Students get creative with needle and thread

Published: Friday, November 7, 2008

Stockroom Fashion, a new local clothing company, had an open house Thursday night to showcase their recycled and personalized clothing.

USU students, brothers Nate and Ben Wood and Kate Clark, who refer to themselves as the “Mozart, Bach and Chopin of fashion,” run their business out of a room in the basement of their house, named the stockroom.

Marsupial T-shirts, bleach-spotted shirts, key necklaces, fish jackets, cowgirl boots and sequined jackets are among the items sold at Stockroom Fashions.

The three designers have been personalizing clothing since they were teenagers. Clark said she started making clothing in high school, Ben said he started “drawing peace signs on shirts” in eighth grade and Nate said he started making headbands in seventh grade.

“We are expressing ourselves through clothes,” Clark said. “We love what we do.”

Nate said he believes fashion follows skateboarding trends while Clark said she draws inspiration from Audrey Hepburn and Andy Warhol, and Ben said he tries his best to create shock value with his clothing.

“We try to do something you wouldn’t expect to see, like any other piece of art,” Clark said.

Nate said, “We each have our own style. My life is a game of dress up. I would say my style is eclectic. We each have our own specialty.”

Ben agreed and pointed out some differences in their styles.

“Kate is retro-ey, and softer, and I would call myself a Jack-of-all-trades,” he said.

“Everything is one of a kind, and we put a lot of emotion into the things we make, we aren’t making things to sell them, we care about what we make and each piece is special,” Clark said.

Nate said they buy old stuff and modify it.

“We get a good portion of our stuff from the D.I.,” he said.

Nate said they would all ideally like to make clothing for a living, but the current business’ success is necessary before that can happen.

“People have to buy stuff first,” he said. “If I could make clothes and jewelry for a living, I would be the happiest man on the planet.”

The price range varies depending on the piece and the work put into it, but the more a customer purchases, the better deal they get.

“I think the most expensive thing we have is the beaver top hat and that is about $100,” Ben said. “Custom clothes are really expensive, so comparatively we are really cheap.”

Nate said many people do not yet know about their clothing, but things are looking up as they have recently acquired new customers in Alaska and Texas.

Stockroom Fashions currently sells clothing through their Web site at www.myspace.com/stockroomfashion, but Clark said “we have a different Web site being made where you can pay with credit card, but for now people just message us if they want a piece, and send us a check in the mail, and we mail them the piece back, or they can come and pick it up from our house.”

For students with similar goals, but who are wary of starting their own business, Clark was encouraging.

“Go for it, do it, you can think about it think about it, and never do it, so just do it,” he said. “There isn’t a wrong way to do it.”


Photo by Britney Brent