The end of an era.

Dear Vanguard, 

We are heartbroken to say that Volante Design is closing. It's never an easy decision to end something. In fact we have been at this crossroads many times before and have found a way forward. This time is different. We are unwilling to take on more debt against our home or our names. We announced this closure to our staff and our Discord community yesterday. 

Friends, thank you for your support over the years. Thank you for all your kind words and condolences. I can't express how grateful I am for the opportunity to make you cool clothes, and how much your comments mean to me, nor how proud I am to have had a positive impact on so many of your lives.

I also completely appreciate the desire to try to save us, and many of you are already doing so, insofar as we can be saved. Crowdfunding won't be our silver bullet. The situation we are in, and the external economic factors, have put us in a position that we can't continue on in the same way. The next best step for us is for me and Willow to clear out our current stock while we figure out what is next for us. I can’t imagine being done making clothing, but we also can’t continue to support a company at our current operating scale.

Running a fashion company was always going to be difficult. It is not an industry known for easy work or high margins. We had a good run. We will of course fulfill all open orders, and all pre-orders (we learned long ago that pre-orders are too risky of a business model if the garment isn't already beyond 50% through production). We will maintain any open B2B obligations. We will not be releasing any new products. I wish I could say Volante Design is ending... it'll just be 'Volante' now. But... that's not the case. I know we have been hyping up our comic for months now, and I want to say that was very real up until very recently, when it became clear that we would have to announce our closure. It just didn't feel right to launch a big crowdfunding campaign and turn around to make this announcement in a few weeks. Perhaps someday, when the time is right, we will finish up that issue and release it to you all. But for now, our focus is on liquidating our current inventory and helping our team move on with as much grace as we can muster.

We love our Vanguard community and there’s no reason it can’t remain. Running a Discord server is free, and I have appreciated every one of you and your contributions to this community. You are why we did this in the first place. Join the server, even now, I’m sure you’ll make some new friends.

We will attend these Conventions as long as there is inventory available: 

Katsucon 
Pax East
Connecticon 
Gen Con 
Star Trek Las Vegas
Anime NYC 

Products will stay online. Pre-orders will be shipped. 

This is not the last you’ll hear from us.

Thank you.
David and Willow Volante