We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Julius Vaughn a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Julius, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the best thing you’ve ever seen (or done yourself) to show a customer that you appreciate them?

Since the inception of FatMarker Clothing, we’ve always held the belief that our brand is nothing without our customer. For a brand that celebrates being too loud, too proud and too much (basically turning those things that some may deem a negative about ourselves and turning them into a positive), it was and very much still is important that the artwork that is portrayed on our clothing helps everyone out there express themselves, when sometimes it may be hard to do so otherwise. How do we do that? The models we feature on our website and in our social media posts are real people. They’re not paid models. They are individuals that we’ve met either in person or online, who have a story to tell, and who want to be a part of our journey. Also, we have independent artists that we feature on our website, who started out as customers at one point, who needed help telling their story to the world, as well. And we were there to help them do just that. Basically, every day we strive to appreciate our customers, and after five years of being in business, we are definitely feeling the love. And we are honored to be able to not only be a clothing brand but also a platform that helps to give others a voice that needs to be heard.

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

We launched in 2017, on Groundhogs Day, which is also our own personal anniversary as a couple. We’re both native residents of the Tampa Bay area, and Jason (my partner), is an artist. I remember it clearly. We were at home, sitting on the sofa watching television, and he was drawing something on a napkin. When he was done, he held it up to me and asked if I thought that the drawing would sell? More specifically, would it sell if it was on a t-shirt? I replied that I didn’t see why not? The drawing was of a chubby bearded man, and he was talking on the telephone. And that began our journey into what is now our lifestyle brand: FatMarker Clothing. My name is Julius, and out of the two of us, I am a large man. I have always struggled with trying to find clothes that fit my size, and when I do find them, they’re plain and have no character whatsoever. So, we started our company with the following belief: we should all celebrate being too loud, too proud, too much, and most importantly, unapologetically ourselves. What does that mean? It means that all of us have that thing that I call the “too muchness” about us. Someone in our lives has always told us, for example in my case, I’m too fat. For others, it might be that they’re too noisy or too opinionated, etc. We decided to turn those negatives into positives and celebrate those things about ourselves that truly make up a big portion of who we as individuals are. If I couldn’t find the clothes I wanted to wear, we were going to create them!

And here we are five years later, with not only Jason’s original designs (but those of local featured artists as well), on t-shirts, tank tops, boxer briefs, swim trunks, hoodies, hats, and even shoes. Since the beginning, it was very important to the both of us to provide sizing options beyond XL (and in our t-shirts, we do have some designs up to 5X). Similarly, it was also important to us to not charge extra for larger sizes. If you’re an S or a 5X, you’re going to pay the same price. We have customers worldwide. We have partnered with other small LGBTQ+ businesses nationally, as well as artists and celebrities over the past five years. Our designs have been featured in music videos, as well as worn by some of drag queens from the Drag Race franchise. We have even been on the cover of Bear World Magazine, where I was the model. We have been featured in podcasts, sponsored awards, honored to have had the official t-shirt design for Tampa Pride.. and I myself was chosen as one of the Grand Marshals for this year’s St. Pete Pride, as well as being recognized as a Voice of Pride Honoree through the Tampa Bay Business Journal.

It has not always been a smooth road. We have definitely learned a lot along the way, whether it was from the types of materials that our shirts were created from (which we finally found soft and stretchy fabrics that don’t shrink) to being criticized for not carrying sizes larger than 5X. Most recently, we received a question on why we feature models of all sizes when our company has the word “Fat” in its name? I was happy to explain that we celebrate all of us, whether you’re someone who is my size or someone who hits the gym every day, we have a design and a size for you. Some people just don’t understand that. But I think the best “struggle” that we’ve had overall, is that most everyone thinks we’re out of Los Angeles. We’ve been told multiple times that our designs are very “L.A.” I love that! It makes me laugh.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Always being 100% unapologetically ourselves. Never backing down from our beliefs and always standing up for those who get overlooked or unfairly silenced. As a clothing brand, our designs are meant to help all of us celebrate our chosen lifestyle, our chosen family… our chosen self. And to help others see that, plain and simple. Our reputation has grown, as our designs are original and unique, and whereas may have belonged to a niche market in the beginning, now belong to each and every one of us, no matter who we are or where we are from.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

From the beginning and to this day it’s two things: word of mouth and people seeing our designs out there in the world. Every time I wear a FatMarker shirt out in public, I get complimented and asked where I got the shirt from? And I hear the same thing from our customers.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.fatmarkerclothing.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/fatmarkerclothing
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/fatmarker
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/fatmarker

Image Credits
Featured in our photos: Trent Byas, Will Childress, Joe La Manna, Jimmah Gee and Julius Vaughn