Not Yet Home: A Soulful Story

Not Yet Home: A Soulful Story

There is a particular feeling that comes with wearing something that means something. Not a logo or a slogan stitched on for attention, but a quiet conviction built into the fabric itself. A cross woven into a cable knit. A jacket that says "Jesus Did The Work" across the back, abbreviated into four letters that only make sense to those who already know. A hoodie in washed olive or butter yellow that looks like it belongs in the pages of a design magazine, not in the clearance aisle of a Christian bookstore.

That feeling is what Grey Epps has been building since November 4, 2022, when he released the first products from Not Yet Home. And what he has built, quietly and without a single paid advertisement, is one of the most compelling brand stories in contemporary American fashion.

At San Martini, we believe in personal style that means something. We believe in the curated closet, in choosing fewer things and choosing them better, in wearing objects that carry a story worth telling. Not Yet Home operates from exactly that philosophy. It just arrives at it from a different direction, one that begins with eternity.

Where the Name Comes From

Not Yet Home takes its name from a concept at the heart of Christian theology: that this earthly life is temporary, that believers are passing through rather than arriving, and that their true home lies beyond what can be seen or touched. As the brand's About page states simply, their mission is "to cultivate a lifestyle of eternal perspective through purposeful design."

That phrase, "eternal perspective," appears everywhere in the Not Yet Home universe. It is the Instagram bio. It sits at the top of every email. It is the governing idea behind the color palette, the product names, the collection titles. The brand's four stated values, taken directly from their own language, are: to honor God in all things, to live with eternity in mind, to reflect God's value of quality and design, and to build genuine connection with their community.

What is remarkable is how completely this philosophy has been translated into product. The brand does not rely on bold scripture prints or obvious religious graphics. Instead, faith is encoded into design details that reward attention: crosses woven into the back of cable knit sweaters, the abbreviation "JDTW" (Jesus Did The Work) stamped across the back of their signature work jacket, the "COG" moniker (standing for Child of God) across their most popular hoodie line. These are not declarations. They are conversations waiting to happen.

For anyone building a curated closet with intention, this approach is immediately recognizable as a kindred philosophy. The best pieces in any wardrobe carry meaning without announcing it.

The Man Behind It

Grey Epps was born in Tennessee in 1999. He played college baseball at Southern Illinois University. He built a YouTube channel around barbershop interview-style content. He ran a smaller clothing venture called Grey's Wardrobe before he had fully formed the vision that would become Not Yet Home.

What he had, before he had a brand, was an audience. More precisely, he had the instinct for how to build one honestly. His TikTok account (@iamnotyethome) has accumulated more than 81,000 followers and 1.5 million total likes, not through polished brand campaigns but through a mix of personal storytelling, product reveals, vulnerable business transparency, and the kind of faith content that feels like a friend talking to you, not a company broadcasting at you.

His most viral TikTok to date, a short video captioned "Your next church fit?", accumulated nearly 283,000 likes and 876 comments. It was a simple product showcase. It connected because it spoke to something real: the desire to dress well on Sunday without choosing between looking sharp and living out loud in your faith.

Epps has also been remarkably candid about the harder moments. A TikTok video titled "How NOT YET HOME Lost $30,000" addressed operational challenges and cash flow problems with a transparency that most brands would never risk. In an era when consumers are increasingly skeptical of polished corporate narratives, that honesty has become one of the brand's most valuable assets.

He is joined in building this brand, whether formally or not, by his wife Brooke Epps (née Brooke Bush), who brings her own substantial platform to bear on Not Yet Home's organic growth. Brooke's Instagram (@babybushwhacked) reaches approximately 415,000 followers. Her TikTok exceeds 641,000 followers with over 51 million lifetime likes. Her audience, predominantly Gen Z, female, and faith-oriented, represents exactly the kind of organic amplification that most brands pay millions to approximate.

Together, the Epps family media ecosystem reaches more than two million people. Not a single dollar of paid advertising appears to have driven any of it.

What They Make

Not Yet Home's product line is what separates it most clearly from the rest of the Christian apparel market, a market that has historically clustered around graphic tees, vinyl-print hoodies, and wholesale blanks with scripture stenciled on the chest.

The brand's outerwear tells you everything you need to know about where they are positioning themselves. The signature JDTW Jacket is a 100% duck cotton canvas work jacket, 16 ounces of heavyweight material, available in earth-tone colorways at $149. It sits in a direct conversation with heritage American workwear, the Carhartt and Filson tradition, and it holds its own. The Wool Houndstooth Jacket at $215 and the Quilted Baseball Bomber at $159 complete an outerwear range that reflects genuine design thinking, not a quick blank garment with a religious sentiment applied as an afterthought.

The knitwear is where Not Yet Home makes its most compelling argument. Cross Cable Knit Sweaters in premium cotton and nylon blends, with crosses woven directly into the back of the fabric. COG Ribbed Sweaters in signature colors. Houndstooth Sweaters. Diamond Knit pieces. Cable Knit Baseball Cardigans. At $99 to $105, these are pieces that belong in the same closet conversation as brands charging twice the price. RELEVANT Magazine described the brand's "sleek, minimalistic approach" as pairing "subtle religious references with premium-quality fits, making it easy to wear your faith without looking like a walking sermon bumper sticker."

For those building a men's style wardrobe with intention, the Not Yet Home approach deserves serious consideration. Their knit rugby polos, COG baseball jerseys, and carefully curated hoodie line in colorways like signature green, butter yellow, navy, and wine red offer entry points at $75 to $99 that feel premium without the premium price wall.

The brand's jewelry line is an unexpected and genuinely interesting addition. The Pearly Gates Necklace, Cross Necklace in multiple colorways (blood red and gold, pearl and silver, onyx and silver), and The Fifth Stone Necklace, with stones inspired by the book of Revelation, sit at $149 to $159. For readers of this blog who approach accessories as personal style statements, there is something worth noting here: these are not church gift shop pieces. They are objects designed to be worn, noticed, and discussed.

Accessories extend further into sunglasses at $79 and a pebble leather card holder stamped with the NYH script and a reference to Matthew 6:20. Everything connects. Nothing feels accidental.

The Gap They Filled

To understand what Not Yet Home represents in the fashion landscape, it helps to understand what the Christian apparel market looked like before them. And the honest answer is: not great. The space was populated by brands producing overt religious messaging on mid-quality garments at mid-market prices. The aesthetic credibility simply was not there. If you cared about how things looked, the options were limited.

Premier Christianity Magazine, in a feature on Christian fashion brands, noted that Not Yet Home offers "one of the most varied ranges among Christian clothing brands," highlighting their range from caps and knit polos to baseball jerseys and jackets. CCM Magazine put it more directly, writing that Not Yet Home "appeals to those who appreciate clean aesthetics akin to brands like Aimé Leon Dore or Fear of God," and that the brand "incorporates subtle religious references with premium-quality fits, allowing individuals to express their faith without overt statements."

Those comparisons to Aimé Leon Dore and Fear of God are not casual. ALD, founded by Teddy Santis in Queens, New York in 2014, represents the gold standard for elevated, editorial, heritage-referencing menswear. Cable knits, rugby polos, warm earth-tone palettes, and a deeply specific sense of neighborhood and community identity. Not Yet Home draws from the same visual vocabulary, filtered through a faith lens.

Fear of God, founded by Jerry Lorenzo in 2013, demonstrated that faith-inspired design could achieve genuine luxury credibility. Lorenzo has spoken at length about how his Christian faith shaped the brand from the beginning. "My faith is the foundation of all I do," he told the South China Morning Post. "It gave me transcendent values and tools that I'm able to use in clothing." In a 2022 Interview Magazine feature, Lorenzo was equally direct about the gap in the market: "Growing up in church, anything Christian on a t-shirt was always corny and never landed. The name Fear of God just felt like it had that coolness to it."

Not Yet Home is building in that same space, but at an accessible price point. Where Fear of God charges $400 to $700 for outerwear, Not Yet Home's JDTW jacket is $149. Where ALD knitwear runs $200 to $500, Not Yet Home's cable knit sweaters sit at $99 to $105. The "obtainable luxury" positioning, as the brand describes it, is not a compromise. It is a deliberate strategy to serve a customer that the luxury market has ignored.

For anyone thinking about timeless style on a considered budget, this matters. Quality does not have to be synonymous with exclusion.

A Generation Paying Attention

 

Something has been shifting in American cultural life that provides the backdrop for Not Yet Home's rise. Research from the Barna Group, one of the most credible sources on faith trends in America, found that young adults are leading a resurgence in church attendance, with Gen Z churchgoers attending nearly twice as frequently as they did just a few years prior. Barna's reporting on Bible reading trends found that weekly Bible engagement among US adults rose substantially between 2024 and 2025.

This is not the full picture, and anyone who reads the data carefully will note the complexity of faith trends among younger Americans. But it points toward something real: a portion of Gen Z is leaning into faith expression in ways that are distinctly personal, identity-forward, and aesthetically conscious. They want their faith to feel authentic, not institutional. They want it to look like them.

Not Yet Home has positioned itself precisely at that intersection. The brand is not reaching for a general audience. It is speaking to the fashion-conscious Christian who refuses to compromise either their belief or their aesthetic standards. That specific customer is large enough and underserved enough to build a movement.

The evidence is in the numbers. The #notyethome hashtag has accumulated over 3.2 million posts on TikTok. That figure, for a brand with no paid advertising budget, is extraordinary. It means customers are creating content unprompted because the brand gives them something worth sharing. Unboxing videos. Church fit checks. Couples styling matching JDTW jackets. Women buying pieces "for him" but wearing them themselves. These are not manufactured moments. They are the organic byproduct of a product people feel proud to own.

The Forrest Frank Collaboration

In June 2025, Not Yet Home released its first major external partnership, a collaboration with Christian music artist Forrest Frank. If you are not familiar with Frank, the context matters: his debut album Child of God topped the Billboard Top Christian Albums chart with 22,000 equivalent album units in its first week, the biggest opening week for a Christian album in years. His single "Your Way's Better" broke onto the Billboard Hot 100. He was named the number one new Christian artist of 2023 by Billboard and later received Grammy nominations. He has built an audience that is young, digitally native, and deeply engaged.

The collaboration produced branded knit jerseys and JDTW jackets under the Not Yet Home label, with all items marked as final sale due to the exclusive and limited nature of the release. The announcement circulated through both Epps's and Frank's social channels without press placement and without advertising. It sold through on the strength of two audiences trusting two creators they already followed.

This is the drop model at its best. Scarcity, community, and authentic endorsement converging into a moment that commerce cannot manufacture.

How It Connects to a Curated Life

At San Martini, we think about personal style the same way we think about everything worth building: slowly, intentionally, with an understanding of why each piece earns its place. The curated closet is not about having the most. It is about having the right things, chosen for the right reasons, worn with the kind of ease that comes only from genuine conviction.

Not Yet Home operates from a version of this same understanding. Their brand name is a theological statement about impermanence: we are passing through, so choose what matters, invest in what endures, build things with eternity in mind. That is, in its own way, a philosophy for dressing well.

The spring style case for Not Yet Home is clear. A Cross Cable Knit Sweater in off-white over simple dark trousers reads as effortlessly elevated. A JDTW work jacket over a linen shirt, headed somewhere worth going, is its own complete statement. For men building a wardrobe that works from church to the office and into an evening, these are genuine solutions. For women who have discovered, as the UGC consistently shows, that a COG hoodie or a knit rugby polo fits just as well on them as on the men it was designed for, the brand's unisex construction is a quiet invitation.

The jewelry warrants its own mention. In a time when men's accessories have become a real and growing part of personal style conversations, a well-made cross necklace with stones inspired by scripture is not a niche proposition. It is a thoughtful object with a clear point of view, which is exactly what good jewelry should be.

What Comes Next

Not Yet Home is still relatively young. The brand launched in November 2022. It has operated from what appears to be a home office. It has been transparent about financial difficulties. It has grown without the infrastructure that most brands assume is required.

What it has built instead is a community. One that shows up at drop moments, that creates content between releases, that debates which colorway is worth waiting for and which jacket is the statement piece of the season. The brand's Instagram follows only five other accounts, a deliberate signal of confidence that has become one of the most discussed choices in its social media strategy. Everything about the operation communicates that Not Yet Home knows exactly what it is and is not trying to be everything to everyone.

The roadmap ahead includes an expansion into home goods under the @notyethomegoods handle, a line that would extend the brand's lifestyle philosophy beyond clothing. Ambassador programs, pop-up experiences at worship events and Christian conferences, and a potential women's line have all been signaled as future directions. International attention is already arriving: Premier Christianity is a UK publication, and the brand ships to more than 190 countries.

Whether Not Yet Home becomes the defining brand of the Christian luxury streetwear category, the name that immediately comes to mind when faith-forward fashion is discussed at the highest level, will depend on how well the operation scales around the founder's vision. The vision itself is already there. Fully formed. Quietly radical in its insistence that beautiful clothes and sincere faith are not competing propositions but natural companions.

Grey Epps did not set out to solve a fashion problem. He set out to dress for eternity and bring other people along with him.

It turns out that is a story a lot of people have been waiting to hear.

Enjoy the Moment. It's Martini Time Somewhere.

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