A 24-piece order used to take Ericka an afternoon

Ericka is my partner, and I am so proud of her.

Ethan & Jaxon Wonderwear is her business, and it is one of the ways she supports our family and importantly her family in the Philippines. She has had real success with it. People from all over the Philippines and the World come to her for an adorable outfit made for their children, with that child’s name on it, which makes it personal. They trust her with it and there is something amazingly beautiful about that. I do my best to help where I can. Mostly that means the storefront she needs to support her unique business, technical support, and anything else she asks of me short of jumping on the sewing machines.

It started as Jaxon Fella, during COVID, from our lounge room in Makati. Jaxon was a baby, we were locked down in the Philippines, and she began there, on that floor, with his name on the label. The family grew around the business, and the business grew around the family. We came home to Adelaide. Ethan arrived, wilful and wonderful and up at dawn. The little label from the lounge room became Ethan & Jaxon Wonderwear. The promise is the same one she made on that floor: one child, one garment, made properly with love.

The afternoon

Every piece is still cut and sewn for one child. The name, the cord colour, the trim, the crochet flowers, the size. None of it is a stock photo. Before a piece goes near a sewing machine, the customer approves a preview of that piece. Once sewing starts, the order cannot be cancelled or redesigned. The preview is how they see what they are actually getting, and how Ericka shows them she understood.

She used to build those previews by hand. About ten minutes each, fitted in around the boys and everything else the day already held. A 24-piece order is twenty-four of those. Four hours of layout before a single stitch, and all the while her sister Elaija knows that work is coming, but without the greenlight to get started. When Ericka gets busy, things slow down and that affects the family in the Philippines who are managing the production line.

She has just done an order that size without giving it the afternoon. That is what I want to tell you about.

Putting the shop in order

For a long time the business ran on what Ericka was holding in her head. Which cord, whose name, whether they wanted the parcel held at the post office, whether they had actually paid. She is brilliant at that. It is also a tax on the hours the business was supposed to give our family back, and it leaves a customer waiting on an answer she has to go and assemble.

So we taught the shop to remember an order the way a customer lives it.

They choose the garment, the size, the fabrics, the extra colours, the child’s name, the font, the cord, and the add-ons, like applique flowers. If they order more than one piece, each piece can carry its own name.

Someone can place an order and not realise that production does not start until they have paid. The shop follows those orders up automatically. They hear from us, then again, and if the payment still has not come the order closes instead of sitting in limbo. When it is paid, a dispatch date is set. They know where they stand. So does she.

None of that is clever. It is a customer who is looked after without Ericka having to be the system.

The help that is actually hers

A tidy order is still not a preview. The customer is signing off on their garment: where the name sits, how the cord looks, which fabric is the body and which is the trim, where the flowers go. A catalog photo would ask them to approve a different piece. Ericka was still building that sheet by hand, because the sheet is the product as far as the customer is concerned.

That is the part I wanted AI to carry, carefully.

Her drawings stay hers. She had already designed the garments, and uploaded images of the colours the way she wants fabric to read: lighter and cleaner than a photograph, folded the way the cloth actually folds. The page recolours those drawings toward colours she has already made.

She opens a “Claude Artifact” called Personalisation Previews and loads the order, or every order still waiting on her. Twenty-four pieces arrive as twenty-four sheets, plus a cover with the names, the order date, and the day they can expect it to go out. Already filled in. Already her drawings, her cords, their child’s name written in the cord itself.

She spends her time on the ones that need an eye. A long name. A crown band that is too small for the usual spacing. Flowers that should sit a little to the left. She can nudge the sheet, change a colour, or tell Claude in ordinary words: rotate it a little, move it up. She can try an idea that was not on the order.

When she is happy, she confirms. The pack is filed on the order, and the customer receives it. Replying to approve is the signature. After that, sewing starts, and changes stop. The people making the clothes are looking at the order she just approved, not a second version someone retyped.

What came back

The ten minutes a piece was data assembly and finger cramps from copying and pasting so many data points. The drawing, the swatches, the name, the labels, the page numbers, over and over. The page does that now. What is left is the judgment the sheet was always for, and the hours around it.

She still confirms. Once a preview has gone to a customer, that version stays. Changing it means deciding again, not quietly editing the one they already saw. And when an order arrives for a garment she has not drawn yet, the page tells her, and waits. The next drawing is still hers to make.

I am proud of what she built from a lounge room in Makati, and proud of the way it has grown up with Jaxon and Ethan. Helping where I can, this time, was giving her tools that look after the customer and give her the afternoon back. The business supports the family. This is me supporting her, so she can be with the boys, and with the work that needs her hands.

Check out the Ethan & Jaxon Wonderwear Instagram, or take a look at the online storefront.