We interview Greg Berry from 'WearYourCity.com'.

TM: When did you decide that t-shirts was your thing?

GB: Growing up I was always into T shirts, Hoodies & mainly just casual clothes. I really never envisioned myself in this business until it all started to make sense. I am an entrepreneur and have started numerous companies and ventures and the story about this business goes like this: About 3 ½ years ago a good friend of mine went into the Air Force and was stationed in Northern California. This cat loved his city to death and would take it to blows with anyone who thought Connecticut was a bunch of rich snobs. *Our city was tagged pound for pound the most corrupt city in America by Forbes magazine, Arpil '08, not to brag. So his birthday was coming up and I went to the mall to grab him a T shirt with Waterbury, CT on it. Long story short – Mall didn't have it, searched online to no avail so my entrepreneurial mindset kicked in and told me to solve this problem. I went out and bought a heat press and some transfer paper, made him his shirt and then started selling them around the neighborhood and eventually around the entire city. So, I guess I was in the T shirt business!

TM: How long have you been in the t-shirt biz? And what have you learned?

GB: I have been selling T shirts for about 3 years now but would not call it being in the business. I started a site selling my heat pressed custom city shirts about 2 ½ years ago but did not give it much attention. Anyone who visited the site loved it and most ordered shirts, because it was very unique and the first of its kind. And plus, who wouldn't want to rock a shirt that had their city on it? The highest selling shirts on sites like cafepress are those with people's hometowns on them. But, who has time to write every city in the world and upload it to the site in hopes that someone from that city will find it. Along the winding path of this venture I have learned that you have to be different. The market is so huge that 10 different sites can make the same shirt and most likely each site will sell their fair share, but the one company that makes the unique fresh shirt has the potential to sell 10x what the competition is selling. Basically, if you want to get in without risk or time; sell what everyone else is selling, it will most likely work! But if you really believe in your idea and concept then go for it and don't stop until the entire world sees what you see.

TM: Your t-shirts are custom ordered. How's this been working out for you and what's the process of production?

GB: That is our business, so we have to make it work! I have been doing this for approx. 3 years now and just recently have I really got my business straight. I was throwing a couple bucks at the site and doing designs myself and heat pressing the shirts up until I decided that I was going to go for it and make this site known throughout the world. Now we use Direct To Garment printing which has just recently came out and works great, the quality a colors are a dream. One of our advantages is that we have tried so many processes and systems and have finally found a process that works – after a lot of money and time!

TM: Which of your shirts is your favorite?

GB: It's hard to say because I really believe in the concept and the site and I love them all, but you know that Godfather shirt is crucial right now! Man, the people have been eating that one up because no matter where you are from or how you were raised, you know The Godfather and now we give you a chance to be a part of it!

TM: Do your run your label alone or do you have a team?

GB: Up until recently I ran it myself. As I mentioned before, this was when I was not very serious and my business was not right. The concept has always been there and I knew it was a valuable concept but it wasn't until I took on a partner in the company that we started to get serious and the results are showing. To make a long story short: while I was running the site I would always stay up late, read books and absorb blogs on how to market online. One blog particularly caught my attention and I would read it religiously. The man behind this blog was an entrepreneur like myself, his name was Daniel Taylor and his expertise was on the web and internet marketing, and he was very good at it!
Anyways, I was starting to get overwhelmed with my other business (my "day job") and I was thinking about selling the site. I figured before I sold it I would reach out to this man that I greatly respected from his blog. I reached out, he saw my vision and we have now turned it into our vision and we compliment each other perfectly. This all happened in late February 2008. I would recommend this to everyone out there, find someone who holds the same values as you and can compliment you greatly in your business because two minds looking from two different angles can see a lot more than one mind at one dimension. With our new partnership we push each other every day and go out and "out hustle" and challenge each other. With two people, one vision, and a drive to succeed; the question turns into when instead of how. Also my team extends to those around me, over the years I have been in business online and off and have met and befriended many people that I still work with today, mainly my extraordinary web developer who I would never have made it here without, Daren at www.cubecartservices.biz

TM: Where do you get your inspiration from when it comes to designing t-shirts?

GB: Our inspiration for our designs comes from what people out there are looking for. This stems from what we are looking for and also what the people around us are looking for. Me being from Connecticut and my partner being from Los Angeles, we have very different perspectives on what is "hot" which gives us an advantage over folks that are biased due to geographical location or the things that they are exposed to. When we design our shirts we have everyone in mind – from the cat in New Zealand who is looking to rep his town all the way up to the rapper from Brooklyn who is looking to put his street on the map.

TM: Your website has an intro video; could you tell us a little about your decision to add media to the shopping experience?

GB: Adding the interactive "plasma tv" screen was my partners idea. He is an internet marketing guru and had all of the stats and facts in hand when proposing this video. Our site is very unique and different and we need to get our idea and concept across to the customer as quick as possible before they don't understand what to do and push the back button on their browser. Using the media also gave our company a face and with our movement that is exactly what we need. We are not some Madison ave type company designing shirts with no cares. We are the people who wear these and represent where we're from! When I talk to Daniel out in LA, I am intrigued by the way he lives and he is also intrigued by the way we live in Connecticut. We want people from all over the world to come out and share their experiences of their hometowns with us and with the rest of our customers. This is a movement – to expose each others cultures without being censored or having to falsify anything to live up to a standard. If you are a thug out on the streets, let us know; if you are out in Kansas milking cows putting in 16 hour days, we find that just as interesting. We are in the process of making our myspace page a community like this to give our people a platform to represent who they are and where they're from.

TM: You're targeting the urban/streetwear scene if I'm not mistaken, and what has been your best marketing vehicle in targeting that audience?

GB: We are targeting people from all walks of life and from all parts of the globe. I would say that our initial target was the street wear and urban scene, but this type of shirt appeals to people from all over. We sell shirts to kids, women, parents, gangsters, college kids, sorority girls, etc. We do not discriminate or focus on one particular group. A way that we found a happy medium was to offer both Gildan high quality shirts and also high quality very thick "Hip Hop" shirts for those that like them a little longer.

TM: What's in the works for the future of your label?

GB: The future for our label is to just expose our idea and concept to as many people possible through as many ways possible. As I mentioned earlier, our goal is to learn more about every culture and every city on the map. It is interesting to me just to talk to my business partner seeing that his culture is very different than mine. When I talk to customers that are from Baltimore or San Diego or over seas it is fascinating to hear about what it's like where they are from. I want everyone to experience this and learn as much as possible about other cultures and cities.

TM: What tips could you give to others trying to get into the t-shirt biz?

GB: Stick to your core competencies. Stay true and follow through!

On behalf of me and my partner I would like to thank T-shirtmagazine.com for giving us this opportunity and for all of the readers out there for taking time and letting us expose you to our concept and our movement.

Thank you,

Whether it's that Celtics or Lakers jersey, Filas or Adidas, white tees or polo tops, the way one dresses says a lot about where they are from. From "block babies" to college students expanding their geographical horizons, home is where the fashion is to many. WearYourCity.com [click to visit], a collaborative effort between Greg Berry and Daniel Taylor transcended coasts, race and attitudes, and so does their company.

Whether you are from Imperial Gardens projects in California or Imperial, Pennsylvania, WearYourCity allows you to fashionably represent your street, your neighborhood or your city in a variety of tasteful designs on high-quality shirts. Moreover, the company's two founders have implemented a blueprint for the future that may allow you in on their culturally-minded, global hustle.

Just as music says so much about new regions, new styles and new conversation pieces, so can fashion. WearYourCity.com proves to be an innovative, affordable and unique ice-breaker.

The Evil Collector: How did Wear Your City come to be? Of the two of you, who initiated the collaboration?

Greg Berry: Wear Your City came to be three or four years ago. I'm from Waterbury, Connecticut, which is a fairly small city of about 100,000 people. Everybody's middle-class, and people love the city to death. It's almost embedded in you that if you're from Waterbury, you're kind of an underdog. My buddy ended up going into the service, and was stationed out in California. This guy loved his city more then anything in the world. Anyway, the story is, I went to get him a shirt that said Waterbury on it so he can represent his hometown out there.. I go to the mall, and I can't find one. I go to the Internet, CafePress.com and other similar sites, and I can't find one. I'm thinking, "Damn, there's got to be somebody else looking for a shirt like this." So I went on eBay and bought a used heat-press, got it fixed up, made my buddy a shirt, and the idea just spread through the whole neighborhood.

The next thing you know, it was more of a neighborhood thing within my city. We've got Overlook, Town Plot, and other neighborhoods and everybody wants to represent their own neighborhoods within the city. I then took it another step. I made an Internet site called IRepMyCity.com. We were going to sell custom t-shirts with your city on it. We started with one design, a "Welcome To," with your city's name and bullet holes through it. The idea really didn't catch on; I was in college at the time, and just started another business and didn't give the site the attention it deserved. I really never gave it much thought. I was heat-pressing the shirts, which does not make for a very high quality shirt like the ones we produce today. It was a good idea though, and the people that did see them, bought them. If you wear it one time, two times, it's just cool to come through with in your city.

Long story short, two years ago, I'm reading this blog called OnlineHustlers.com. The guy behind this blog was giving tips, making movies, showing how he markets, everything. I read that blog faithfully for about a year, and the guy behind it really got down. I reached out to see if this guy wanted to market for me on a percentage basis. I reached out, introduced myself, and whatnot. He said, "You've got a million dollar idea; I want to help be a part of this." I realized that together we would make a winning team. My strengths are operations and business; this guy is a marketing expert. We started to get along very well. I then offered him a split partnership in the company. We outsourced the printing to a professional print shop, found different suppliers, and really started to run everything like a business He is from L.A., and I'm from C.T. We communicate daily; I've got the east coast, he's got the west. It's a very good thing.

TEC: How do you capture the market? For instance, in Philadelphia, on South Street, there are a lot of these shirts for sale, or on 125th Street in Harlem. How do you try to make sure those shirts come through you, as opposed to some homemade guy that might be doing what you were three years ago?

Daniel Taylor: Actually, that has been an issue. Local stores sell local clothing. What you find though is, while they do sell well, it's not always what the people are looking for. It just happens to be the only thing available in terms of quality or design. How we market is, you can take unique and stylish designs instead of settling for something that's just there and customize it to your city, town or neighborhood wherever that may be. Whether you're from Idaho or Philadelphia. We make it feasible for your to represent your city, neighborhood or whatever!

G: That was one of my major selling points. Being from Waterbury, I could get an "I Love New York" shirt all day long, but I'm from Waterbury, not New York. You can't get a Waterbury shirt, you know what I mean? And then in Philadelphia, if you live on let's say 52nd Street, you can't get a 52nd Street shirt, but if you come to our site, we make it to where you can get a shirt down to your intersection. 52nd and Chestnut or whatever it may be.

TEC: In urban trends altogether, do you see a major shift in just about local communities as opposed to the next nearest city or whatnot? Musically, I do…

D: I see a huge trend. The reason you see that shift, is because those are the people that are gonna support you first. You know, as well as I know, in the music industry, an artist just can't go from being "Joe on the block" to getting signed and blowing up. There's a process, and that process begins with local people supporting you. People on your street know about you, and those are the people that buy out of your trunk and support the community. It's important. People are putting places on the map. A lot of these places, we never heard of them till a Hip Hop song came out. A lot of the guys in L.A., we knew about riding around in Cadillacs and lowriders, but we didn't know what was going on in Texas and neighboring states – or even the Bay. This gave us that connection. We live way different than other people out here in L.A.; this is about letting it be known what your community is and what your culture is, and expressing that.

TEC: Are you guys looking to get more personal with designs and styles as the company moves forward?

G: Yes. From where we started, and how we got so far in this little amount of time, it was just hitting the pavement and just going. I can see this growing into something much bigger than a clothing company. We approach this as a movement. We do want to get more technology and expand deeper into our niche. The more we grow, the more we put back into the company. The more resources we have, the more we will expand and start producing even more ground breaking ideas. Right now We barter a lot and do a lot of guerilla marketing. Once the technology and more resources come, yes, we are gonna get deeper into this culture. Learning more about our customers and what they want.

D: Once we get the people rolling, the movement, then we can implement those into designs. Once we learn the aspects of a new city, we learn how they get down, 'cause we never knew that before. We can adapt to cultures and grow on our ideas.

TEC: WearYourCity is friendly to both wholesale or stores and retail buyers?

G: Yes. What better way to get into communities and individual cities then the stores that they already are familiar with and trust. We understand what people want, we are the people that wear our shirts, so it is easy for a store to see something they like on our site and something that they can turn around and sell to others in their cities. Some people just make the shirts and try to take advantage of a certain fad, but we're a cultural movement set up to learn from each other and see what it is really like in other cities and cultures. We're a movement where a white guy from Connecticut and a black guy from L.A. came together to run a company, from two different walks of life, getting together to learn about each other, our people, our customers, and our cultures. What we're trying to do with the wholesale, is an affiliate program that allows other like-minded individuals to join the movement and make cash from getting the word out to store owners and other buyers. This program will allow others to join us as partners and make a commission not only off the first sale but all other residual sales also, therefore not getting cut out after the first sale like other affiliate programs are set up to do. You can't say you're not in it for the money, but we're in it for the movement.

TEC: Has there been one area that's gravitated to your company that has shocked you?

D: For me, I'll say overseas. We get orders from people in places like New Zealand. It's crazy for me to see, we're affecting people worldwide. Literally.

Interview with Khal at RockTheDub.com

I am a fan of t-shirts. I am forever on the hunt for the right shirt. Just has to be the right fit, right message, all of that. Randomly, I was actually on WearYourCity.com, checking out the plethora of designs that you could flip with your own name/city/state/area code, which is always something I love. It's hard to find dope looking shirts that big up NJ, and judging by the site, I imagine other spots get into that as well. So imagine my surprise when one of the owners, Greg Berry, hit me up a week or so ago about what he's working on. In speaking to him, I found that he shares a lot of my own ideas, and has a dope plan of action for his brand. Peep our discussion…

khal: First, tell the people a little bit about yourself and what you do over at WearYourCity.com.

Greg: WearYourCity.com is a website run by a company owned by myself & my business partner Daniel Taylor. We are both young entrepreneurs who have been involved with numerous other businesses and are now coming together on this one project to show the world our idea, which is to allow everyone, no matter where they are from, to find hot apparel with THEIR city on it. Me being from CT and Daniel being from South Central L.A. we come from different walks of life but had one thing in common, we love our cities!!

khal: How did you first get involved in making this kind of particular apparel?

Greg: Growing up an hour and change outside of both Boston & NY, the "I Love NY" or "I Love Boston" shirts were plentiful, but I always wanted an "I Love CT" or "I Love Waterbury" shirt, but who on earth would sell that? So then I was looking to send a Waterbury shirt to a buddy of mine who was in the service, but couldn't find one anywhere. I searched CafePress, but nobody thought to put a Waterbury shirt up there - they had more NY & LA shirts then you can imagine, but what about us? I thought to myself, there must be other people out there that want to rep their cities but do not have the proper means to go about it. The rest is history.

khal: I imagine your work went from a hobby to a full fledged business, right? How soon was it that you realized you had really started something major?

Greg: I have been making custom hometown shirts for a couple years now, selling them around the neighborhood and a couple online, but I was in college and was running another business so I really didn't give this idea the attention it deserved. One day I was contemplating selling the business & website but I figured I should reach out to this guy whose blog about creative marketing I read faithfully. I knew alls that I needed was another person to run the business with me in order to get me fully charged and put this idea on the map – where it belongs. Anyways, I reached out to Daniel, he saw the potential in the site and eventually we became partners. Within a relatively short time our business has really improved and now the site is worldwide and growing by the minute. We have been featured on HipHopDX.com's homepage for a week, during the week of June 25, 2008. We have various rappers who wear our shirts and support our movement, and now we have other influential individuals supporting us, such as yourself! Thanks khal.

khal: Ain't no thang, homey. Now, how often does WearYourCity.com get new designs in?

Greg: We try to keep the designs as fresh as possible. There is no set timeline in place, but we usually add at least one new design each week. So, keep checking the site because that shirt you are dying to grab will most likely be coming out soon!!

khal: Are there any towns that you get requests for that you just say "where the HELL is that"?

Greg: That is funny that you ask that. Being that our business has no borders, we see many international orders coming in. Who would think that a cat from Baghdad would know what the Fresh Prince is? How about a guy from Senegal grabbing 20 street sign shirts? How about New Zealand, they rock Hip-Hop shirts? See, this is why we call it a movement – because hopefully when it is all said and done, we will connect people from all over the world and show them our cultures and be exposed to theirs and make a difference in peoples lives. I find it very interesting just talking to Daniel, who is from LA. They live, talk, walk and do most everything different then we do up here in CT – which I find interesting to learn about. We want to connect people from all over and enable them to learn about all other cities without the need to portray their culture in a false light. If you are in the streets of Harlem, talk about it, if you live in a 20 bedroom mansion in Michigan, we find that just as interesting. Soon our MySpace (www.myspace.com/wearyourcity) and our blog (www.wearyourcity.com/blog) will be a community that allows people from all over to connect and talk about their cities and learn about others.

khal: Is your operation solely based on orders from your site? Will you ever be branching out into bigger things, like setting up spots in stores, or having your own store?

Greg: We are in the process of opening up a revolutionary wholesale site that caters to shops and stores all over the world. Why is it revolutionary? Well, because what we are putting in place has not been done before. We have a fan base all over the world and people really feel us. Now how can we get everyone involved, make everyone a boss, let everyone hustle? We have come up with a way to let anyone from anywhere become a partner with us and sell our shirts to local stores, events, groups, etc. for a commissioned profit. The process we came up with will not cut these affiliates out and let the store owners come to the connect directly, but they will only be able to enter our store with an affiliate's PIN number, given by us and this way it will assure that the affiliate makes a commission on all residual sales from that store owner. Frankly, if that affiliate didn't hustle and get that store owner – neither of us would have made any money!!

khal: The one thing I just got hip to was your involvement in MTV's Staying Alive campaign, which focuses on AIDS/HIV education. What is your exact involvement with this campaign, and how did you get involved with MTV on this? Why did you pick this campaign over others out there? Will WearYourCity be getting involved in charities in the future?

Greg: Since the inception of our partnership and since our business has really been active, we have been giving back. Whether it be giving $100 to some kids in L.A. to buy some clothes or supporting an up and coming artist, we have always tried to give back as much as we could. Now we finally decided to get off the sidelines and get involved and also lead by example. Getting involved with the MTV Staying Alive campaign was decided on the factors of: we needed a cause that everyone can relate to, we needed something that our sponsors and media outlets would like to get involved with and we generally just needed somewhere to start. After this event is over we will be moving on to more specific events and campaigns and really start getting our customers involved. The event with Staying Alive is the beginning of our ongoing "Give The Shirt Off Our Back" charity events. To kick it off and let everyone know that we are serious and to show people that its not hard to give back, we are donating 100% of after expense profits to this charity. Our goal is $25,000 and we are striving to reach that, but any amount contributed is going to help!

khal: Seeing as this is an election year, you guys unveiling any Obama/McCain tees to the public?

Greg: Now that you mention it, we might have to!! We have been deciding if we want to release some exclusive political shirts and we came up with the conclusion: of course! People love their cities the most beyond family & friends but politics comes in a close 4th so what better way to represent for your candidate and your city at the same time?? You guessed it . . . we will be releasing our exclusive political shirts very soon. [NOTE: designs with Barack & McCain are available NOW!]

khal: Seeing as you guys are getting some good buzz going worldwide, I have to ask: did you ever, truly, imagine that your company would get this big?

Greg: Daniel & I are both big thinkers – we both believe in the power of the mind and the ability to "think it and it will happen," so the success and growth of the business really hasn't shocked us. It is pretty cool how well receptive everyone has been, but as I say when you have two minds tackling one common goal the question turns from how to when!

khal: What does the future hold for WearYourCity?

Greg: The future of WearYourCity.com is endless. We are going to be giving the people what they want for years to come. We currently have a WearYourCity rap song out which can be heard on our media page and we are talking with a couple more people about some more songs and also we are going to be in stores across the world soon. The possibilities are endless!

khal: Do you have any shoutouts or final thoughts?

Greg: Come visit us and see what all this talk is about. . . www.WearYourCity.com! I just want to shout out all of our customers and supporters and also the people that help us out to get to where we need to be! Thank you all!

"It don't matter where you at, if your cities on the map – you better rep your town - put your city on your back" – Mickey Knoxx