Clothing With a Message College friends launch a design business that makes fashion inspirational.
By Devlin Smith
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Countless designers worldwide sell clothing for men, women andchildren, filling the media and pop culture worlds with theirtrademarks and frills. For any fashion design company, particularlya fledging one, standing out from the crowd requires a gimmick, andit better be a good one.
How about stripping the conceit, decadence and self-promotionout of fashion? How about designing clothes that make a statement,that stand for a cause? That's the mission of Charizmatik, a6-year-old Los Angeles clothing company that features inspirationalmessages on the drop tags attached to its line of dress shirts,T-shirts, jackets, blazers and sweatshirts. Inspired by movies,Eastern philosophy and more, the uplifting messages are also hiddeninside each article of clothing, often surprising wearers when theyfirst do the laundry.
Charizmatik is the creation of Zen Nishimura, 27, and FredFriedler, 32, former business students at Loyola MarymountUniversity (LMU), also in Los Angeles. Both wanted to startclothing lines and were introduced to each other by a professor.They started talking, and within months the like-minded designersproduced their first shirts in Nishimura's apartment.
It took a year for the Charizmatik idea to come together, and itwasn't until 1997 that the company made its first shipments. Tograb the attention of buyers, the company developed a uniquepromotion. "There were some books that really inspired us, andone was The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. We sentthe book to 40 stores, hand-wrapped them and [wrote] a note. Then,two weeks later, we sent our T-shirts," says Friedler, whoserves as president and CEO.
The strategy got the company noticed--and before long,Charizmatik's relatively high-priced clothing could be found ininfluential boutiques like Fred Segal in Los Angeles and Union inNew York City. According to Friedler, "In fashion, a lot oftimes if you get it to the right people and they're people thatare known and connected, word spreads fast, and that's whatstarted happening with us."
The line even found its way into boutiques in Japan and wasfeatured in a variety of magazines. As excitement for the labelgrew, Charizmatik opened its first boutique, designed to resemble atree house, on Melrose in Los Angeles in 2001. "With ourclothing and how unique it is, we know best [how] to display it andshow people what we're all about," says Ricardo Santos,another LMU alum and Charizmatik's vice president of sales andmarketing. "I think what we've built--a tree house--is theperfect house for our clothing."
Today, Nishimura no longer makes shirts in his apartment;Charizmatik now contracts out to manufacturers throughout LosAngeles. And in an effort to reach a wider audience, Charizmatikrecently launched a second line called Truth Seeker, a lower-pricedcollection that's sold in stores like Urban Outfitters as wellas their own boutiques. By early 2003, both collections will besold via the company's Website, and Charizmatik hopes to add additional store locationsboth nationwide and worldwide.
As the company grows, the founders behind Charizmatik see moreopportunities to share positive messages. "There's way toomuch negativity in the world," Friedler says."[Charizmatik] offers people on a daily basis somethingpositive, and that in itself to me is a wonderful idea."
