X The Tee for Inspirer

 

X The Tee is a new, blossoming t-shirt brand, based in San Diego, CA. With a fresh and honest artistic concept that doesnt stop at just the fashion statement of it, they caught my eyes. So check out this interview to get to know them, and the idea behind the project.

 1. Names and Ages?

 Jska: Jska Chang, 22

 Steven: Steven Yuan, just turned 23 last weekend

2. How did you guys meet and how did you come up with the idea of a clothing brand?

Jska: Weve been friends for a while (How did we meet? I think it was bible study?) and I guess we wanted to do something crazy like try to start our own business. I think we individually had thought about it but its hard to get the motivation to do it by yourself. I remember one of the first days we were still brainstorming for our company name we sat on a friends couch trying to think of a name.  One of us would just say an adjective and other the person would say a noun. Oh sillies. 

Steven: Yea, I'm pretty sure we met through a bible study 2 or 3 years ago?  I think it was because we lived in the same apartment complex?  In terms of a clothing brand, I always wanted to design t-shirts.  I remember in high school, I had a friend in yearbook class who started his own clothing line and I thought it was awesome.  I tried the whole Threadless route later on, but that was generally a frustrating experience seeing my designs get ripped apart during judging.  College came and went, and designing t-shirts was mainly just a thought at the back of my head.  Then, after meeting Jessica and hearing her aspirations for a clothing company I became inspired again.  But this time around, I wanted to create a brand that would eventually be a platform for other designers too.

3. What is the line of thought that goes into your creations?

Steven: Yea, a lot of the thought process just comes from things that amuse or things that inspire me.  As for our latest design, LUV (SIC) is a simple tribute to one of my favorite hip hop artists, Nujabes.  We're thinking of taking a slightly more humorous side for the next design.  But yes, generally it's thoughts that come from everyday commentary that goes into our creations

Jska: Steven's more the artistic side. But I think it definitely has to do with things that we would actually want to wear and art from awesome people that might not otherwise get the coverage they deserve.

4. What is the next step for the brand?

Steven: This is the exciting part!  We don't want to push our own designs all the time, we want to collaborate and let new artists gain exposure! This main idea is embodied in our name 'X The Tee'.  Technically, we are just called The Tee, but because our mantra is all about collaboration and X denotes collaboration in the art, music, and fashion industry, we decided to leave the X there permanently.  So when we do collaborate with specific artists or schools or organizations, we'll put their name in front of ours like so -> NAME X THE TEE.  We plan to launch this phase of X The Tee sometime in the Fall or Winter with student artists at UCSD.

5. Where do you wanna take your brand? Whats the goal with this?

Jska: Just going along with the flow and having fun!  But I guess we'll see once we launch our next phase.

Steven: Haha yea, you caught us at an interesting time.  For now it's all just going with the flow of things, pushing our designs out there, et cetera.  But if the next phase with student artists pans out, I really hope we can bring this to more college campuses and smoke out hidden talent there.  If I had an ULTIMATE goal, it would be to have a global operation with students and budding artists across the globe coming to light.  And on top of that, the tees would be hand made by women who escaped the sex-trafficking industry paid at fair wages.  That would be awesome.

6. What moves you?

Steven:  What moves me are my two big passions in life, in this order: Jesus and music.  Jesus moves me because He is the perfect example of true and whole selfless love.  He embodies what it means to love others, to love your neighbor, and to fight injustice and stand up for what is right even when no one else will stand with you.  But most of all He is personal and He has loved me and given me eternal peace.  Music moves me because it's a language that everyone can understand.  There are sounds that when combined at the right time and place can evoke the deepest of human emotions.  So yea, I guess Christ embodies my ideology, and music embodies the language of my soul.

Jska: I like that I'm in the age where I can make crazy life decisions purely on what I like to do, knowing that if I fail I have time to fix it and say that I at least tried my best. So I guess, youth moves me?

7. Influences?

Nujabes, Takashi Murakami, Banksy, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Anthony Francisco Schepperd, Blu, Immortal Technique, Foreign Family, Lemon Jelly, The Imaginary Zebra, Don Hertzfeldt, The Holy Spirit, life in general, and much much more.

8. A motto that stands for X THE TEE?

This is our company motto: well designed tees at a well designed price, while discovering today's up and coming artists.

Be sure to check out the X THE TEE website for updates http://xthetee.com/