the official jim tressel t-shirt by jupmode.com
the most common question i get when people find out what i do is, how did you get that idea? well, it was pretty simple actually and i’m pretty sure i wasn’t the first to have it.
the idea came while watching the ohio state vs. florida national championship game. for some reason it took me quite a few years to say, ‘hey, jim tressel always wears a sweater vest and tie on the sidelines. someone should make a sweater vest t-shirt’. when i came to this realization, with my brothers and father in the room, i said it out loud. incidentally, my dad replied, ‘why don’t you do it’. that was all it took for me to try.
i began by talking to a few local silk screen shops to find out the best way to make the shirt. the original concept was to make it similar to the tuxedo t-shirt – the entire design a silk screen, not the layered look it ended up with. after some research i discovered that this was going to be quite difficult, as i wanted the design to go all the way up to the collar.
since it looked like i was not going to be able to produce the shirts locally in toledo, i branched out. my dad put me in touch with a friend who had done business with china so i sought a sample from overseas. i also did some research online and contacted a few domestic manufacturers will little success.
fortunately, after months of miscommunication, china did produce a sample. it wasn’t quite what i was looking for, but it was good enough to be given a license by the ohio state university. and the miscommunication led to an unexpected change in the design – they sewed white sleaves and v-neck into the red body. most people will tell you this improved the shirt considerably.
difficulty in dealing with china – too much was lost in translation – led me to search for another manufacturer. i had a family friend sew another sample and i shopped that around. eventually, i stumbled upon a manufacturer in mexico to do the final production. i even made a trip to the factory and checked things out. learning everything on the fly delayed production. i didn’t receive the first shipment of shirts until 10/12/08, nearly two months into the football season.
