800 Very Unsquare Feet describes Free City Supershop, an unorthodox Malibu retail space, as “a new shopping experience equal in its fun and sense of surprise to that of Whole Foods or Apple.” Owner Nina Garduno’s mantra is “make things with the simplest elements with the highest of possibilities.” She differentiates the store from larger competitors by emphasizing attention to detail, authenticity, and faith.
According to Ms. Garduno, Free City is profitable. It took her eight days, working with a shoestring budget and a small team in her workshop in Hollywood, to create the store’s interior, which features redwood shelves and blowups of album covers. Like everything else about Free City, the design follows Ms. Garduno’s mantra to “make things with the simplest elements with the highest of possibilities.”...
“The big companies were taking the importance of fashion away, the craft, and making it about price,” she said…For something to be perceived as authentic, that value has to be communicated cleanly through every detail — from the quality of the wash, if it’s a T-shirt, to the integrity of the physical environment. This is the almost visceral sense you get when you enter Free City. Not to sound crunchy, but you feel the love.
“Well, go look at the Gap. They claim to not want to rip you off, but the fact is they do. And it’s not working for them — not even lifting my ideas, and with all of their money and art direction. They still don’t have faith. They don’t have faith in themselves, and it comes out instinctually in the product. I think people know the difference.”
More on tees and details
And speaking of tees and communicating quality through detail: Threadless, dissatisfied with existing options for blank tees, recently decided to start manufacturing its own.
These shirts are based on our experience as a tee shirt company, and the feedback we’ve gotten from our community since the beginning of Threadless. Imagine a tee that is less boxy than a Fruit of the Loom, but not as skinny as an American Apparel. Imagine a tee whose fabric is softer than American Apparel but not as thin.
Great example of paying attention to core detail (people may like the designs but if the shirts don’t fit right, it’s all moot) and knowing what your community wants (Fruit of the Loom = too boxy, American Apparel = too thin). Plus, there’s something Apple-esque here in the way Threadless didn’t just accept the limits of existing manufacturers and decided to find their own (better) solution.
Related:
7 reasons why Threadless rules [SvN]
The man behind Apple’s design magic [SvN]: “Apple’s efforts to discover new materials and production processes enables them to build things no one else can build.”
condor
on 30 Nov 06Designing and cutting your owns tees definitely gives you better control over what you’re offering your customers, and with the volume threadless is doing taking the suppliers margin also makes sense financially. So long as they focus on what they do best, run a community-driven design “marketplace”, as opposed to getting stuck in the mud of t-shirt manufacturing, they should be fine . . .
Blake P.
on 30 Nov 06What Threadless is really doing is taking the American Apparel shirt (with its look and feel) and now having it made overseas at the Fruit of the Loom price. That is the best of both worlds. Soft shirt at a much cheaper price.
Anonymous Coward
on 30 Nov 06What Threadless is really doing is taking the American Apparel shirt (with its look and feel) and now having it made overseas at the Fruit of the Loom price.
The new Threadless shirt is made in the US.
Blake P.
on 01 Dec 06You know what they say about assuming…...
James Head
on 01 Dec 06I really liked some of the designs from oddica:
http://oddica.com/
Additionally they are cool because a definite split of the profit goes to the artist.
I didn’t find the t shirts themselves to be the best when they arrived, – I found the ‘kneck hole’ too small for my liking. I emailed them giving them this feedback, – and they said that they were using the only t shirt manufacturer within the USA. (!)
Which is fine, – it’s good to have principles, – but, I won’t be buying any more t shirts from them until they change that shirt.
Ziad Hussain
on 01 Dec 06Another thing to point out about threadless is that they have a real community that actually has a certain culture about it. It is truly less about the money for the designer, and more about the recognition. Its show and tell for (almost) grown ups.
Jon
on 05 Dec 06Hi. You guys mentioned Oddica and Threadless. I just found this new site called DNA STYLELAB. I think it’s really cool because you get to design your own shirts with artists that are just as good as Oddica or Threadless.
This discussion is closed.