Ross Zietz has made the graphic T-shirt more than just a fashion statement – he has turned the college wardrobe staple into a fund-raiser for Hurricane Katrina. Zietz, University graduate, Baton Rouge native and T-shirt designer, designed the Regrowth Charity Tee, a shirt whose profits benefit the Red Cross.
“I’ve kind of made a name for myself with making T-shirts so I thought I could help this way,” Zietz said.
The shirt is being sold for $10 through threadless.com, a T-shirt design company that hosts design contests. Jake Nickell, the president of SkinnyCorp, the company that owns threadless.com, started the company with a friend five years ago.
Threadless.com is one of eight businesses under SkinnyCorp, Nickell said.
Zietz said he submitted designs to threadless.com while he attended the University. He won the T-shirt design contests about 10 times, which was more than anyone ever had, so he decided to work for the company after graduation.
He said that he has designed about 15 T-shirts for the company.
“Ross came to us with the idea for the charity T-shirt,” Nickell said.
Threadless.com has donated about $85,000 to the Red Cross so far, and they will donate up to $100,000, Nickell said.
The company originally donated $20 to the Red Cross for every T-shirt, but within 40 hours they had already donated $50,000, Zietz said. The company is now donating $10 for every T-shirt sold.
Threadless.com has sold about 8,000 Hurricane Katrina relief t-shirts, Nickell said.
“We’ve gotten incredible response,” Zietz said. “Threadless is a big money maker.”
He said the company usually sells about 700 copies of each t-shirt.
The demand for the T-shirts has been so high that the company keeps selling out, Zietz said. 100 new T-shirts will be available for sale every day.
The shirts have been so popular that they have been getting a celebrity response, Zietz said.
“Ryan Seacrest bought 10 of them,” he said.
Zietz said he felt he had to do something to help his home state even though he could not be there.
“I felt kind of bad that I left,” Zietz said. “I wanted to do something to help.”
Contact Julie Chance at [email protected]