Meet Mark Boutilier and Bailey Gibson of Palette Atlanta in North Atlanta

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Boutilier and Bailey Gibson.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Bailey and I were spending the weekend in Savannah with Camy, a close friend when we came up with the idea of Palette. We both had always been interested in fashion/streetwear and wanted to challenge ourselves to take our passions to the next level. We referred to this not as a brand, but an art experience. We continuously were thinking of new pieces to try and make various photo shoot ideas, and YouTube videos to document it all. Today, we continue to stay true to ourselves by making garments that we want to wear, without concern of what others will think or of a “brand aesthetic”. From where we started to now, our personal style’s have changed tremendously. Knowing our style’s are always changing, it only makes sense to create pieces to complement this process.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has been far from a smooth road for us. When we created Palette, we knew we were going to be sacrificing time and energy, but we definitely undershot just how much time and energy would actually be required. Mark and I meet up several times a week to work on stuff, are both full-time students, and both work part-time jobs. To top it all off, we live over an hour apart from one another. Finding time can be difficult, but we’re best friends and are doing something we love to do. We wanted to do something creative together and we are doing that. This is something that is exciting for us and we refuse to let boundaries and obstacles hinder what we are capable of.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Palette Atlanta story. Tell us more about the business.
Whenever I’m asked “what is palette?”, I always have to stop and think for a minute. While it would be easy to call ourselves a clothing brand, we are much more than that. Palette is an art experience and lifestyle that Bailey and I have chosen to embody. We are by no means professionals. We simply love clothing and streetwear and decided to do something more with that love. We are very experimental in our approach. We have a million screw-ups laying around, but we continue to learn and get better at our craft. We pride ourselves on doing nearly everything ourselves. Between me and Bailey, we sew, hand-dye, screen-print, shoot photos, shoot videos, edit, and market the entire business. While this is not the easy route, we are making ourselves better as creators and are becoming more and more comfortable in our abilities. Going forward, we look to challenge ourselves with new and exciting projects and begin dropping merchandise.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I feel lucky to be surrounded by lots of creative influence. Mark and I have a close-knit friend group that are very driven in what they do and supportive in what we do. It makes Palette so much easier with positive influences around and we could not do it without these influences. We constantly see people our age getting into trouble, wasting time, and/or throwing away their passions and we use this to fuel our creativity.