Today we’d like to introduce you to Timothy Middleton.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Timothy. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I am the founder of Fadelife Clothing, and I have always been an artist and fond of everything dealing with art. Growing up, I was very influenced by anime, skateboarding, basketball, and fashion. I would ask my parents to take me to the various places to view art, along with asking for the most unconventional action figures to practice drawing or to use as a reference for clothing.
When I went off to college, this hobby blossomed into me doing freelance designing for multiple indy companies and organizations while I finished my degree. This is where I came up with the name ‘Fadelife’ while brainstorming with one of my current business partners. At that time, the Fadelife idea was a concept I placed on the shelf and decided to focus solely on school.
During that time, I continuing to freelance logos and designs for other companies, and I found myself being called on more and more to come up with various design ideas to build their brands. While doing this several of my friends asked why I continued to do all of that freelance work, and why was I doing it so cheap or for free. My reply would always remain the same, “It’s just something I love to do!” People continued to inquire about me starting my own brand, until one day I decided to go full force with the idea.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Starting and building Fadelife clothing has been no simple task! I have several friends that are entrepreneurs, but none of which specialized in clothing. The beginning process of starting out was a major learning curve of learning from my mistakes. I decided that in order to better my company I needed to find ways to better myself and my knowledge of how to actually run this company. Therefore, I chose to invest in various classes sponsored by successful clothing entrepreneurs and study their ways of running a business. What stood out the most to me from listening to all of their stories was that they all stressed the need to constantly grind! I already worked with a back against the wall mentality constantly forcing myself to grind and hustle daily but these entrepreneurs helped me realize I was on the right path even when I didn’t realize myself.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Fadelife is a brand that reflects the passion and creativity of all humanity. It’s a brand that calls to the skateboarder’s free spirit, the artist creative passion, and the modern mom’s sense of fashion. We look to unify people while giving the latest creative designs and colors beyond what anyone could imagine! FADELIFE = Intoxicating Style!!! We are a clothing brand that strives to deliver the most eye-catching designs we can come up with.
As a company, I am the most proud of how far we’ve come as a brand. We started off having to outsource our orders for other companies to print to being able to print ourselves. It also amazes me that only a few friends and family members would wear the brand in the beginning, but now we have people from all over that we’ve never met asking about and wearing the brand! We started off selling only T-shirt’s, but we have grown the Fadelife name to also include hoodies, hats, skateboard decks, and much more!
What sets us apart from everyone else is that we wanted to create a brand that any more could find something on our website that speaks to them! The Fadelife motto is “To have a brand that is inclusive to everyone and not exclusive to a few”. I wanted to produce a brand that literally spoke to everyone, just how art does.
What were you like growing up?
Wow!! What was I like growing up…. I had to be the weirdest kid ever, and I barely spoke to people until the 3rd/4th grade. I loved to watch cartoons, anime, skateboarding, And1, and NBA basketball, along with collecting comic books, action figures, and sports cards. I was the biggest nerd growing up (in reality, I still am). Around that time not many people I hung out with watched anime or liked to skateboard. My family were the only ones I would open up to about my interest in those things. I don’t think I really had too many friends until I moved to this small town called Brunswick in Georgia. From the beginning of moving there, I finally meet people who liked the same things I liked. Thats when I truly began to speak on my ideas and what I wanted to do when it came to being creative. In this town, you could literally drive from one side of town to the other side in 15 minutes. But as far as people supporting your ideas and believing you could do anything, it was definitely the place for me.
I talked with my best friend at the time about designing skateboard decks after watching Tony Hawk at the X games, then about starting a clothing line off of the horrible doodles I would do during school, and also about wanting to write books and create an anime. I talked about all of the wild and outrageous things kids dreamed about that not many people would think they would actually attempt to accomplish.
Pricing:
- T-shirts-$25
- Hoodies-$40
- Hats-$25
Contact Info:
- Website: www.fadelife.com
- Phone: 4702224015
- Email: fadelifeclothing@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/fadelifeclothing?igshid=1rlhr6rn79l0x
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fadelifeclothing/
- Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Fadelifeclothin
Image Credit:
Scott Photography, Griot LLC, Ajayxthomas
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