We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Guy Phillips. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Guy below.

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

I grew up running from my southern roots until I hit 18 or 19. Some of that was angst but a lot of it was lacking the understanding of the nuance of southern culture. Southern America gets a bad wrap and a lot of that is deserved, but because of the intense stigma that most of the world holds toward southern culture – I started to realize that a whole lot of voices, good art, and folks that had something unique to contribute to the world were getting stifled out. So me and then co-founder Noah Freeman decided to start a company called Southern Native that created products that we felt like truly captured the essence of southern life. Most “southern” inspired products on the shelves were hunting and fishing related and it pretty much stopped there. There’s more to the southerners story than shooting a deer or catching a bass. We adopted the mission statements: Be Southern As Can Be and Celebrating the Southern American because that’s what we try to do at Southern Native. Take the goodness of the south wherever we go and celebrate the folks who make it good. By making quality apparel, we hope to do that.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’ve always cared about fashion since I was a kid. I went through several style phases growing up, trying to figure out who I was and what I liked. I feel like we all do that in some way, shape, or form. When I got into my twenties, that’s when I really began to lean back into my roots as a southerner and tap into what makes the “south” the south. Around that same time my friend Noah Freeman who was going through a similar renaissance approached me about starting Southern Native. Since then I’ve moved to Florence, Alabama (The Shoals area) and gone full time with SN – operating our flagship general store and also providing custom pieces to our local community and across the state. Our style has morphed from Southeastern centric to what I like to call Southern American. From my trips out southwest, I’ve been inspired and happily surprised to find some of the same cultural essences you find back in the southeast. We try hard to mingle elements from both areas to create a unique product that is truly Southern Native. There have been countless challenging obstacles from just about every direction to keep this concept alive, but one thing that has always inspired me to keep going is meeting people from corners of the world that love wearing our products. Our design and clothing really does seem to resonate with folks, and that’s why we exist above all things.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

We started Southern Native when we were in our early 20’s and in junior college. We had 0 money to invest and it truly started out as a vintage clothing endeavor back in 2016. Once we started making money from that, my partner started to learn how to screen print and we began to transition to printing our own shirts. Our first shirt simply stated on the front GRITS > OATMEAL. Which looking back is so stupid but kind of funny. We started setting up at makers markets and doing pop ups around Alabama and Tennessee and put all of the money we made directly back into it. We did that for five years, I moved to Florence for college, and had the opportunity to buy a screen printing business in 2021. We transitioned that to SN this past year, opened up our flagship store and are currently redesigning our website and creating a wholesale system for retailers across the country.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Too many to name and I’m still unlearning daily. One that is a recurring issue is worrying in the moment about future problems/income. I’ve found out that when I focus on the task at hand well, do advertising and outreach in the time I set aside for it – most of the issues that cause me anxiety resolve themselves.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.southernnative.co
• Instagram: southern.native
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthernNative256
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/guy-phillips-653882163
• Other: guyphillips.southernnative@gmail.com

Image Credits
Jackson Townsend, Hermanos Photo