Straight Up Random

Industry Insider: Royal Family Clothing

Left to Right: Attack Attack!, Model, Our Last Night all rockin’ Royal Family Clothing!

Straight Up Random’s Industry Insider presents South Florida’s very own Royal Family Clothing. Started by Cliff Wiener and Alex Kenny, Royal Family Clothing blends fashion with the arts by collaborating with different bands and artists to create limited edition apparel. On top of their collaboration tees, they have a great selection of clothing for their regular line as well. Read the interview to learn more about how the company was started, advice on starting your own clothing company, and to get the inside scoop on what they’re working on next for their line!

LINKS: WEBSITE | OFFICIAL STORE

INTERVIEW:

All questions answered by Cliff Wiener.

Why did you start Royal Family Clothing?

We have another clothing line called 1981. Since it’s completely straight edge we wanted to do something that wasn’t so pinned down to a specific audience.

How did the name for your company come about?

We threw around tons of different names and that one just seemed to stick. It took us 6 months or so to finally agree on a logo.

How do you go about choosing what bands to collaborate with on a shirt design and/or sponsor?

Most of the bands we work with have some connection to us already. Most times we know the band very well or we are tight with a manager or booking agent that suggest doing some type of collaboration. We generally don’t work with people we don’t know so out of the blue messages of please sponsor us pretty much don’t work.

What is a band or artist you want to work with that you haven’t worked with yet?

Lifetime or Far would be awesome. We are working on getting something together with Lifetime now. Hopefully it will happen. I have my fingers crossed.

What’s the inspiration behind some of your designs?

Everything happens for a different reason. Sometimes we just want to focus on a theme and build our ideas around that specific theme. Other times we simply get an idea and run with it. The band designs are usually collaborations directly with the band. We swap ideas back and fourth until something starts to form. hahah.

What’s something you think people don’t realize about running a clothing company?

Probably that anyone can do it but you really have to stick with it to develop it to the point where it doesn’t just kill you financially.

How do you try and stand out amongst other clothing lines that work in the same scene?

We don’t think too hard about what other companies are doing. We really just focus on developing our ideas and putting the best shirts out there that we can. If you make great stuff people will find you.

What advice would you give someone who wants to start their own clothing company?

Don’t get discouraged. Keep making designs and keep working hard. It’s not easy to gain traction in any business. It takes a serious amount of effort to get to the point where people will actually care about what you are doing.

Can you give me one straight up random fact about yourself?

I am really good at halo.

Any last words for the readers of Straight Up Random?

We have our next line entitled “Here Come The Monsters” coming out on Halloween. All of the shirts will be monster themed. We will also be doing limited band shirts for In This Moment and I Wrestled a Bear Once that will come out on Halloween as well.