American consumers may not have heard about DressMonkey yet, but the bureaucrats in D.C. whose job it is to protect them sure have.

For over two weeks now, I've been trying (and failing) to speak to someone at the CPSC about the Fabric Flammability Act, since the law is central to our business of manufacturing and selling clothes. I called at least 4 times this week and every time I can never get past the same old senior-aged bureaucrat sitting behind her desk giggling every time the name DressMonkey is said. All I ask from her is that I be connected to the officer in charge of compliance for this particular statute. She promises me that a compliance officer has been forwarded my request and will call me back shortly. Two weeks later and still not a word…

Covering our ass from all the consumer product/retail regulations was something we knew we had to do before starting the business. However, we didn’t foresee the price for following the rules being caught up in a web of US bureaucratic inefficiency.