T.Party T Shirts ~ The Party is Served in Style~

I recently had the chance to talk to head designer Kaitlin Elyse of T. Party T Shirts 

Kaitlin is busy prepping for the launch of her first ever line of fashionable T-Shirts!  The fashion event will be held at the Blu Martini in Indianapolis on September 30th, 2010. Here is the first of our two part interview with Kaitlin~

Fashion Wrap Up: Kaitlin tell us a little bit about yourself? Where are you from? What is your educational background? 

Kaitlin~I’m a 24 year old Elkhart, Indiana native. I was born and raised there, lived in Fort Wayne for a year, and then moved to Indy when I was 20 and have been in love with this city ever since. I went to Concord High School, and studied photography and event planning after high school, before becoming a student at Harrison College in their Fashion Merchandising program- and will be graduating in March!

  Fashion Wrap Up: What does fashion mean to you?

Kaitlin~Are we talking about fashion, or style?

You don’t need money to have style, you need confidence in who you are.  Personal style and pulling off a particular fashion comes from within, not because you spent a lot on a garment.  "Fashion Victim" is seriously a term we learn in school, it's someone who buys a garment just because it's expensive or is a well known brand.  Just because your item is by a well known designer does not mean you are stylish, it just means you're a tool with a big credit line.

　                      
Fashion Wrap Up: How would you define your city’s fashion?
Kaitlin~Indianapolis is like a little diamond in the rough. Underneath all the dirt, rocks, and crunchy, brown grass there is something really wonderful. I think recently people have started sensing that there might be something buried under there, and are starting to dig.
Rome was not built in a day- and neither will Indianapolis's reputation (or credibility) as a fashion city. We are at just the beginning stages of something really great, and with an immense amount of team work, holding each other to high standards, and a lot willingness to be critical and continually get better- we will get there. I'm very excited, and honored, to be a part of what I believe with be something truly fabulous.  

Fashion Wrap Up: When did you realize you wanted to be a fashion designer?

Kaitlin~Ha ha, I hope you’re using that term with me loosely! I actually never planned to “design” or come up with a line of my own. If you had told me a year ago I'd own my own line- t-shirts or otherwise- I would have seriously laughed in your face. I’ve always been in retail or in sales, and my strengths are promotion, marketing, and selling. My goals were more geared towards being a sales rep for someone else’s products, and/or fashion show management- as those areas are where most of my experience, and education, comes from. T-shirts really are their own marketing, so I guess it all makes sense in the end.
T.Party was hatched out of a joke- I told my friend Aimee Achenbach that I wanted some of the sassy things she said on Facebook on a t-shirt- and others said they wanted one when I made mine. Over the past three months that joke and offhanded comment has become a reality. I think that the best products come out of real life conversations, rather than “searching” to come up with something to sell. It’s organic, it’s real, it’s wearable, and it’s marketable. When you are actively looking to come up with something to sell, it doesn’t ever come from you- it isn’t natural, and your target market knows it. They then won’t buy in to you or your product. 

Visit T.Party on Facebook  or email T.Party for more information @tpartyinfo@gmail.com


Look for the second part of the interview with Kaitlin Next Friday September 24th, 2010.