Archie Clay and Taj Crutch both had eyes for fashion and personal style during their college years.
“Getting dressed up and going places,” Crutch explained in a recent phone interview. “Nothing like creating anything.”
The two met at an Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity cluster meeting in Alabama a few years ago and hit it off. Today, they’re in business together and filling orders for their self-designed hat styles featured on the WearBrims.com website.
“We both were into wearing fedoras,” said Crutch, a 2014 IT graduate of Troy University. “And we’d tell each other where got them from. But we’d never find exactly the style we wanted, so we just had to settle.
“Archie came up with the idea to start WearBrims,” he said, adding he couldn‘t believe his frat brother’s initial phone call pitching the idea.
“He said we could do something special,” Crutch said. “I kind of didn’t take him seriously at first. One day went by. Just one day, mind you. Then he called me back and he’d found where we could get the felt, the materials, where we could get it produced. He had everything lined up.”
“A man with a plan is the best man,” Clay chimed in during the interview.
The venture was a leap of faith.
“Definitely for me,” Clay said. “When we initially talked about idea, I was going through my own personal struggles and ending an engagement. I had to put my energy and my mind somewhere.”
“Everybody has ideas, but you never know if its going to be a legit business, a success,” he added. “Now it’s a part of my everyday life, when I wake up, I think ‘What should I be doing with WearBrims today?’ It’s a part of our personal journey.”
Both of the 29-year-olds are holding down full-time jobs while they pursue this entrepreneurial undertaking.
Crutch was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and raised in Alabama, while Clay was born in Chattanooga, Tenn. and raised in Atlanta, Ga.
The company’s name is accompanied by a red robin’s feather in each logo adorning their products. This feather is intended to represent the love, encouragement, mental and financial support they have received from their families.
“It gives us encouragement and motivation every time we look at the logo.“ Clay said. “Our families motivate us to push further.”
The company went through a few trials in the early months, as some manufacturers didn’t grasp their vision, or the fact that they only wanted 12 hats to start off.
“We wanted to test the marketing and understand our consumer,” said Clay, a 2012 Sales & Marketing graduate of Tuskegee University. “We wanted to make sure we were being smart.”
After they found a Pennsylvania manufacturer who agreed to begin with their low minimum count and understood what they were trying to do, things were off and running.
“Actually, the manufacturer we work with now reached out to us,” Clay said, explaining that he originally sent them an email in 2015, but didn’t hear back until last year. “I guess they’d been watching us.”
“Now were doing collections of 200 per style,” Clay said. “Things are ramping up quicker now. It’s been two and a half years and things are going in the right direction.”
The wearbrims.com site outlines three company values, which they want to share with their visitors:
1) Where there’s no risk there’s no reward
“Hey it’s OK to take a risk and do something out of your norm,” Clay said. “You have to take risks. Every time you do something different, you’re taking a risk. Everything we do from design standpoint, it’s all a risk.
“Put yourself in a position to lose something,” he added. “Nothing’s free.”
2) There’s no growth in your comfort zone
“You can’t be stagnant—you have to continue to grow, to increase your own personal knowledge,” Clay explained. “We’ve had to test the limits: change materials, change photography…”
3) Our brims soar beyond “materials.” They are an experience
“For us, it’s all about telling the inside story of how we create, Clay said. “It’s a process.”
Their website also states that they “create brims that instill an unapologetic confidence in the wearer to express their truest, best selves.”
“For us, the difference between our brand and other brands is creativity from a fashion standpoint.” Clay said. “We make sure our hats align with all types and styles of fashion. We bring a different light to the fedora and showcase how you can wear it. Not just with a suit.”
“We actually design hats form scratch,” he explained. “Sketching them out.”
The team was watching an old movie one day and came up with the idea to create a new, black hat called “Posse,” which will be featured on the website soon. A pink blush hat called “Rotten Peach” will debut in the fall.
Other hats range from $60 baseball caps to various prices for five differently styled fedoras: the Aubergine; Prime; Sandlot; Summer Jones; and the exclusive Crown Blanco.
“The Crown Blanco just sold out,“ Crutch said of the 100 percent premium wool felt hat that features a velvet hunter green band. “We’re very happy about that.”
“We did that collaboration with Tay Mitch,” Crutch added, explaining that they only made 75 of those $198 hats available for purchase. “For the Blanco, we sat down to have discussions with him and from there we did the research.”
WearBrims offers free, five- to seven-day shipping on all domestic orders. The brand is currently featured in ATTOM, an upscale, urban luxury wear store located in the Buckhead area of Atlanta.
WearBrims are also featured in one other boutique store. But you’d have to travel to Switzerland.
“I know a stylist there,” Clay said of the unique location. “He connected me with the owner.”
“I think for us, we’re very passionate about what we do,” Clay said. “We go through a lot when we’re designing and we’re grateful to have the opportunity to create.”
For details, visit wearbrims.com
