Actually, the Supaflarez line has been in development for awhile. A few years back we were living in Paris, which is a story for another blog, but basically I being the creative one had some free time on my hands and started doing some personal artwork. I've been a graphic designer and art director for many years, but never had time to pursue my own art outside of that. It also didn't hurt that I had fashion and designer friends in Paris that were really into T-shirts.
I started dipping my big toe into the art scene and doing some groovy, disco-themed mixed- media collages featuring silhouettes of dancing figures (this was pre Apple iPod, mind you). I thought to myself why not do some T-shirts and other items to sell at the art shows. This seemed only natural given my professional background. Incorporating the same themes as my collages, I got busy creating wearables using my computer and iron-ons and the disco-flavored T-shirt was born.
But the story doesn't end there. It wasn't until years later when I was back in the States that friends and family, especially my other half, encouraged me to do something with the designs. We realized if we were going to go to the next level with this thing, we needed to rethink our strategy and product. We already knew that iron-ons didn't hold up in the wash, so after doing some research we concluded that the way to give our customers the best quality was to invest in printing with water-based inks on 100% cotton shirts. This ink process basically involves redying the fabric to the color of the design. This technique allows the shirts to hold up in the wash time after time without flaking and cracking.
Having re-strategized and reformulated our product, we launched Fun-o-matics as a parent company first, and then in 2008 launched Supaflarez officially—and the disco-flavored T-shirt went prime time.
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