T-Shirts, Music and Fun, Oh My!
It began with two guys just playing in a band.
Two years later Nate Bradshaw and Adam Brown sit at the top of a business they built from scratch.
Sentimental Clothing, founded in 2006 and based in Brown’s River Heights basement, is best known for its screen-printed T-shirts. But, Bradshaw, a junior in entrepreneurship, said although many of their clothes are T-shirts, they are not limited to that.
“First things first: we are a clothing company, not a T-shirt company,” he said.
“It’s just easier to start that way,” Brown, a sophomore in entrepreneurship, said.
The business is actually a subdivision of Sentimental Entertainment, founded in 2002 by Brown, which promoted concerts and other events. T-shirts were designed both to promote the shows and to sell at the concerts. The demand for the shirts increased and they just rolled with it, Bradshaw said, and a few months ago hit a point where designing shirts ceased to be a passive hobby.
“It went from a passing interest to a well-educated passion,” he said.
The name for the company came from Brown, who, in high school, played in a band called “Woodly Bog.”
“It was the best time in my life,” he said.
He quit the band to go on an LDS mission and joined another band upon returning, where he met Bradshaw.
“The whole band thing was sentimental,” he said. That attitude has remained at the heart of the business, he said.
The term “sentimental clothing” typically means clothes people don’t want to throw away because of memories or meaning attached to them. Creating clothes like this that people want to keep is the company goal, Bradshaw said.
“I like to say a lot of the stuff we do has a lot of sentiment to it,” Brown said.
Their clothes tend to be more fun, bright and happy, Bradshaw said. They try to keep things more optimistic as opposed to some clothing companies who have a lot more negative themes to their designs.
“We like to hold onto our roots from childhood,” he said.
Many of the designs on their clothing have a lot of meaning behind them, Brown said. He said one example of this is the lighthouse, which has kind of become the company’s logo. That lighthouse actually exists, he said, in North Carolina, where he served his mission.
Not everything has sentimental meaning to it, though, Bradshaw said. Sometimes, he said, he just thinks of what would look cool and what he would wear. Other times, he draws upon art for inspiration.
“I really look at clothing like a canvas,” he said. “The more creative you can be with your clothing, the more artistic it will be.”
Their business is still growing. Sentimental Entertainment started out as a business closely affiliated with concerts and the overall music scene and, Bradshaw said, they plan to keep it that way. They recently tried to sign some bands into the company, but that fell through at the last minute, he said. Still, the company will continue to go in that direction.
“Music and art in general are the passion that drives (Sentimental),” Brown said.
Currently, everything is done in Brown’s basement. Screens are designed, burned and printed onto clothing.
“It’s a pretty professional shop,” Bradshaw said. “You’d be surprised with everything you have to have to have a good shop.”
The area is well-suited to the task, Brown said, with three separate areas for each of the main steps in the screen-making process. Two rooms, a washroom and a darkroom, are used just for prepping screens. Screens are “developed” in a process similar to that of developing pictures. Each color on any given piece needs its own screen.
“My basement was destined for this,” he said.
Although the company is an important aspect of their lives and they have a real commitment to it, Bradshaw and Brown run it on top of life, Bradshaw said. Both Bradshaw and Brown have other obligations, including school, family, and another job.
“We plan to make this our real job as soon as we can, but as of yet, we still need a day job,” Brown said.
Currently Sentimental Clothing primarily sells from their Web site, which is under construction but can be reached from their Myspace page at myspace.com/sentimentalclothing. However, they had a kiosk in the Cache Valley Mall over the holidays and have merchandise at Model Citizen in Salt Lake City, Brown said. They are also talking to a few local shops about selling their merchandise, he said.
Their clothes range in price from $15-$20 for T-shirts and about $35 for hoodies, although they cost a few dollars more in stores.
-lisa.m.christensen@aggiemail.usu.edu
Sentimental Clothing co-owner Nate Bradshaw said the company tries to create bright, fun, happy clothes. Sentimental Clothing products are available online, in the Cache Valley Mall holiday kiosks and Model Citizen in Salt Lake City. Prices range from $15 to $35. (Britney Brent)