When Allegra Shaw started her YouTube channel nearly 15 years ago, she wasn’t thinking about building a fashion empire. Like many early creators on the platform, she simply wanted to be part of a community—sharing hair and makeup tips as a hobby, not a career. Sometimes the most meaningful businesses emerge from the most personal needs. For Allegra, that need was finding the perfect fitting t-shirt.
Today, Uncle Studios has sold more than 3,000 of those same white t-shirts, reached seven figures in revenue through purely organic growth, and opened its first flagship store on Toronto’s trendy Ossington Avenue.
How to grow from content creator to fashion founder
Ahead, Allegra shares her journey from content creator to fashion founder, discussing how to build an ethical, meaningful brand that prioritizes substance over shortcuts.
1. Start with what’s missing in your own life
The inception of Uncle Studios wasn’t driven by market research or trend forecasting—it came from Allegra’s own closet. “I noticed something was missing,” she explains. “The perfect baby tee.” This personal frustration became the foundation for everything that followed.
This approach stands in stark contrast to the typical influencer merchandise playbook of the mid-2010s. While most creators were simply slapping their logos on generic hoodies and calling it a day, Allegra and her cofounder, Shirin Soltani, took a different path. “I didn’t want to just put more garbage out there,” Allegra reflects. “There’s so many pieces of clothing. And if I was gonna make clothes, I wanted to do it right.”
2. Embrace the learning curve with determination
With no fashion industry connections and a modest $5,000 budget funded by Allegra’s YouTube earnings, the duo embarked on what Allegra describes as driving “around all the outskirts of Toronto, Mississauga, and Scarborough” knocking on factory doors. “We had no idea what we were doing, like, just no idea,” she admits. “But we did have determination that we were gonna figure it out.”
This willingness to start from zero and learn through doing became a defining characteristic of Uncle Studios. When Shirin took over production management, she mastered the art of cold outreach, even telling some white lies about industry connections to get meetings. “Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to get in the door,” Allegra says.
The approach of “we’re just gonna figure it out” might seem naive, but it reflects a crucial entrepreneurial mindset—the confidence to learn and adapt in real time rather than waiting until you feel fully prepared.
3. Build on trust, not transactions
Uncle Studios built a seven-figure business without paying for advertising. When Facebook advertising became unavailable due to a hacking incident, Allegra discovered something powerful: “The community that we’ve built is everything. Without them, we wouldn’t have a business.”
This organic growth stems from her own approach to content creation, which she describes as always thinking, “What do I want to watch,” rather than trying to appeal to everyone. Today, Uncle Studios gifts products to creators Allegra believes will genuinely love and wear them, hoping for organic advocacy rather than paid promotion.
4. Test relentlessly before scaling
Before committing to a permanent flagship store, Allegra and Shirin ran four different pop-up shops around Toronto, each with distinct themes and locations.
“You get to talk to the customer, you get to learn about them in real life, and then you get to see how they interact with the brand and your product,” Allegra says.
One particularly valuable practice was positioning themselves outside fitting rooms to listen to customers’ unfiltered conversations. “Whether people knew us or not, we were listening to what people were saying. Especially when there’s, like, two friends in change rooms, they’ll be talking back and forth and you get a lot of insight into fit, into quality, into fabrics,” Allegra says.
This hands-on research approach led them to their Ossington location, where their fourth pop-up—an ’80s-themed convenience store—proved most successful. Allegra had actually toured the space in 2021 and when a For Lease sign appeared in 2024, Allegra immediately called.
5. Maintain your values under pressure
Despite the financial pressures of bootstrapping, the cofounders never compromised on their core values. “Anything in business I need to feel really good about in my gut,” Allegra says. This means insisting on quality materials, ethical manufacturing, and fair wages, even when cheaper alternatives are available.
The brand’s commitment to sustainability and ethics sometimes meant moving production between countries during the pandemic when Canadian manufacturers shifted to PPE production. Rather than settling for questionable alternatives, Uncle Studios continued seeking partners who aligned with their values. “Every garment is made by a person,” Allegra says. “People need to be paid living wages.”
This values-first approach extended to pricing strategy as well. Rather than competing on price, Uncle Studios positioned itself around cost per wear—the idea that quality basics justify higher upfront costs through longevity. “I do believe if you are investing in great quality basics that you can get a lot of wear out of, in the long run, it is cheaper than just buying your quick $10 thing that you’re gonna throw in a month,” Allegra says.
“I want people to buy our products and live in them,” she explains, referencing Uncle Studios’ tagline “The clothes you live in.”
That philosophy extends beyond product design to business strategy. Rather than chasing viral moments or trend-driven growth, Allegra has built Uncle Studios to be its own separate entity with its own identity, distinct from her personal brand. This separation allows the company to scale beyond its founder while maintaining its core values.
Building a meaningful brand doesn’t require sacrificing financial success or vice versa. By starting with genuine needs, maintaining consistent values, and building real relationships, Uncle Studios has created something that serves both its community and its founders.
The perfect white t-shirt, it turns out, was never just about the shirt. It was about creating something worth wearing, worth making, and worth building a business around—one authentic relationship at a time. Catch Allegra’s full Shopify Masters interview on YouTube for content creation and community building tips.
