We were lucky to catch up with Gianni Donofrio recently and have shared our conversation below.

Gianni, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I started my brand as a dedication to my dad a couple years after he passed away. He had a handlebar mustache for my whole life and long before I was even born, so ‘Stache’ was the perfect way to represent him. Losing my dad was the darkest time of my life, but when I started Stache it allowed me to think of the good times we had together, and look at the situation in a new light. So it became my mission to show other people that the dark times don’t last, and can actually lead you towards the light. “Even in the Darkest times there is a light shining prosperity. Find your light, and let it guide you through the darkness.”

Gianni, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I was always interested in art when I younger and started drawing a lot when I was like 8 or 9. I also used to go through magazines and cut out all my favorite pictures, designs, etc. and make them into collages. So I was basically making mood boards before I knew what they were. I loved lettering and different fonts, so I think my love for graphic design sparked then. As I got older I got really into streetwear because of skateboarding, and started becoming more interested in clothing over the years, but I didn’t do anything about it for a while because I never thought I could make a career out of it. It took until my freshman year in college to realize that I wanted to start a clothing brand. When it first started, I wasn’t doing graphic design yet so I just sketched ideas and paid designers to create for me. This worked well for a while, and allowed me to learn more about the business side of things, but in 2018 I realized that for me to best represent my ideas, I needed to create my own graphics. This was a major turning point for me, because I was able to really start telling my brand’s story, and made me realize I had the potential to make graphic design a career. Over the last 3-4 years I’ve made a lot of designs I’m really proud of, both for my brand, and for clients, but my most recent collection I created, ‘The Stache Pizzeria Collection’ is the work I’m most proud of so far. I’m proud of it because of the story it tells about my dad and the pizza shop he used to own before he passed away. I originally released it as a small collection during NBA All-Star Weekend in Cleveland (February 2022) and it was my most successful release ever. This lead me to restock the collection and add a couple new designs for a pop up shop during the summer at my favorite pizza shop: Cent’s Pizza and Goods. Currently as I’m writing this, I am about a week away from another pop up shop at Cent’s to celebrate Stache’s 9 year anniversary with fall/winter styles of the pizzeria collection. These pop up events I do are my favorite part of having my brand because it allows me to speak with my customers face to face, and I think that really makes a huge difference in this digital world we are currently living in. I’m just grateful to have made it this far and I’m extremely thankful for everyone who has supported and helped me along the way. I’m still writing Stache’s story, so thanks for following along!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I would say the fact that I’m still going strong after 9 years of business shows my resilience because this business is far from easy, and there were definitely some down times where I thought of quitting. I’m very thankful I never gave up and kept going because this year has been my best year of business yet, and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

The deep story behind my brand has allowed a lot of people with similar stories connect with it differently, and on top of that I’ve always used high quality materials for my products, which allows people to trust me buying their next product and they are more willing to vouch for my brand to their friends.

Contact Info:

• Website: stache.studio
• Instagram: @stache.studio
• Twitter: @stachestudio_