirts and finding the perfect fit. We worked hard to create original bird art that complemented our favorite shirt colors. We sourced zero-waste packaging supplies made from recycled materials. I re-acquired my original screen printing press that I had bought decades earlier as a 19-year-old, and painstakingly restored it. My first tee off the press was the Cardinal Bond. My mom ordered the first one on July 11, 2020. We were psyched.

Even though the economy was about to plummet, we decided we wanted to donate a substantial portion of every shirt sale to wildlife conservation. We were proud of our accomplishments in our first six months at the end of 2020. In 2021, we introduced our Truly Wild brand featuring wildlife species from around the planet, and things were really taking off.

But life has a habit of getting in the way. In the middle of 2021, Cristina encouraged me to apply for a master's program in Conservation Biology at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Even though it was a long shot, I managed to squeak my way into the challenging program with 12 other students. It was an incredible experience, and I had the great honor of researching the rare black-footed cat in Namibia, but the clothing brand lost momentum.

When I got back home, I took a job as the website administrator at The American Chestnut Foundation here in Asheville. Our little clothing brand moved to the back burner. We started reviving it in the fall of 2024 but we soon realized it was time to pursue new dreams.

The exciting news is that Cristina and I are both exploring new paths as wildlife artists. You can see some of Cristina's recent work as a fine art painter at CristinaGarciaArt.com and I've started developing my art site at HalBrindleyArt.com where I've listed some of my illustrations as note cards with art prints to follow soon.

We've had a great run, sold thousands of eco-conscious shirts, hoodies, hats, and scarves to nature lovers like yourself, and supported some great wildlife conservation projects along the way.

NOW THE SILVER LINING

We're counting down our last month at Truly Wild. As the weeks count down, the sales get bigger, but the inventory will get smaller!

We'll be closing on July 11, exactly five years after my mom ordered the very first shirt from Truly Wild. If there's a Truly Wild shirt you always wanted, now is the time!