Sixteen years ago, Greg Alterman was a traveling salesman of sorts, selling his line of cotton caps and T-shirts from the trunk of his car and spreading his message of absolute comfort across Atlanta. When Alternative Apparel became one of the go-to T-shirt brands for designers and wholesalers seeking the perfect blank canvas, business boomed. By the time Alterman traded his car trunk for a showroom and decamped to Los Angeles to focus on design, the company was on its way to becoming a full-fledged lifestyle brand.
With a new Alternative Apparel retail store open this spring in Venice, Calif., an eco-friendly line among the expanded apparel of pants, dresses and bags, and the launch of a lifestyle magazine, "Common Thread," the brand is on the verge of yet another evolution. Alternative Apparel has made its mission to become a household name – not an easy task when the very essence of your brand is the absence of branding.
"The fashion world is littered with companies that push product and don't really have a soul," said company CEO Evan Toporek at Alternative Apparel's Norcross headquarters. "We are in the fashion business and we stay on trend, we are obsessed with quality and styling, but when you pull back the brand, you really see our culture."
Toporek, a graduate of Georgia Tech, left his consulting career in 1998 to join the Alternative Apparel team. He and Alterman experimented with silk screening and embroidery but soon discovered that the super-soft, well-fitting shirts they were making would sell just fine on their own.
"I liked shirts from an earlier era," Alterman said. "We wanted to develop a really soft, great-fitting, tailored, vintage inspired T-shirt." The result, less boxy than a Hanes T-shirt with a thinner, yet high-quality weave, quickly gained a following. Corporate clients and clothing brands, small and large, asked to use Alternative shirts for printing and promotional purposes.
When one of her boutique clients designed T-shirts to benefit Breast Cancer Awareness month, local fashion publicist Kitsy Rose called Alternative Apparel. "Alternative Apparel donated the various tees to the project and that allowed us to donate 100 percent of profits to Susan G. Komen of Atlanta," said Rose, an Alternative devotee who appreciates the laid back, yet chic style of the clothing. "They have such a good price point, that smaller businesses can pick up the merchandise and brand it as their own." This year, as one of many philanthropic partnerships, Alternative created its own line of Pink Ribbon apparel to benefit Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
For almost a decade, Alterman has been based in Los Angeles, having moved there to shepherd the Alternative brand from T-shirts and caps to a full collection of inspired designs. The biggest competitor at the time was LA-based American Apparel. Alterman settled in the Venice area to work with designers to create new products and collections that tell a story. Pants, sweaters, blazers, and dresses joined the ever growing assortment of T-shirt styles. The aesthetic veered toward the edgy coolness of the surfers and skaters for which Venice Beach is known, but comfort was always the common denominator.
"We are about making people feel comfortable in our clothing," Alterman said. "Making them feel like they don't have to wear some high-end designer label when they can get just as good quality." Company innovations include "Burnout Tees," the now ubiquitous lightweight, almost sheer, but not quite, shirts and hoodies in a rainbow of colors, as well as the recently introduced Alternative Earth, an eco-friendly collection that uses organic cotton, recycled polyester and low impact dyes.
Alternative's popularity grew on the West Coast, where everyone from Tom Cruise to the cast of "Twilight" has been spotted in the brand. When the Venice store opened, it became a mecca for the celebrity set. But it wasn't the company's first retail venture.
In 2006, Alternative Apparel licensed its name to local retailer Bill Hallman for a shop in Virginia Highland. The venture didn't last, but the desire to sell Alternative products directly to customers continued. The company has plans to roll outadditional Alternative Apparel stores and branded boutiques in department and specialty stores, such as Bloomingdale's and Urban Outfitters.
If success can be measured in exposure and dollars, it seems shoppers are already listening. Not only have sales doubled, putting projected revenues in the range of $75 millionfor the fiscal year since the company began focusing on its consumer business, but shipments from the Norcross warehouse to 130 different countries routinely approach 1 million units of product each month.
Internally, more than 150 employees work in three Alternative Apparel offices, where weekly yoga, cupcake breaks and bring your dog to work days, are the rule. It's all part of the Alternative lifestyle that Alterman and Toporek, who have always considered the brand "a product of the people," hope to bring to the masses.
"We are somewhat of a sleeping giant here," Toporek said. "We are thoughtful and responsible in what we do. We aspire to be a well known brand one day that does more than just sell things."
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