Life on Cloud Nine

Four St.Louis teens take fashion into their own hands and launch their own line.
By Sara Hennessey

Keeping up with the latest trend isn’t always easy. Buying and staying “en vogue” can be pricy and sometimes wasteful—one minute it’s in, the next it’s out. Four boys from the Hazelwood school district, however, decided to take a different approach to keeping in style; It was as simple as creating their own.

Bryant Stewart, Gary Richardson, Justin West and Quinn Woodard are “four friends who wanted to do something different,” West says. West is an ’07 graduate of Hazelwood East. “We liked dressing different, and once we thought about it, we sat down together and thought about what we could do.”

Cloud N9ne™ Clothing is the result of their collaboration. The t-shirts, which feature an image of two smiling clouds connected by a rainbow, are bright, fun and fresh. Indeed, Cloud N9ne is marketed as being “where freshness lies…[it’s] not a place but rather a feeling.”

The idea to start their own clothing brand, which features bright, colorful images that were different from the dull neutral and dark colors of the current fashion scene, began with Stewart and Richardson. Richardson is a graduate of Hazelwood Central, and Stewart will begin his senior year in the fall.

“We knew we liked things with an urban, New York-ish feel,” Stewart says. “And we were tired of walking down the street and seeing people wearing the same things we were.” Soon Stewart got Hazelwood East students West and Woodard involved, and Cloud N9ne™ was born.

“After we talked about it together, we went to a graphic designer and got a screen printed,” West says. “From there, we started to make the t-shirts.”

Their next step was to find a place where they could display and sell the shirts. After speaking to an interested buyer from a boutique off Delmar called, “i am…!”, they were set— the boutique had agreed to let them display their shirts in the store. They recently went so far as to get the brand trademarked and got their business license. What started as a hobby, the boys say, has turned into something they’re all taking a lot more seriously.

“After we saw all the support from the community and people that were interested, we thought, why not take it to the next level?” West says.

Stewart agrees. “Now we’re talking to interested buyers in Chicago and New York,” he says. “Things have just really started to come together.”

Stewart says that their plan is to expand beyond t-shirts. “When we applied for our business license, we had to check off what we were interested in selling. We pretty much checked everything,” he laughed. “We want to make jeans, jackets, flip flops, socks, underwear, you name it…everything!”

At this point, the boys say, their next focus is to get more exposure. They’ve e-mailed and contacted TV personalities including Jay Leno and David Letterman, with the hope of getting a spot on their shows.

“We’re all about getting our product out there and getting more exposure,” West says. On April 28 the boys attended a Lupe Fiasco concert, where they got to go backstage.

“We talked to a manager there who was interested and wanted to get a t-shirt for Lupe,” West says. “That was really cool.”

“People like our clothing because it’s flashy,” Woodard says. “It stands out, and it’s not pricy, like other high-end fashions. It’s affordable and accessible.”

At this point, the boys say their biggest source of exposure has been their MySpace page (www.myspace.com/cloudn9neclothing), but they soon hope to expand their market out of St. Louis. Woodard will be attending school in Tulsa in the fall, where he plans to look for stores that may want to display their products.

“I’ll be looking for other stores that have the same style we do,” he says. Richardson and West will be doing the same thing in Chicago, where they’ll be next year. Stewart, who still has one more year at Hazelwood Central, will be the main link between the other three boys. He will maintain Internet orders and keep the new ideas flowing.

Regardless of exposure and attention their main goal remains the same. “We’re just trying to bring the New York urban style to St. Louis,” Stewart says.