Legacy brand Your Highness is now relaunching on the rec market with some fire weed alongside some of the best looking merch on the scene. For CEO Becky Rotramel, it has been a strictly family business along with some choice partnerships that have strengthened their brand as the market has evolved over the years.
Your Highness is one of the only legacy brands in California that is woman-led. Since 2013 they’ve hustled in the streets and then on the rec market, while also building a popular lifestyle clothing company alongside their product. A new partnership with Illa Canna will put the brand in many more stores in the LA area in the coming year.
The brand has been home grown since 2013. “The entire company, the clothing side and the cannabis side, it’s just our family, and we’ve never taken any money from corporations,” Becky said.
Second Generation
Growing up, Becky’s father grew weed in their garage selling it for a decent profit, but it wasn’t until 2011 when she found her way into the industry. While dating her future husband Sean, he semi-jokingly said “I need somewhere to put my veg, can I put it in your apartment?” Surprisingly, Becky said yes and before long they became partners and she began learning all the aspects of growing.
“Everything he does I do it right along with him. I do consider myself a grower,” Becky says, making her a second generation grower in the family.
As the business began to grow during the Prop 215 era, Becky noticed concentrate companies were starting to heavily brand their products and very few weed brands had gotten in the game. “People really like our flower and we should start branding our weed,” she told Sean who was initially reluctant.
Branding New
It was then that she started an Instagram account and Your Highness was born. She liked the double meanings in the name “getting high and also being the top of the hierarchy, kings and queens of cannabis.”
The Instagram account not only helped shape the look of their brand, but it put them in touch with their customers and they were able to receive feedback. “People were able to smoke our flower and then they were able to tell us that they loved it which was a whole new high in itself,” Becky says.
At first branding was as simple as putting stickers with their logo on turkey bags of weed that were donated to dispensaries during Prop 215. Most dispensaries didn’t want products with a brand that was not their own. A big turning point for the brand was when Jungle Boys put their weed with the Your Highness logo on their shelves and tagged them on Instagram. Their weed was on the shelves of Cookies Maywood the day that legalization took place in 2018. Becky proudly says, “We are truly a legacy brand.”
Weed Fashion
The next phase of branding was selling t-shirts with their logo on them which had great response, enough for the couple to explore further options in branded clothing. This led to a partnership with Becky’s family members, the founders of lifestyle brand Broken Promises, to spearhead the apparel connected to cannabis. Together they created high-quality products which has become a second business in itself. Zumiez picked up their products right away because of their uniqueness. “We are mostly woman led in our designs, we’ve created a lifestyle brand attached to our amazing cannabis, a brand that has actual depth beyond a logo, a message that customers, fans and industry heads all connect with. Embracing positivity and acknowledging your self worth, with an extensive collection ranging from women’s pants, denim, skirts and dresses to crop tops, bikinis and bags. Something that’s unique and can’t just be duplicated by our competitors.” Becky explains.
Amidst all the success and momentum Becky admits, “I notice a lot of the times I’m left out of the conversation in the media.” She says she “can’t say that’s because I’m a woman, or that it’s because it’s woman’s clothes, but how do I know that it’s not?”
Either way, she says “with the way that the market is, women need to band together and support each other.”
She’s always been on the front lines working hard for the brand on the traditional market.
“I do the hustling for Your Highness, I do the sales, I get the high pack prices, I’m the shit. I’m the boss,” Becky says proudly. She admits that the industry is less likely to acknowledge female ballers in the game like herself.
