Q&A: Maak Eebuh

Several weeks back I got an interesting email from Jade Schulz, telling me about her new T-shirt brand, Maak Eebuh, which had just released its first line of three T’s, called “The War Series.” The official site explained: Each Maak Eebuh t-shirt series is theme-centered and is made in limited quantities,” the official site explains. “Currently, The War Series reflects on the war in Iraq. As a commitment to social and economic development, 10% of our proceeds will be donated to Project HOPE in Iraq.”

At first I thought maybe she had mistaken this site for one of those influential spots on the Web that touts this or that new product, bequeaths coolness, and helps sales. That’s not my thing, of course, but it turned out that she knew that. We swapped emails for a while, and I decided it might be interesting to make Maak Eebuh the subject of an occasional Q&A series: Since the brand has just started up – at the moment, it’s available only through the site — it’s an opportunity to follow along as Schulz and her partner try to “make it,” as it were. They have no financial backer for the project; they’re funding it with their own savings. The attempt to deal with serious issues – and it doesn’t get much more serious than the Iraq war – makes the project that much more challenging, and more interesting. So I asked some questions, and she provided answers, and that resulted in the below. I’ll check back in a few months to see how things are going.

Schulz is 28, and has worked in costume design and “high end fashion,” and still does freelance design work and other projects. The T’s are priced at $59 each.

So when did this project get started?

I guess I thought of the idea two years back, but really started to do the actual making of the shirts in the past year. Originally, I started doing it by myself and then a partner, Kim Situ (a friend from high school; she has more of a business-school and fundraising background), joined me later.

I began with the idea of having graphics that reflected some form of relevant social commentary. I came up with a lot of cool designs but I had to edit out the ones that lacked substance and didn’t follow the vision. It’s really tempting to include those kinds of designs but I knew that the concept had to be clearly communicated through the first batch of designs or it would dilute the intentions of the T-shirt line. So for our first series titled “The War Series,” I came up with three artworks.

Why T-shirts?

As a T-shirt company in the sea of T-shirt companies, I sit here and think frequently, why are we here and how are we going to get known? Why another T-shirt line? Then I ask why another rock band? Or a painter or blog? But I am assured in knowing that art arises out of the cathartic need to be inspired, speak and create.

The T-shirt is my medium of choice because it is a humble, accessible visible platform for personal expression. It is also the ideal way for me to participate in the shaping of our culture. Most people buy a T-shirt because they think the graphic is cool and they connect with it. It’s about wanting to identify with something greater to communicate. The T-shirt, in an effortless sort of way, has become a powerful source of communication.

I started a T-shirt company because I wanted to produce designs that were both artistic and socially conscious, spurred on by living in the post 9-11 era. I’ve observed that there is a wave of T-shirt companies that make have made similar claims but seem to play safe by recycling the same graphic images and call them meaningful and original. The question is does the consumer really hold these companies to what they claim to be?

Do you do the printing yourself or job it out?

Once the artworks were completed, we had to decide if we wanted to make the T-shirt from scratch or just print the artwork on pre-made shirts. Because of our vision we decided that making our own T-shirt would be best.

We did not expect the process to take as long as it did. There are so many challenges in finding good manufacturers. You would think it’s easy to get some decent T-shirts made but not all contractors have sewing machines that can make T-shirts and we ran into problems with sewing quality. At every step, something could go wrong and then it could make the entire batch of clothes unsellable. The first manufacturer we worked with used the wrong pattern to make our final production run. So we terminated that relationship; I didn’t pay them, but this set us back about six months. Sometimes I think it might have been better if we just printed on pre-made shirts, but at the end of the day I feel more comfortable saying that the whole T-shirt is ours, not just the graphic.

We decided to get them professionally printed because that ensures better quality and certain techniques just can’t be done unless you have the machine that does the job. For example, the “III Women” design (at right), we use foiling, which requires a really expensive machine. We ended up making a total of 1,000 shirts.

So that’s why the price is $59?

I think it’s a bargain price for art. I take a good chunk of time preparing each graphic to the point where I think they carry the idea I want to address. Plus making shirts, in terms of material and labor, is costly because we want to make a small number of high-quality shirts, giving attention to the artistry of the graphics and fit, feel and color. Part of our company’s reason for existence is in response to the visual inundation of the same images on T-shirts, not to mention ill-fitting postwash shrinkage. The retail price reflects both the quality and quantity of our shirts and I think it’s a pretty meek number for all that goes into them.

So once you had the shirts made, how are you going about getting the word out?

I figure like anyone else, we let our friends and family know first. I realized that the customary route for clothing lines does not really suit us because our concept does not fit neatly or smoothly with the kind of publicity fashion media outlets offer in terms of what’s “hot” or “in.” It could be good at first, and then be suicide for a small company like ourselves.

Still, no matter how good you think you are, publicity is what determines sales, which in turn, assures survival. I have to juggle between the delivery of an idea versus an image that will sell for sure. I guess that struggle is nothing new. I know that if I have total disdain for commercial methods of receiving attention, the company won’t last. This means I have to be very strong to sustain artistic integrity while knowing how the industry operates and not be tainted by the desire to just sell, you know just to get the inventory out.

My ideal means of getting our name and purpose known is through atypical means of media, more through dialogue than blatant advertising. Of course, getting our shirt on someone famous who is sympathetic to our vision won’t kill us either. But I think becoming part of our cultural vocabulary via industry peers is a good start.

My partner does most of the market research and we try to find and contact people who have the same vision as our company. Right now, we are trying to get in touch with someone at GOOD Magazine.

I think one person who looks at this site might know someone there. Maybe he’ll get in touch. Anyway, you also emailed me, and Coolhunting as well. Is that basically it so far?

We’ve emailed some other sites that didn’t reply. We’re thinking about reaching out more to blogs, but haven’t done so yet. Everything always takes longer than we think, including reaching different media outlets. We have to consider our approach and tailor the angle to facilitate the obviousness of our relevance to their site. If we say something like: “Hey check out our ultra cool t-shirts!” and leave it at that, I’m pretty sure no one will ever contact us. A central part of our vision is to further existing or promote new dialogue through the artwork on the issues that we find significant.

[I should mention to readers: Coolhunting responded to your partner’s email with a request for a press release and some shirts, and here is the item that ran. I don’t ask for product because I’m not in the business of evaluating products and making recommendations, and because of my relationship to the NYT Magazine, which frowns on people like me raking in freebies; see here for more on that.]

Anyway: So what’s next? Are you getting into stores?

We are working on our second series right now (The Travel Series) and are planning to approach the stores in December. My partner and I have found that we had to be selective because the stores that are open to more unique artistic styles have a lower price point, typically printed on pre-made shirts, and with higher price points they tend to be more commercially accepted fashion brands, based on brand names or trendy images. We’ll do more designs for the second series, because it turns out that store buyers want more to pick and choose from.

At this point, I don’t think we will go to trade shows. I would rather contact the boutique buyers directly. But things can always change. We have some ideas but I don’t want to expose all our strategies. But let’s just say, we try to think of creative ways to get our shirts known.

And we’re looking at other manufacturers. Almost everyday I discover that starting a company with the manpower of two is a serious challenge. We had no idea how much research and countless administrative things need to be done. It’s funny to think how the menial aspects of the pop culture manufacturing industries are so well concealed. Having money buys time but we are a homemade operation and everything is pretty much done by us, which means things just take longer.

Finally: Who do you figure your customer is?

Honestly, I don’t know what our customer base looks like, but I think it’s like being a painter or musician of substance. The art is not motivated by profit margins or finding our market niche but the desire to say something, and if it merits attention, the work will garner it. Who says we have to make art on a canvas or it has to hang in some gallery? Art, visual concepts, needs to be accessible and impacting. So the challenge is how do I produce artwork that is of substance and has mass appeal?

Murketing thanks Maak Eebuh for the time and patience. I’ll be checking back in with Jade Schulz again later, to see how things are going. Stay tuned….