Greg Christian is not a typical clothing designer. He has never been to Fashion Week (New York, Milan or otherwise) and his designs have never been prominently displayed across the covers of Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar. He’s not old and leathery, like Karl Lagerfeld, or old and more leathery, like Donatella Versace. He’s a sophomore at Azusa Pacific University near Los Angeles and is just twenty years old, studying graphic design. He enrolled in his first formal art class in college, and he drafts most of his designs by hands. In the last month, Christian has put his training in graphic design to good use by developing T-shirt designs for Chicago-based conglomerate Threadless, the community-centered online apparel corporation.
Jeffrey Kalmikoff, Chief Creative Officer of skinnyCorp/Threadless, says Threadless receives 150 submissions daily, and between its inception in 2000 and late 2007, it has printed more than 900 designs. It continues to thrive, with the empire now including a retail store in Belmont and Threadless Tee-V, a weekly video segment featuring bands and Threadless employees highlighting the random nature of the Threadless lifestyle. Kalmikoff estimates that the Threadless warehouse, headquartered in Ravenswood, ships out between 80,000 and 90,000 tees monthly – and the number is rapidly growing. Each week, nearly 1,500 new T-shirt designs compete online, all fashioned by independent designers like Christian. Design hopefuls download the Threadless-specific T-shirt template, shaped like a plain white tee and upload their image.
In the downloadable “Submission Kit,” potential artists are encouraged to read a lengthy document headed “Explanation of Submission Decline Reasons” in bold orange letters, wherein 16 encompassing rationales are given for refusal to even submit a design for vote. The reasons are simple but deliberate, including excessive use of text or inappropriate material. “A submission can be declined if it contains material or themes that make us feel a little uneasy. That’s no small feat!” the explanation proclaims, emphasizing Threadless’ proclivity to tread the line of vulgarity. Think of the raunchy “Afternoon Delight,” which features two unicorns humping (for lack of a better term) underneath a rainbow.
If the submitted design passes the Threadless test, the design is posted to the Web site, where it is voted upon by the hundreds of thousands of registered users who log on daily. Users devour the new content released on Mondays, tripping over their tongues to comment or blog about a fantastically witty release. Seven designs are chosen for print every week, based on a combination of voting results and employee preferences. Two previous designs are also chosen for reprint, and the winners are printed in batches of 1,500.
The Threadless business model – that of so-called “user innovation” – runs like a perpetual T-shirt competition. New designs are constantly added to the display, and user participation is key to the operation’s existence. In a simple subjective method, users vote on a particular design on a scale of one to five, with the additional option of selecting “I’d buy it!”
Threadless is no longer cowering on the interwebs in Web site advertisements, hidden underground and covering the chests of teenaged hipsters with clever messages and colorful pictures. Chicago musician Bob Nanna, of Braid and Hey Mercedes, heralds the company with short ditties narrating designs. Threadspotting also follows the appearance, in large numbers, of Threadless shirts on the torsos of celebrities – Nickelodeon’s Drake and Josh were spotted in tees in their made-for-TV Christmas special.
Digital artist, illustrator and Threadless contributor May Chan of Kuala Lumpur suggests that Threadless’ business model is most conducive for up-and-coming artists. “If you’re an art (or) design student, this is a platform to get your work out there. As a freelancer, it’s another way to get international exposure,” Chan says. The level of consumer involvement poses Threadless as a “community-sourced” business venture, allowing consumers to be directly involved in the three most critical components of the retail process: design, voting and consumption.
It’s obvious to see which designs succeed. There is a submission box on the Web site to request reprints and avid Threadless users blog religiously on the designs they love, hate and wish were printed in definitively limited numbers so as to maintain the hip underground buzz. A Threadless “celebrity” shirt such as “The Communist Party” by designer Tom Burns – the T-shirt featuring prominent Communists Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Mao and Marx getting inebriated at a party – will be reprinted several times. Burns sees several of his designs sell out rapidly and requested for reprint. The celebrity, though, based on the design of an everyman, is short-lived.
