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Maker of racy 'Coed Naked' T-shirts churns out new line for women
(Telegraph, The (Nashua, NH) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Nov. 4--You may remember the slogans from their popular T-shirt line, Coed Naked. Shirts carrying slogans such as "Coed Naked Law Enforcement: Against the wall and spread 'em" or "Coed Naked Bowling: Keep your balls on the lane and your mind in the gutter" could be found on teenagers and young adults everywhere in the 1990s, often to the dismay of school officials.
Scott MacHardy and Mark Lane founded Coed Sportswear Co., which produced such shirts, in 1990 following their graduation from the University of New Hampshire with business degrees. After getting the company off the ground with their popular line of Coed Naked tees, they changed gears into creating sports graphic shirts for children.
With the popularity of the Coed Naked franchise dissipating in the mid-1990s, their relatively unknown sports T-shirts have carried their company for the last decade.
Now, the company has released a new product line called "Me Time" that it hopes can headline the company for years to come.
Me Time is a clothing line specifically designed for women in search of those coveted moments to themselves.
"Many women have demanding schedules that include work, children and the daily struggle to juggle all that life throws at them -- unfortunately, it becomes very hard for them to find a minute to read a book, take a jog or enjoy a cup of coffee," MacHardy said. "This line celebrates those rare times."
After having spent years selling their children's sports graphic tees to large retailers, Me Time has brought MacHardy and Lane back to the smaller independent stores where they got their start some 17 years ago with Coed Naked.
"What we really like to do is support the smaller companies because they are loyal customers," MacHardy said.
He doesn't worry about the lower profit margins that a smaller company provides, and looking at the past success of the Coed Naked franchise, it is tough to argue with their methods. At its peak, Coed Naked sold to 10,000 independent stores in the U.S. -- a feat that helped earn them the Small Business Administration's Young Entrepreneurs of the Year Award in 1995 and a trip to the White House, where they met President Clinton.
The Me Time line is selling in women's specialty boutiques along the East Coast.
"We don't need to put it in every store -- we need to put it in the right store," Lane said.
The line has seen some early success, which MacHardy and Lane anticipated after the positive feedback they received from women's focus groups.
"Every woman we've shown it to has seemed to enjoy the idea," MacHardy said. "We even had them help us with the colors and activities expressed on the shirts themselves. The drinking ones seem to do well -- go figure."
According to MacHardy, there are hints beyond the bottom line that Me Time is doing well.
"We know it is successful because stores have started to call us for requests, rather than us trying to sell it to them," he said. "And we can send out as little as one shirt to a store, which is something the larger manufacturers can't do."
Another item for which the two have started to hear requests of late is the Coed Naked product they ceased to produce years ago.
"Fashion is cyclical, and there is a good chance we will be bring that line back in the near future," MacHardy said.
At the moment, they're running a promotion with Boston radio station WBCN inviting people to send in suggestions for new T-shirt slogans.
"We are always working to improve our company and listening for new ideas, but right now, our main focus is on Me Time," MacHardy said.
Soon, they hope, that will be the focus of most women, as well.
To see more of The Telegraph, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.nashuatelegraph.com
Copyright (c) 2007, The Telegraph, Nashua, N.H.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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