While many college students are focused on just making it past midterms, Grace Dueweke, a freshman in the Fashion Merchandising program, is focused on coming out with her new line for her street apparel brand, Wolf Apparel.
Since Wolf Apparel's inception in 2012, Dueweke and her partner Rachel Weber, a freshman at Michigan State University, have been offering up a modern and affordable alternative to the world of fashion.
“I think it is fun for kids our age to follow fashion and what companies are putting out,” Dueweke said. “But I think it’s important for each generation to have someone from their generation who is providing them with clothes. A lot of designers kids our age pay attention to are 60 or 70.”
What started out as two high school students designing and making hats and scarves on looms for friends has turned into a clothing company catering to the college-aged demographic.
Dueweke designs the clothes, while Weber handles the business side of the company. They work together to produce the clothing.
“For the clothing we produce it one of two ways. We have our own screen printer so for some of the hand printed items we are involved in all parts of the production. We wholesale order shirts and print them ourselves,” Dueweke said. “But then for more complicated designs or bigger orders we have a friend who has a t-shirt printing company and he’ll do those for us.”
Their friend owns Art Wear Apparel Graphics Inc., a company based out of Kalamazoo, Mich.
Approaching their company from a hands-on perspective has forced Dueweke and Weber into the real world of fashion.
“There are a lot of issues this company will throw at us that I would never expect and we just have to learn on our feet because we’ve never done something like this before,” Dueweke said.
She said dealing with customer complaints or suggestions, and working with other companies that might want to collaborate with them, are things they’ve never dealt with before, so there’s a lot of learning left to do.
As with any business endeavor, a strong support system is key. While both Dueweke and Weber’s parents were skeptical in the beginning, they now not only give moral support, but actually try to spread the word about the brand.
“I think it’s probably harder [to open a business] as a young person,” Dueweke said. “In your later twenties you learn to have a little more commitment, while a lot of high schoolers can’t really fathom a long commitment.”
Wolf Apparel has taught Dueweke true commitment and has pushed her out of her comfort zone.
“I try to talk to everyone I meet about it, which sometimes is a little weird because I kind of feel like I’m bragging about myself but I realized I just have to get over it because it’s for the good of my business,” Dueweke said. “I’m always handing out business cards and stickers to people.”
The shift from high school to college while running a business has come with its challenges and changes.
“It’s definitely more difficult to find time with my classes, my job [at Jimmy John’s], and homework,” Dueweke said. “But I also see it as more important now because I’m talking about it more than I was in high school. I want it to be something successful that people will go and look up. I want to make sure they get a good experience.”
As a small business, giving each costumer a good experience is important. Each order is either packaged by hand or mailed with free stickers and a note, or hand delivered by one of the owners themselves.
Explore the Wolf Apparel website at realwolfapparel.com, connect with the brand on Twitter and Instagram with the handle @realwolfapparel, or email them at realwolfapparel@gmail.com
