From Kickstarter success to constitutional showdown, Princess Awesome is challenging unconstitutional tariffs
What sets successful entrepreneurs apart from the rest isn’t just a great idea (although that doesn’t hurt); it’s the rare ability to take a concept and turn it into something tangible. Eva St. Clair and Rebecca Melsky had no experience starting a business, but they had a vision for a kids’ clothing company that smashed stereotypes, and most importantly, they had the determination to do whatever it takes to get their company off the ground.
Thirteen years later, Princess Awesome & Boy Wonder has taken off, and all that hard work was worth it. But now, the company’s future is in jeopardy, thanks to the burden of new steep—and unlawful—tariffs.
Dinosaurs and dresses
Eva St. Clair and Rebecca Melsky have been friends since they met while their husbands were studying public policy in grad school. After graduation, both couples eventually settled in Washington, DC, and started families. Between the two families, there are seven kids—Rebecca has three and Eva has four.
Before venturing into the world of entrepreneurship, Rebecca had spent a decade as a teacher and Eva worked in web design. She was also a talented seamstress, a skill that would come in handy later. While attending her own birthday party in 2013, Rebecca had a wild idea: She wanted to start a children’s clothing company.
Rebecca’s daughter loved wearing dresses, but she also loved dinosaurs, which presented a problem when shopping for clothes. The only dresses they could find were pink, purple, or super “girly” while the dinosaur clothing was reserved for the boys. Rebecca wondered why they didn’t make dresses with the same fun prints they use for the boys’ clothes. Certainly, Rebecca and her daughter weren’t the only ones who felt this way.
Rebecca saw this problem as an opportunity to fill a void in the marketplace. But she had no idea how to sew a dress and knew even less about starting a business. So she brought her idea to Eva, who immediately fell in love with the concept and had the sewing skills to get the project off the ground.
They set off to test Rebecca’s hypothesis and see if there was any demand for dresses with unique, traditionally “boyish” prints. And to make their first round of dresses, Eva used her 1948 SINGER sewing machine, which she bought when she was nine years old. Eva made the skirts out of custom-print fabric she purchased and then sewed them onto plain-colored T-shirts. Now armed with prototypes, they took their dresses to a church Christmas bazaar to see if they had any buyers.
People loved the dresses, and soon Rebecca and Eva had their own small online store, selling their products mainly to their friends and family. As their fanbase kept growing, it became unfeasible for Eva to sew every dress. Neither of the women had any experience finding a commercial manufacturer, so they had to learn as they went along. What they did know was they wanted to work with factories that treated their employees well, and they figured an American manufacturer would be their best bet. They found a factory in Chicago that could take care of the cutting and the sewing, but they would need to provide all the supplies.
Finding the fabric presented another set of issues. Their dresses were cotton, but they couldn’t find manufacturers who could make custom prints on any material aside from woven fabric, which is typically used for quilting. As they searched, it became clear that sourcing custom fabric in the U.S. was going to be impossible. But that was far from the only obstacle they faced. The costs were starting to add up quickly and they needed $35,000 to fulfill their orders, which they didn’t have.
Like many hopeful entrepreneurs, they took their idea to Kickstarter to see if they could generate interest and the funds they needed. They had no idea how this decision would change everything.
Unexpected success, unfortunate uncertainty
The Kickstarter campaign couldn’t have come at a better time. There was a growing appetite for kids’ clothing that wasn’t bound by stereotypes, and Princess Awesome & Boy Wonder was exactly what people were looking for. To their surprise, their Kickstarter didn’t raise $35,000 like they had hoped. Instead, they raised $215,000. What was once meant to be a fun side hustle was now being featured online, on the news, and in print. Thanks to one angel investor, they were able to make the company their full-time job.
As much as they loved the Chicago factory, the manufacturing process was not seamless—no pun intended. The factory only did the physical sewing, which meant the ladies had to source and provide all other materials from the fabric all the way down to the elastic and the tags, all of which came from different places. Even the fabric for the top and bottom sections of the dress had to come from multiple sources.
They began to look for ways to simplify the process and make it more affordable; fortunately, they found a factory in Hong Kong that met both their logistical needs and ethical standards. In the beginning, they had the factory produce only the T-shirt part of the dress, but over time they moved more of the production process to Hong Kong. It wasn’t just the price that was appealing; the quality in Hong Kong was better and the process more streamlined. The factory could handle fabric, labor, labels, and packaging. As a result, Princess Awesome was able to expand its product line to include leggings, boys’ clothes, and matching clothing for parents.
The ladies still use their Chicago factory for some of their products when it makes sense. One of Princess Awesome’s dresses is red, white, and blue and features a patch on the T-shirt designed to look like an “I voted” sticker but instead reads, “I will vote.” Keeping with the spirit and patriotism of the dress’s theme, they manufacture them in America.
But throughout its existence, Princess Awesome has adjusted its plans to meet market demands and respond to increased costs.
When the president imposed a round of tariffs on China in 2018, the company’s costs increased, and they decided to move some manufacturing (at higher costs) to Pakistan, India, and Peru. But they still produced some products in China—products they now will be forced to make elsewhere because of the new 2025 tariffs, as Rebecca explained:
We have our fall production run in Bangladesh and we were going to try to move all of it when we thought [new] reciprocal tariffs were going to come. But now there’s a 90-day pause, and the factory said, ‘If you put in a ticket now we can get it in in 90 days with air shipping.’ The cost of air shipping will probably be five to six thousand. The cost of the tariffs will probably be like seven to $8,000.
It’s all guesswork, she says.
If the pause on tariffs extends past the current 90-day window, the costs would be significantly less. But there’s no way for Rebecca and Eva to accurately predict what will happen, which makes every business decision a gamble.
Already, they have had to cut back on certain productions and have shelved some designs they’d planned to introduce. At the moment, they haven’t had to raise prices on the products that were already assembled and in stock, because they didn’t have to pay any extra tariffs on those items. But with an uncertain future, they may not be able to keep prices the same forever.
The princesses fight back
Frustrated as they have been, they weren’t sure how they could challenge the tariffs until they received an email from Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Oliver Dunford. Oliver explained that PLF was preparing to challenge the tariffs as part of our unrelenting fight to uphold the separation of powers. The Constitution gives Congress, and Congress alone, the authority to institute tariffs. Our system of checks and balances ensures that no branch can usurp the duty of another. Yet, these tariffs are nothing short of the executive’s usurpation of Congress’s legislative power.
The president claims authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). IEEPA allows the president to assert some control over foreign property—but only in the event of a declared national emergency “to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat” to national security, foreign policy, or the economy. IEEPA says nothing about tariffs, in contrast to many other statutes that do allow the president, under specified conditions, to make limited and temporary tariff adjustments. Not surprisingly, then, no president has relied on IEEPA to institute new tariffs—until now.
Because Congress has not given the executive branch the power to impose these new tariffs, and absent these permissions, the executive’s actions are unconstitutional. Unfortunately, small businesses like Princess Awesome & Boy Wonder will suffer the consequences, and many of these small companies will be unable to survive the economic blow this will inflict.
Pacific Legal Foundation is helping Princess Awesome & Boy Wonder and other small businesses fight to restore the separation of powers. Finding PLF has meant the world to Rebecca and Eva. “It really sparked in me my love of the country and the Constitution,” Eva said. “Someone else understands just how constitutionally wrong this is and that the power to tax is very clearly outlined as Congress’s role.”
Eva also hopes this lawsuit will “put the onus back on Congress to do its job, which it continually and over the last especially 50 years has ceded power to the executive branch. Take the job you’ve been told to do, and if you’re going to raise a tariff on me, fine. But the people need to vote for that.”
