Indie Clothing Blog

Since I haven’t posted an interview on the blog since i’ve taken it over I decided to ask Chris Reagan over at Artifex Shirts, a new start up that is specializing in 100% organic cotton clothing, a few questions.  I welcome any feedback about the interview or the questions asked, if you want to see different types of questions asked let me know and i’ll see what I can do.  I plan to do more interviews as I believe it gives some great insight into starting up your own clothing line.  Well enough of that now lets get to why we’re all reading this.

Artifex Shirts is a new start-up offering 100% organic cotton clothing with a goal of offsetting 50,000lbs of CO2 emissions.  Also Artifex Shirts plans to help fund the production of a windmill facility in South Dakota.  They are going to do this by donating $3 from every customer purchase of the Windmill shirt to Native Energy.

Now that we know a little bit about what they offer, here’s a few questions I asked Chris Reagan, one of the co-founders of Artifex Shirts…

What made you decide to start a clothing company?

After a few environmental lectures, I decided that I wanted to do something for the environment. But I wasn’t sure what to do. During my brother’s senior year in high school, he purchased a screen printing kit and made shirts for his friends. After some thinking I put 2 and 2 together. I knew how to build websites and he knew how to print T-shirts. But we didn’t want to just be another T-shirt company, we wanted to make a difference.  That’s when we decided to go the organic route and to contribute a portion of our profits to Native Energy. A clothing company would become our vehicle for making a difference in this world.

What’s been the largest obstacle getting Artifex off the ground?

Starting a business is similar to swimming upstream….there never is a moment where you are able to relax. The moment you do, you begin to lose the progress you’ve been making. My brother is a sophomore at U Buffalo majoring in architecture and entrepreneurship. I’m a first year high school teacher in Boston. Finding free time to get together is tough…but this is what we love to do.

Is there any advice you can give others looking to start their own clothing line?

Starting your own clothing line is demanding yet rewarding. If you want to enter the clothing industry, don’t just print T-shirts — print T-shirts that you love. If you would not wear something you make, then you should not be selling it. The market is already saturated…you need to differentiate yourself from everybody else. Find a niche and run with it. Set a goal and follow it. Be open to ideas, but never lose site of that goal. Never do anything that will compromise it. But most importantly, do what makes you happy. If you love it, then somebody else will.

Do you create your own designs?

Yes, my brother Tim is the creative force behind Artifex. He has created - and will continue to create - every design we print.

What’s the most popular piece of clothing right now

Our most popular shirt can be found here: Windmill on Aloe, We are very proud of our Windmill design. Not only does it convey a strong message and is a great design, but we also donate $3 from every Windmill shirt sold to Native Energy, a company that uses that money to construct a windmill in South Dakota. We are glad to see so many people support this cause.

Where do you hope to take Artifex in say the next 6 months?

Our dream is to have our products carried in clothing shops and boutiques. March 11th will mark the first day a shop will carry our products…and we have a feeling there will be many more to come. But more importantly, we hope that by summer we will have a social project affiliated with every one of our T-shirts. That way, no matter which T-shirt you purchase from Artifex, we will donate a portion towards an environmentally-conscious project.

Thank you for taking the time to answer those questions Chris, anyone looking to pick up some of these T-shirts as well as a few other pieces of clothing head on over to Artifex Shirts now and make your order…

Quiksilver has been one of my favorite brands for years. Although they aren’t considered an indie brand, Quiksilver has deep roots in the Hawaiian/Californian surf scene and could be seen as indie-at-heart. Here’s a fun Sunday read of one of the greatest success stories in the industry.

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I am starting a new studio in my home town and my time has been limited.  I have been remodeling an office space and trying to manage business at the same time… not the best combination!  I have some great posts coming up for this fall, but I wanted to offer the mic to you guys.

If you think you have an insight on an area of the business such as selling, getting clothing brands into stores, marketing, best practices, packaging, etc.,  please get in touch with me!

This month’s featured company is Pure Buttons.  These guys are your one-stop promotional button shop.  As a previous customer, I can truly speak from experience - they are the real deal and will work with you every step of the way.

Spread the word of your cause today with Pure Buttons!

I have finally brought some  new life to this website with our very own indie clothing coupon section.  If you own a brand and would like to give our readers a special code, get in touch with me using the contact form.

I’ve touched on this topic before, but I’ve gathered a few more ideas along the way that will make finding a cheap designer much easier.

Let’s start out with scouting some talent. You may need a small budget to follow this technique but it is so worth it. I worked on a blog design for NY Times Best Selling Author Tim Ferriss and his book “The Four Hour Work Week”. In this book he touches on outsourcing foreign workers to handle your day to day tasks so you can be out traveling the world… or whatever. To me and my industry, this is somewhat of a fantasy, however, an American dollar can go a VERY long way in some foreign countries.

The concept is simple: Find artistic talent around the world and pay them well for their services. I am aware that this technique isn’t for everyone, so work with me. Outsourcing is done by almost every large company, so why shouldn’t your small business benefit from it as well? (more…)

Over the weekend the people over at The Ryde added 43 new shirts for the ladies. Before my little hiatus, The Ryde sent us some promotional clothing and it’s more than amazing. Look for a more formal review coming soon!

After receiving several disappointing offers for this website, I have decided to retract my offer and to begin posting again.  I’m excited to get going again, it’s been too long and I’ve got some great ideas and tips that I’m ready to share.

I took some time this evening to upgrade to Wordpress 2.2 and being the numb-nuts that I am I completely wiped out all of the post images that Phuong-Cac and I have posted over the year.   I will try to re-upload those as we go.

Another thing to note is that a lot of your comments have finally been approved.  I have been attacked since day one with comment and trackback spam and up until now I haven’t dealt with it properly, until now.  Look for your non-spam comments to be approved almost instantly.

Thanks for sticking around, i’ll make it worth your while

Before I go posting any further, at Chris’ suggestion, I wanted to introduce myself. You gotta trust your source for news, right?

I’m a freelance writer interested in all things that go pop — pop culture, that is. With all the merging of streetwear with luxury going on, there’s definitely some cool stuff happening out there amidst the changing apparel landscape. My background in publishing in editorial staff positions stretches from newspaper (the Los Angeles Times) and magazines (URB) to online marketing (PacSun.com). I’ve written for a ton of outlets but I find that I keep coming back to the online medium, where I started my career a long time ago. And I can’t seem to get away from music and clothes — my two favorite things to write about.

I’ll be bringing you items I think you’ll want to know about in the apparel world. Maybe it’s a sick thing for me to enjoy trolling the vast Internet landscape for endless hours (my friends always say I’m spending too much time on the Web), but you’ll benefit from it.

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of posts!  I have been fairly busy so far in 2007 (good for me, bad for my readers), however, I still want to be able to bring you the quality content this site is known for.

The two new writers I had promised for 2007 have been a little flakey at best and haven’t been able to join me yet, so I am deciding to open up two writing spots here on the site.

Writer number one will need to have a keen sense of fashion as he or she will be covering news on all of the brands that are worthy enough to be covered.  He or she will also select our “Brand of the Week” and do a small piece on them as well.

Writer number two will need to have experience in owning and operating an indie clothing line.  He or she will help me write in depth articles of how to succeed in the business.

These two positions will free my time up so I can bring you more of what you want.  Please use my contact page to tell me a bit about yourself.