POPRAGEOUS
Leggings and Beyond
When Cher Park launched her Poprageous collection in 2013, she had to persuade Los Angeles factories to take her small orders.
“They’re set up for mass production. It was difficult to accommodate my orders,” she said. “I’d ask for one in each size.”
And even when her orders grew, Park found it challenging to get her leggings printed correctly and on time. “I’d get 30 pieces that were all wrong. They’d have to go back, and I’d get pushed to the bottom of the queue again,” she said.
So Park purchased her own sublimation printer and press, which is housed in her new two-room studio in downtown Los Angeles.
Along with a small four-person team, Park designs and produces leggings printed with everything from donuts to Claude Monet’s Water Lilys. There are photos of Beverly Hills and Venice Beach, public-domain artwork by artists such as Monet and Hieronymus Bosch, and collaborations with contemporary artists such as Jasmine Becket-Griffith. A recent design features a Nordic sea-monster map.
In January, Poprageous expanded the collection to include swimwear and dresses in body-conscious and skater silhouettes. In May, Elle Canada shot Emma Roberts wearing Poprageous’ giraffe-print maillot for the cover.
With the new in-house equipment, Park and her team ensure the exact placement of each design so a large-scale image can perfectly align across the body or along the leg.
“We are able to execute so much faster now,” she said.
The setup allows her unfettered creativity—and the ability to continue to print small production runs. “I come from Forever 21, where the philosophy was about having a lot of SKUs—it’s more breadth than depth,” she said.
Poprageous designs are sold on the company’s e-commerce site (www.poprageous.com) with retail prices starting at $75 for leggings and up to $120 for swimwear. “I like being able to print something I dreamed about the night before and seeing how it does on the site,” Park said.
She recently landed an order from Los Angeles–based retailer Kitson for Poprageous’ Grumpy Cat legging, which features the Internet celebrity cat with the permanent frown. The leggings will be available in stores to coincide with the release of “Grumpy Cat: A Grumpy Book” at Kitson stores.
Next up for the company are printed fleece pieces, and, for fall, Park is working on a “cool, sexy jogger.”
For more information, call (310) 210-0978 or visit
