Tangled Up in Blue

An interview with Loyalty Clothing Company's Daniel Blue

by Collin Dunn

Daniel Blue is the Owner and Lead Designer of the Seattle-based Loyalty Clothing Company. At age 23, he has dealt with more than many his age, including the death of his mother and a troubled adolescence. Unlike most twentysomethings, though, he has managed the creation and operation of his very own, very unique, very cool company. Loyalty began in October 2002 with little more than his mom’s old sewing machine and “a vision to create garments that meet the needs of the people.? His “swoodies? (the marriage of sweater and hoodie) are individually custom-designed by the person who will wear it, for the person who will wear it. All swoodies are hand-designed and recycled from garments that the Loyalty team finds in second-hand clothing stores or through individual donations.

In addition to the swoodies available to order from the website, other Loyalty clothing (including t-shirts and jackets) can be found locally at m:pulse and Enxile in Fremont, and Undies & Outies on Queen Anne Hill. Loyalty is also sponsoring Seattle band New American Standard as they embark on a nationwide tour, beginning in March 2004.

sass magazine: Your website says: “King Solomon once said that Loyalty makes you attractive.? Is Solomon the inspiration for the name, or does it come from somewhere else?

Daniel Blue: The name Loyalty is kinda like a poem. Everyone who reads it -- poet included -- is going to come away from it with a different interpretation. But I’m sure you want to know what it means to me and why I named my company that. So...I will tell you the honest truth. Four years ago, I was in jail, for the fourth time. Thirty days in a juvenile facility. All that means is I had time, time to think. So I drew a lot and prayed a lot and tried to figure out what the heck I was doing there again. I said things to myself like, “Didn’t I promise myself last time, didn’t I promise that I was never gonna come back here...didn’t I promise everyone?? Broken promises. So I went into this weird sort of journey of self discovery through my art. I just started writing the word “loyalty? over and over and over, shaping it, molding it. I still have the papers...hundreds of different “loyalties? all over in different shapes and sizes. And it just kinda hit me: loyalty was what I was missing. Loyalty to myself: keeping out of trouble. Loyalty to what I believe in: changing the world with art, as opposed to sitting in jail changing myself through art. Loyalty to the people I loved; you can’t be there for the people that need you if you are in jail. Loyalty to the things that I had found that were worth my loyalty. So for me, loyalty meant making a choice...and then a series of choices while

"Loyalty to myself...Loyalty to what I believe in...Loyalty to the people I loved"

sass: Did you have the idea at the time to start your own clothing company? How did you get started designing and creating your own custom clothing?

DB: I have always had access to my mother’s (sewing) machine. I used to sit and watch her sew things from as far back as I can remember. When she met my step-dad, I was one and a half; she sewed a matching tux set for the both of us for their wedding. At some point she figured I was old enough to do more than just watch. I was home-schooled so I was around a lot as a kid. In high school, I remember cutting up a couple of thermal shirts: one blue and one white. I cut the sleeves into rings and sewed them all together, alternating the colors. I ended up with this ridiculous six foot “Dr. Seuss?-type stocking cap. I wore it to school once and ended up selling it to a kid for ten bucks.

After my mom died (in June of 2002) my aunties came over and they went upstairs with my sister to divide up all (my mom’s) stuff. They shut the door ‘cause they were trying things on and wanted privacy. So I wandered downstairs, kinda wondering what I could have to remember her by and I saw the sewing machine. I just sorta took it. I didn’t think my dad or anyone was going to do anything with it so I just kinda took it into my room. Between then and October (2002, when Loyalty was born) I kept wanting to do something with it but I think the only thing I did was hem some pants. I was kinda in a bad way. When I got the idea for the swoodie it seemed like destiny that I should have it. It wasn’t until people started wanting swoodies that I realized how much I was honoring my mom...it eased a lot of the pain and gave me a huge boost of purpose to use that little tank to make a way for myself in the world. I guess I knew she would be happy with me, and that goes a long way. Without it, I’m not sure Loyalty would have made it through the hard beginning times. It’s easy to give up on an idea, but I have a hard time refusing a thing that feels like destiny.

sass: Is this your destiny? What would you be doing if you hadn’t come out of this with your own company?

DB: Oh, man (laughs). I don’t know. That’s a tough one. I really feel like this is my destiny, man. If I weren’t doing this, I’d be someplace lookin’ for it. This is about love -- that’s a cliché, I know -- but I really see the joy in discovering and being who I am and I want everyone to have that. Until I really found myself, I wasn’t satisfied. I didn’t stop looking for myself until I found myself; does that make sense? It’s the most rewarding thing in the world to know you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing.

The anatomy of the "swoodie"

sass: Let’s talk about your swoodies for a minute. Each one is custom designed and tailored, right? What sorts of limitations and freedoms exist when you uniquely design and create each of your garments?

DB: It’s really hard to find all the sweaters that we need. Between October (2002) and March (2003) I managed to make 50 or 60 of them, mostly for my friends and their friends, and it’s just gotten bigger. We are currently researching larger-scale manufacturing. If you tell me you want one that’s mauve and taupe, I’ve got to first go out and find those colors and then make them work how you want them to. So, unless I get a warehouse full of pockets and sleeves and hoods and stuff, I won’t be able to keep up as demand continues to go up. We’re an image-based culture. People really wanna own what they wear, and the only real way to do that is to let them create their own image. Swoodies let me do that, and still be loyal to art itself.

sass: How would you define your image? What image do you want your clothes to create?

DB: Image is difficult to verbalize, because it speaks to a deeper part of us. Symbols and logos and icons and abstract art, it all falls further down than words care to plummet in me. Perhaps if I use simple terms, I can describe what it is I want to communicate when I get dressed in the morning: things like “he is good, he is here, I can talk to him, he will not hurt me, he is able, he belongs to us, he is strong, he is using his mind.?

I want the clothes I design to say these things too, but far more. “I am ready, I care, I love.? On top of that, I want the same outfit to say lots of different things at different times. When you are zipped up and you have this or that strap tightened up it is saying “respectfully at your service, giving you what you want (tip me please).? Then down with the front and out with the sleeves and KABOOM! Out comes all the heart juice and flair: “I LOVE myself. I am comfortable with ‘fill in the blank’ expression.?

"You are the one in charge of telling the world what is inside you."

People come to me with custom orders and I listen carefully to what it is they are trying to say...I look at what they are already wearing and I “listen? to the messages I get. As they are explaining this or that color and this or that shaping, I pay close attention to the metaphors they use to describe what it is they want this garment to do for them. It’s really fun to actually hear someone tell me "warm burgundy," "soft pink," "robust brown." These people know what they want to look like, whether it is inviting or relaxing or a strong presence. They understand that clothes are simply tools that get you into someone else’s deep conscious with the simple impression and feelings that only image can communicate.

sass: When people think of Loyalty, what’s the first thing you want them to think of? What is more important: recycling old sweaters or creating cool styles? In other words, what do you find to be more important: the creation and cultivation of the style of your clothes, or the perception of the social and environmental ideas? Or does one help propagate the other?

DB:It is cool style to wear recycled clothing. It is very conveniently “in style.?

sass: You outsource the production of your t-shirts to American Apparel. They are very committed to causes like fair trade, sweatshop-free labor andcertified organic cotton. How committed are you to using totally sustainable and humane business practices?

DB: Sometimes I really wonder if it is possible. I look at this industry and how it is structured and it makes my heart sink. It seems that someone would have to come in and rebuild everything from the ground up. Factories, mills, plantations, sheep farms...and then monitor every square inch of your garment from molecule to microfibre. I know that I am too small to do that for now. But what I really care about is people.

I am 100% committed to treating the human beings involved in the making of my garments like human beings. Fair, loving, nurturing if I can. My dream is to see a group of unemployed men and women able to build and entire community together because Loyalty came to town and built a factory, trained them how to make stuff and gave them a chance to live like people.

Up to this point everything we have made has been 100% recycled material. We are researching our heads off trying to find out how to mass produce something and keep it sustainable. If there is no planet, there are no people...if there are no people...there is no art…and if there is no art...there is no loyalty.

sass: That reminds me of something you said earlier: “I want to be loyal to art itself.? It seems that you really want to maintain the integrity of “art? in this process. How are you going to go about doing that?

DB: Art, in the high sense of the word, the true form of it, to me, is: communication so effective that it transcends explanation, you just know, you just get it...sort of an "I have been reached, I have been told something" kinda thing. It’s a completely spiritual experience that just doesn’t require any sort of physical logic or explanation.

I want to be loyal to that indefinable, beautiful thing.

sass: I see. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

"Show us your whole soul...now, wear it around a little."

DB: I see everyone as an artist. I see the Loyalty Clothing Company as a gigantic brush. Pick up this brush, dip it in the paint we have provided and wipe it on the canvas. Show us your whole soul. And now, wear it around a little.

We are loyal to art because we are letting that spiritual experience happen more than anyone has ever let it happen before. Suddenly you are the designer, you are the one in charge of telling the world what is inside you.

Instead of a handful of “artists? sitting around sketching out what you will be wearing next year, telling you what to wear, we are letting you tell us. “What do you want to wear? We have some good ideas, this is what we can do for you…now tell us what it is that you want to say."

sass: What is next for you and for Loyalty? Will there be other incarnations of the Swoodie? Where will Loyalty be in three years? Five years?

DB: I’m going to start making waterproof swoodies, and a bulked-up version that you can wear snowboarding. I mean, no one in the northwest needs a "polar ice-cap" parka: I’ve been snowboarding in just a shell for years.

I’d like to think that Loyalty will be able to go international in the next few years; while still doing the things I talked about earlier with the labor and stuff. I’d really like to go to another place -- a third world country -- that really, you know, needs help and I could live with them and work with them and we could build a real community.

sass: I like that -- it seems that a Seattle clothing company almost has to make waterproof clothing. What advice do you have for other young, ambitious, entrepreneurial people like you?

DB: The first thing that comes to mind is that I could not have done this by myself; so be sure to surround yourself with people who will encourage your creativity and believe in your dreams. I realize that I could not have done any of this without the people who I am close to, people who believed in me, like Paul, Kim, Mike and Jeremy. I would also say: Do not stop. Do not quit. And don’t let them tell you what to wear.

sass: Alright. Daniel Blue’s famous last words?

DB: The more that Americans -- and the world for that matter -- realize that they are already smart, that they are already beautiful, that they are already valuable and they already belong -- this is before they buy anything -- the more that they realize that they are capable of expressing themselves, that they have something in them worth expressing, worth sharing…the more art they produce, the better, safer, more enjoyable place this will be.

Collin Dunn is Editor-in-Chief and Creatologist of sass magazine. He is currently living the American dream in and around Seattle, Wash.

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