CRESCENT Products: Loggerhead Apparel — This Sea Turtle Can Take on the Horse or the Whale Any Day.

There is an undercurrent from people who want to see South Carolina-based products. If you haven’t noticed in the state’s farmers’ markets, road-side stands, and numerous other businesses, the South Carolina Department of Agriculture instituted its “Certified SC” program.

ZAC: We’ve been in touch with the “Certified SC” folks.  I’ve got the sticker on my truck, and I did before we started Loggerhead.

And two or three years ago, when they first came out with that logo, I actually emailed them and said, “Can you send me as many as you will of those?”  We passed them out to our friends.

I love the “Certified South Carolina” movement. Actually, one of their marketing guys named our black shirt.  All of our colors have South Carolina ties, so our navy shirt is “Bulls Bay Blue.”  Our pink is “Southern Moon Pink” which is named for a jellyfish that loggerheads feed on that are off the coast of the Carolina.

SARA: “Hartwell Sunset Orange.”

ZAC: For Lake Hartwell, right.   “Sweetgrass Green” after the sweetgrass baskets in Charleston, and our black shirt is “Edisto Blackwater” because the Edisto is the largest blackwater river in North America, and a “Certified South Carolina” guy named that shirt. So, we talked with them very early on.  We don’t fit into that category to get that stamp.  We would love to, but they…

But it shows there is an awareness at the public level and even in state government that we have products to promote and to be proud of.

SARA: Thank you.

Conservation is something you got involved with in Charleston before you came up here.  Has it been a life-long kind of passion?

SARA: Yeah. I mean, life-long involvement.  I haven’t lived in Charleston in quite some time.  I went to undergrad at Clemson, but the conservation and working with sea turtles specifically was something my dad got involved down in Charleston.  Awendaw, the community that I lived in, that I grew up in, is right on the Intracoastal Waterway.  Right across the Intracoastal from my neighborhood is Cape Romaine National Wildlife Refuge. All of those islands see loggerhead sea turtle nesting, but one of the islands gets the most loggerhead sea turtles of anywhere in South Carolina — in fact, anywhere north of Florida.  They see over a thousand nests a season.  I had that right in my backyard. My dad’s a pretty avid sailor and naturalist and nature enthusiast, so he spent a lot of time on the water out there and was able to, fortunately, when they made that program, to get involved in volunteering.

ZAC: And her dad actually has a blog and has written several books on that area.

SARA: Yeah and that’s just a hobby of his.

What’s the blog?

SARA: It is raynoronthecoast.com, and his first book was “Exploring Bull Island.”  And then the other one was “Tracing the Cape Romaine Archipelago.”  All that information is on his blog.  That was sort of where that part of it came from and then the loggerhead sea turtle specifically is the mark for our brand where we chose to give 10% of our sales. Our state reptile.

ZAC: Not many people know that.

SARA: You probably know that.

You know what the state amphibian is? 

ZAC: The salamander.

The spotted salamander, very good.

ZAC: Spotted salamander.  I’m a good Sandlapper.

If there an elementary school class, there is going to be a state symbol designated every year. 

SARA: That’s where the loggerhead sea turtle came from as the state reptile. An elementary school class.

ZAC: And we’ve actually gotten an email from a guy who was in the elementary school class in ’76.

SARA: ’76 or ’78.

ZAC: When it became the state reptile.  We got an email on our website that said, “Love what you guys are doing.  I was actually in the class, in the picture, when we got the loggerhead name.”  It was nothing other than, “I bought my shirt at Sam Evans.  I love it and thanks for doing what you’re doing.”  And that was kind of cool, that that guy, one of those 25 kids found us and reached out and said, “I was in that class.”  That’s pretty neat.

Are you getting that kind of feedback a lot?  Not necessarily from somebody that was in the class, but just somebody to thank you for what you’re doing?

SARA: Yeah, a lot.  And way outside of South Carolina, too.  We get them for all over.  “Thank you for what you’re doing.”  We’re getting a lot in Florida now and all over…I mean all over the United States because of the American manufacturing.

ZAC: It’s funny. There are pockets where…Florida, the Gulf States where we get a lot of support for the loggerhead aspect, and then another place where we have gotten a ton a fans and seen orders…Michigan, Illinois, Iowa…

SARA: New Jersey.

ZAC: Yeah and New Jersey, New York, Ohio.  So that sort of “Made in America” labor, that sort of movement…

There’s that whole sense of pride there that we’ve gotten a lot of support from.  We’re actually…we’re members of “American Made Matters” which is a non-profit out of PA that is basically a lobbying group for American manufacturing.  We’re featured in the Alliance for American Manufacturing which is in DC.  They hold a fashion show every year in Minneapolis.  They featured our “Made in South Carolina” stuff so we were invited to be at that this year.  That’s really cool.

Then we have…we’ve got this state pride that I think sees all sides of it.  Manufactured here, based here.  A lot of people in South Carolina get it.  The tie-in with the loggerhead, the tie-in with the manufacturing, the textiles, the fact that we’re based here, the fact that we’re in so many independently-owned men’s shops here.  But then there’s outside of the state.

People really like the conservation side.  There’s nothing unique to South Carolina about caring about oceans and marine wildlife.  There’s nothing unique to South Carolina about wanting stuff that’s made in America and that’s done in a sustainable way and an ethical way.  Because a lot of the Made in the US stuff, a lot of that is for, as much economic reasoning as ethical.

There’s a lot of that tie-in because the conditions in a lot of factories in the places overseas are not something that we would want to be associated with.  There’s actually a church in Charlotte that started a “Made in the US” store for that very reason.  They felt like it was a responsible thing to make sure the products that you’re purchasing were made in an ethical way.  And by default, things that are made in the US are more environmentally friendly because of the regulations we have here.

So there’s a lot of…besides impacting your fellow Americans, there’s a lot of other reason to try to buy locally and buy American.  It’s been those different pockets of people who’ve really liked it.

Then we’ve got the college students have just said, “That fratty turtle is pretty cool.”  Preppy girls love the pink and green turtle shirt.  We’ve got that, too, which is great.

So are you going to fight the Vineyard Vines people at The (Carolina) Cup this year?

ZAC: That’s funny. There was an article written about us. I don’t remember exactly where it was, but I thought it was funny because they said, “We think this sea turtle can take on the (Polo) horse or the (Vineyard Vines) whale any day.”  And that was a pretty cool compliment, too, to be compared to…

That’s huge.

ZAC: We’re obviously nowhere as big as those guys, but it’s kind of neat to see somebody make that some sort of association with some of the other fine brands out there.

From a personal perspective, you started at Erwin-Penland Advertising within 2 weeks of each other, and that’s how you met.

ZAC: We worked together for several years.  Started working together in ’05 and worked together for several years. We started dating in ’07, actually when I didn’t work at EP.  I left EP for almost a year and came back, and during that time is when we started dating. We’ve been together for almost 5 years now.

SARA: Married for almost a year.

Congratulations.

SARA: Thank you.

ZAC: We have our first kid almost here.

SARA: Yeah. We’ve done a lot this year.  We launched our company…

ZAC: Well, we can’t say that anymore, it’s 2012.

SARA: That’s right. That’s so last year.  Last year, we launched our company, got married, started our family, got pregnant.

ZAC: 2012 is shaping up to be really good. I expect February/March to be a period of significant growth for us.

Where are you focusing geographically now?

ZAC: We’ll fill in some of the holes in South Carolina.  It’s kind of funny. We actually don’t have a store in Columbia proper.  We’ve got some stores around it but we actually…unofficially, we’ve gotten our first store in Columbia.  Product will be there soon.  We’ve got an agreement with a store in Virginia Beach.  They just don’t want us to deliver the merchandise until late February because it’s not appropriate weather for short sleeved shirts in Virginia in January.

You can’t really dress there like you can here.

ZAC: Right, right.  We have our first Florida store.  We’ve got several conversations with other stores in Florida but our biggest growth, I think, in the Spring, will be in North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland.  Because we’ve got a lot of orders up there.  We’ve got a good bit of exposure from bloggers, and we’ve got a sales rep that’s in that area.  The style there seems to really resonate.  They love the conservation side of it.  A lot of people there vacation in South Carolina, so we’ve got that kind of affinity for where the shirt’s coming from. That area…especially Maryland and Virginia, have placed a lot of orders, a lot of coverage and a lot of emails from people.  They’re really liking it.

It’s a sense of the style, too.  That is a preppy area.  So we fit well. There are a lot of stores that like what we have, so I think that will be a good area of growth.  Then Florida. Florida’s been great for us already from on-line sales because loggerhead sea turtles are huge in Florida.  So I think we’ll see growth there this year, as well.

As far as the polo itself, what separates it from other polos?

SARA: One thing that’s different about ours that not all polos have is that it is 100% cotton.  It’s made of 100% cotton, and yes, there are some polos that are made of 100% cotton, but typically a lot of the polos you see these days are made of blends.

ZAC: And ours is Supima cotton.

SARA: Yes. And ours is Supima cotton which is classified as the world’s finest cotton.  It’s the equivalent of Egyptian cotton, but Pima cotton is grown here, and Egyptian cotton isn’t.  That’s one part of it.  We also didn’t design our fit to be just like some of the other brands that we were put up against these days.  We fit our shirts to be more traditionally-sized and not this slim, slim fit.

Fit for more regularly sized and shaped people than what you’d see on models for certain retail stores’ ads?

ZAC: Someone tells me, “Well, I usually wear a medium or a small,” you’re a small in our brand because we do it the old school way.  Actually, pretty much everything we do as far as manufacturing and fitting this shirt is done like it was being done 25 years ago and that’s not a bad thing. That’s a good thing.

SARA: That’s what we wanted to do.

ZAC: It’s funny how we’ve gotten emails that say, “Oh, I bought a medium because…” or “I bought a large because I wear a large in this other brand, but I can wear a medium in yours.”  That’s awesome. We went by the old school charts to size everything.

SARA: I think that helped us because the preppy style is definitely younger.  The younger crowd is who cares about the preppy style, preppy fashion.  And so we’re going to have that and we love that because college kids and high school kids, they’re talking about it. They’re blogging about it. They’re putting it on Facebook. They’re telling their friends.  That’s going to help us grow, but it’s been really great to get some of the older audiences, too, that really care about the American manufacturing and 100% cotton stories.  Some of those details that were important to us and that we put into our shirts and into our mission.  Those folks care about a lot.  We’re sort of covering this broader spectrum so there is something for everyone.

ZAC: On Facebook, we have as many fans over 40 as we do under 21.  That’s pretty cool.

Stay tuned for Part 4. For Part 1, Click HERE. For Part 2, Click HERE.