Tomorrow, Wednesday March 19th, Gaga’s will be on the TODAY show! As part of a segment in a series called “Cheapskate: The Quest for the Best Bargains”, Gaga’s is featured for its great values on children’s special occasion clothes.

We’re expecting to have several outfits on models, a few more on dress forms, and hopefully there will be a four-legged model showing off one of our new fashions from Scooter’s Friends.

As always, we’ll have the video on the site in the “As Seen and Heard” section just as soon as possible.

Is your wedding going to the dogs? Gaga’s is now the exclusive rental provider for these incredible Doggy Tuxedos from Scooter’s Friends.

Available in mid-April, we’ll be carrying both Ivory and Black tuxedos with bowties available in all 36 of Gaga’s Color Perfect Satin Collection.  You can place your Advance Order now and have the perfect outfit for your best friend when the Big Day comes!

I can’t remember when I was this excited about a new product. I know that for many people, their pets are just like their children. Now they can be part of your wedding party and even match the Bride’s colors for the big day!

If you’re a Gaga’s fan, you are probably also a fan of Green Living — using Freecycle sites, recycling everything you can, visiting sites like Craigs List to reuse rather than buying new…

Well, I recently stumbled onto a site that I think is perfect for this mindset, and is also kind of a fun idea!

It’s called BookCrossing and their concept is this… Mark your book with a BookCrossing ID and the BookCrossing.com web address, then “set it free” by “releasing” it somewhere where it will be picked up. The person who finds it will, hopefully, go to the web and enter info on their newly “captured” book. They’ll have a chance to read something new, you’ll get notified of your karmic boost, and the whole world can watch it happen. Cool, eh?

The current (February 2008) issue of Parenting magazine gushes about Gaga’s service and offerings, even noting that we offer a lot more than just wedding apparel. Read the full article below:

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Gaga’s was featured on “190 North”, a production of Chicago’s ABC7. The magazine-format show features the very best Chicago has to offer, and had a great segment on Gaga’s!

Here are a few screens from the show, or click the big image below to view the whole thing on YouTube. Thanks to Janet Davies and the entire 190 North team.

Designer Steven Rosengard from Bravo TV’s Project Runway has added two seasonal versions of his Perfect Rose dress, which is available exclusively at Gagas.com.

The Christmas Dress (left) and New Year’s Eve Dress (right) are only available for a limited time. As with any Perfect Rose dress, the first 100 orders will receive a matching wrist rosette signed by designer Rosengard.

Janet Davies and the crew from ABC7’s magazine show “190 N.” were in the Gaga’s offices and warehouse yesterday for a chat. In addition to letting me explain what Gaga’s is all about and how we save parents money, they taped a mini-fashion show with six great outfits and interviewed a delighted Gaga’s customer who used us for her wedding.

If you’re in the Chicago area, you can watch us on ABC7 at 10:30pm on Sunday, 16 December 2007, and then again at 11:30pm on Saturday, 22 December. If you’re not in the Chicago area, or just not a night owl, our segment should be available on the 190 N. website shortly after the first airing.

PS — Today is the birthday of the Gaga in my life who inspired the name of the company. Happy Birthday mom, I love you and miss you.

A Gaga’s Exclusive, by designer Steven Rosengard from TV’s Project Runway

Gaga’s has joined forces with Chicago’s rising star clothing designer, Steven Rosengard, to create our latest original design: the Perfect Rose Dress.

Steven Rosengard, 30, is competing in the current season of Bravo’s Project Runway and has garnered attention in Chicago for his work with natural fabrics that bring a simple, yet elegant, perspective to women’s day wear.

The Gaga’s Exclusive Perfect Rose Dress is available only online here, at Gagas.com. The base dress, with its full, elegant silhouette and quirky half sleeves, is offered in white and ivory satin with a choice of 36 colors for the sashes and signature rosette accent.

Steven’s design is really, absolutely exquisite. At Gaga’s, all of us are so thrilled to offer this beautiful design from a great local designer.

Steven has also done several seasonal variations on the design: the Christmas and New Year’s versions, available for purchase nowhere but here at Gagas.com, which will be revealed on December 6th.

We’re also having an amazing special promotion now! The first 100 orders for the Perfect Rose Dress, either for purchase or for rental, will receive a free matching wrist rosette on a tie ribbon, autographed by Rosengard. The rosette will be the girl’s to keep even if the dress is rented.

Gaga’s was thrilled to be the feature of a story in today’s Chicago Tribune business section.

We were really pleased with the story, and two pictures, including one nearly half-page one — that’s too much me for even me! The article was looking at companies making the decision to seek Angel funding featured Gaga’s and another young company.

So here’s a question for you… When we do photos, TV appearances, trade shows, etc., we have two ways of displaying the clothes. First is the more traditional dressmaker’s form, such as those holding the two dresses immediately to the right of me in the photo. The second way is on the mannequins. Do you prefer one over the other? A friend of mine calls the mannequin children the “woodland creatures”, perhaps tipping his hand for which style he likes better. Which do you find more appealing?

iRent2u.com launched today, creating the first person-to-personal online rental network.

Got a leaf-blower that you use only use a few hours a year? Offer it to those around you and earn some extra bucks. Need a party tent for your Fourth of July party in your backyard? Connect with that guy down the street who bought one a few years back.

iRent2u will eventually serve a nationwide audience but is focusing for now on the Inland Empire region of southern California. However, some of iRent2u’s listing providers, including Gaga’s, are already nationwide in scope.

Check it out, and if you happen to be in southern California, maybe you can finally make some money off that big inflatable bouncy room or seldom used ATV that’s taking up room in your garage.

Gaga’s has had an amazing first year… We’ve proven that we have a service parents love, and we’ve found some very effective ways of reaching out and connecting with parents in our hometown market, here in and around Chicago. I started Gaga’s with my own funds, and with the help of family and friends, and with that start we’ve been able to grow it to where it’s self-sustaining as it continues to grow.

As I look at options for how to continue to help Gaga’s grow, there are two paths I could pursue. I could continue to “bootstrap” the company and grow it organically. Or I could bring in some additional funding beyond that provided by organic growth and really take things to the next level. Take the advertising and marketing tactics that have worked so well in the Chicago market and expand with them to the rest of the nation. Build relationships with new customers, new distribution channels, new marketing partners. That makes some sense…

So I’ve decided to seek Angel funding to help Gaga’s go to the next level more quickly. If you’re an accredited investor, or know someone who is, and are interested in learning more about how you might be part of Gaga’s next phase of growth, I’d like to hear from you. Drop me a line at Mike@Gagas.com and let’s talk. I’d love for you to join in as we help Gaga’s serve as many parents as possible.

When I started Gaga’s, I had one goal in mind — to make dressing kids for special occasions as easy and affordable as possible. In our first year of business, thousands of parents from across America let us know that we’d done a fantastic job meeting that goal.

Part of making it easy for parents was streamlining the return process. Gaga’s includes a prepaid return mailing label in every box we send out, and from day one you’ve been able to just repack the clothes into the provided bag or box, put on the return label, and drop it off at any USPS Post Office or give it to any USPS Postal Carrier.

Part of keeping it affordable has meant always looking for ways to reduce our costs, so that we can keep your prices as low as possible. After an extended review of current shipping options and pricing, Gaga’s has decided to switch from the United States Postal Service (USPS) to UPS for our shipping and return shipping. This switch will have many benefits for you and for Gaga’s:

• UPS has vastly superior tracking of your package, which will allow you see at any time exactly where your package is and when you can expect it. The Postal Service tracking was almost completely useless, and gave no real information about where a package was and when it would be delivered.
• UPS has guaranteed delivery dates. The Postal Service could not guarantee delivery dates for any service other than their Express Mail.
• A new shipping option will be available. If you need something more quickly than our standard UPS Ground service can get it to you, now you will have two options. We will continue to offer guaranteed overnight service for an extra $20, and we will now be offering the option for 2-day shipping using UPS 2-Day Air Saver Service for just $12.50 more.
• Free replacement of lost return labels. Previously, Gaga’s had to pre-pay for every single return label we sent out. When customers would occasionally damage or lose these labels, that was lost money for Gaga’s, and the customer had to pay to return the clothes themselves. With UPS, only labels which are actually used are paid for, and so we can easily replace lost labels at no charge.
• Significant overall shipping cost reductions. After the Postal Service raised their rates in May, it was becoming more difficult for Gaga’s to continue absorbing the large share of the round-trip shipping costs we were in order to keep your prices low. Switching to UPS will lower our overall shipping costs, which will allow us to avoid raising prices.

There is one trade-off that we had to make, however, to make all these great things possible. We know that returning your items may now, for some people, be a little more inconvenient, and we sincerely regret that. Nationwide, UPS has 53,000 locations where you can return your items to Gaga’s, including over 40,000 24-hour drop boxes. (To find the UPS locations closest to you, just click here.) Additionally, many companies receive daily service from UPS, and you can give your items to any UPS driver to be sent back to Gaga’s.

We appreciate your business and your loyalty to Gaga’s, and look forward to continuing to serve you for years to come. I welcome any feedback you have on this change, or any aspect of Gaga’s service. Part of our mission statement is that we strive to deliver an outrageously delightful experience to every customer. If there’s anything we can do better to achieve that goal, please let me know.

We’re always working hard to stay up on the latest color trends, particularly in the very color-sensitive wedding industry. Fortunately, since we manufacturer our most popular items, everything in the Gaga’s Originals collection can be designed using the latest “it” colors. This means that whatever the current fashion rage is for wedding colors, you can be sure that Gaga’s will have exactly the color you need for your flowergirl’s dress and your ringbearer’s tuxedo accessories.

The five new satin colors we’ve added for Fall 2007 are:

These colors will soon be appearing in all our Gaga’s Originals items, including the Classic Satin A-Line Dress, the Satin Sashes which coordinate with the Sweetheart Dress and others, and in all the boys’ Tuxedo Accessories including vests, cummerbunds, neckties and bowties.

It can take us a while to get sample items made in every style, every color, and then photographed and entered on the website, so if there’s something you’d like to have in one of these satin colors and you don’t see it on the site, call or email us and we can help you order it.

(Note that colors can vary widely from monitor to monitor. Lucky for you, Gaga’s will gladly send you swatches of any satin or petal samples you’d like to see. Just ask!)

The days when “June” and “Weddings” were synonymous are long-gone — now brides are scheduling their ceremonies year-round and are coordinating their wedding colors with the seasons.

In Fall 2007, watch for butterscotch, cranberry, latte, cinnamon, and merlot as the hot colors.

Some brides are taking the seasonal theme even further with Gaga’s signature Petal-Perfect Flower Girl Dress filled with our fall maple leaf mix.

But whatever time of year you have your wedding, we’ll have the perfect colors to help the little members of the wedding party fit right in.

(Note that colors can vary widely from monitor to monitor. Lucky for you, Gaga’s will gladly send you swatches of any satin or petal samples you’d like to see. Just ask!)

Gaga’s presented a Fall fashion show this morning for the viewers of Chicago’s NBC5’s morning show. Gaga’s CEO, Mike W. Miller, explained what Gaga’s offers and how it works, then our models showed off some great — and inexpensive! — fashions that are perfect for any sort of back-to-school season event.

Click the large picture below to view the video of Gaga’s on NBC5.

One of the greatest parts about manufacturing some of our most popular items is that we can also respond to customer requests for new styles.

A request we heard time and time again was for a formal dress that had sleeves on it, and so we are proud to announce our new Sweetheart Dress.

Available in both white and ivory, the Sweetheart Dress can be accented with our Satin Sash in any of the 30+ colors of our Color Perfect collection. The dress features pretty cap sleeves and a beautiful sweetheart cut neckline for one extra touch of class!

Today is Gaga’s first birthday!

Chicago Style Weddings magazine is the most respected regional wedding publication in the midwest.

Gaga’s was included in the magazine’s “City Scene” section which features innovative solutions of interest to brides.

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At Gaga’s, we know kids will be kids, so when a parent calls to let us know that something’s gotten stained, we don’t panic — we just give good advice!

We’ve dealt with getting out just about any kind of stain you can imagine, and one that baffles a lot of parents is blood. If you ever have the misfortune of having something stained with a bit of the red stuff, don’t fret — even if it’s already dried you can get it out easily.

After you’ve bandaged and kissed whatever little booboos happened, treat the stain with hydrogen peroxide. Use it full-strength on whites, or dilute it to 50% strength with water for colored fabrics. After dabbing on the hydrogen peroxide, let it work for about 5 minutes, then blot up the dissolved blood with a clean cloth. Reapply more peroxide if necessary, wait, then reblot. This works on both natural and synthetic fabrics, both fresh stains and dried blood.

If you have any kind of stain you’re curious about treating, give us a call here — we have the best collection of pre-treating and stain removal tips and tricks anywhere, and we’re happy to share!

Gaga’s is thrilled to be mentioned in LA Brides magazine’s new Spring/Summer 2007 issue! This was another unplanned inclusion — we found out about it when a copy of the magazine landed in our mailbox here at Gaga’s!

Serving the extremely stylish and fashion-conscious southern California market, LA Brides is full of great tips to help brides plan the perfect wedding — including saving money on the perfect kids’ outfits with Gaga’s!

Here is the cover from the new issue; the story from inside is below. Read the rest of this entry »

Parents magazine has a nice little piece about Gaga’s in their current (May 2007) issue which is on the newsstands now. With over 2.2 million subscribers in the United States, this is the biggest exposure Gaga’s has received so far, and we’re really excited that they found us and put this together entirely on their own — we learned we were in this issue by hearing about it from our customers!

Here’s the cover; the full article is below. Read the rest of this entry »

Gaga’s was thrilled to be invited to appear on Chicago’s ABC7 this morning. As we explained to our host, Judy Hsu, Gaga’s offers parents an easy and inexpensive option for dressing the kids for any kind of special occasion, including Easter!

Our models showed off four great outfits that would be perfect for Easter services, brunch with the family, group portraits — just about anything you might be doing this Easter weekend where you’d like the kids to look extra special.

Click the picture below to view the video of Gaga’s on ABC7.