By Hannah Martin, News Staff
The designers at up-and-coming clothing line, Identity Apparel, are putting a new spin on originality by stamping each of their garments with an emblem of identity: their customers’ kisses, fingerprints or DNA strands.
After showing the line as a featured designer during a New York Fashion Week event at the Waldorf Astoria hotel, founder and company president Dylan Ferguson said the brand has been quite a hit, garnering particularly rave reviews from the college students in attendance.
It’s a crowd Ferguson can understand. Fresh out of university himself, he started work on the company with cohort Aram Melkoumov just last year as they finished up business school at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada.
“When you go off to school, that’s when people really find themselves, that’s when people really try to discover their individuality,” Ferguson said. “And this line really appeals to that – especially to those in the sciences and a lot of engineers.”
Here’s how it works: Customers visit Identityapparel.com to select their garments of choice, plus an accompanying theme – DNA, fingerprint or kiss. Next they choose one of six colors and the design they would like (if any). Customers can also add their personal signatures, if they choose. All choices will appear on the virtual online image of the selected piece, allowing the customer to experiment with different looks.
Once the customer creates and purchases the garment, they receive a collection kit in the mail with instructions. For DNA, it’s a cheek swab of saliva. For the kiss and fingerprint there are imprint papers with washable ink that allow a couple of tries. Pop this collection into a pre-paid envelope and expect the garment within a week. Shipping is free.
Ferguson said the whole process – from payment to receipt of the garment – generally takes about a month within the United States.
Many students – particularly those within the studies Ferguson mentioned – said they appreciate the concept.
“As an engineer you analyze everything about everything,” said sophomore engineering major Blake Pozzi. “Instead of looking at the T-shirt as a whole I look at exactly how they incorporate the DNA or the fingerprint into the design. To me at least, it looks like they really put a lot of time and thought into incorporating this fingerprint or this DNA structure into the design so it’s kind of like merging engineering with creativity.”
Lindsey Knox, a middler behavioral neuroscience major, said she can see some elements of her academic passion in these shirts.
“Its kind of cool because I’ve done that before,” Knox said of the decoded DNA patterns. “Obviously not on a T-shirt. But as a science student it is appealing, I think, knowing what goes into it.”
Identity Apparel offers 19 garments to choose from, most of which are T-shirt varieties, though they do offer a few women’s dresses. As far as prices go, Ferguson said he wanted to keep it simple – $90 for the kiss or fingerprint; $105 for the DNA – regardless of what garment you select, how much or little design is added, that’s the price, flat.
“If a customer is looking at a shirt, we don’t want them thinking, ‘Oh, if I add this design it’s going to cost this much money,’” Ferguson said. “You can customize it to whatever you want and it’s going to be the same price.”
To keep these prices from rising (and DNA identities safe), they keep their entire process in-house, hiring scientists on a contract basis to process the DNA.
“If we go to outside labs, the price skyrockets,” Ferguson said. “And no one wants to buy a $350 T-shirt,” Ferguson said.
But some students said the $100 price is too much, regardless of how much they liked the concept.
Knox said as a scientist, she understands the chemicals were probably pricey, but she still doesn’t think she would buy one of the T-shirts.
“I don’t think the actual designs on the shirt are cool enough to pay that much,” she said. “But the concept is really cool.”
Pozzi said that while he loved the “indie and new age styles” of the DNA and fingerprint designs, $100 T-shirts are not in his budget.
They’re working to bring down their prices, but it’s something that will only come with time – creating a garment this original is hardly cheap on its own, Ferguson said. But ultimately, if students are willing to part with the cash, Identity Apparel will provide unique clothes that are truly personal and one of a kind.
“You see people wearing Ed Hardy, or these premium brand shirts that are supposed to be unique,” he said. “But the thing is, they still print 20,000 of the same shirt, and everyone’s still buying them for $90 a pop. The thing about this shirt is … you can wear who you are. You’re actually wearing your identity rather than wearing a brand.”
