In this episode of the Coastal Noise Podcast, I sit down with Tiffany Langlinais, creator of New Orleans apparel brand Freret and Napoleon, and Nathan Pearce of Fraternity Collection, a rapidly growing fashion brand also from the southern region. In the course of the show, I learned the origins of both of these young, well received companys and what their creators are doing to insure continued growth.

After a short ice breaker on current events, we transition from the implosion of "Nereus", a state of the art deep sea research vessel, to effects of climate change on industries such as food, home goods, and even fashion. When asked about what price shifts might mean to her company, Langlanais spoke positively of the future.

"I definitely think Freret and Napoleon is keeping its customer in mind, because with the way we are structured we are marketing to a certain kind of person. A bold, fun-loving individual...The people that make that particular sacrifice to be fashionable and up with the times."

Tiffany then goes back to Freret and Napoleon's first days of inception, when she requested an early Christmas present a few months back. She was given a sewing machine after she expressed a desire to make clothing that surpassed what she was seeing the market at the time. Just a few short months after teaching herself to sew, she found herself in the spotlight of Fashion Week New Orleans as a featured designer, which allowed her to display her collection for the show back in March.

"It all began to take off from there."

Nathan Pearce recalled similar thoughts about his own rapid growth with Fraternity Collection shortly after he and his business partner realized their home-grown screen printing company was becoming something entirely different.

"We were just looking for a way to make a little extra money and not work in a cubicle all day." He said. The duo were making shirts for local fraternities and sororities when the request for a custom pocket was put their way.

"At the time, no one was offering it on a long sleeve T-shirt." Not wanting to lose their large order, they decided to sew on the pockets themselves. "We hired a fraternity brother who was looking for a place to live and told him he could move in and, in exchange, you'll teach yourself to sew."

And sew he did.

Experiments with custom colored designs for pockets soon made them noticeable in the fraternity, sorority, and what he calls, "the prep" apparel space. "It was an overnight success. It just blew up." So much in fact that the team had to work quickly to meet manufacturing demands, but despite products sometimes taking two months to ship, orders continued coming in. They relocated production to a plant in Tucker, Mississippi and soon leveled off. Fraternity Collection could now break new ground by doing something it had, up until then, been unable to do. Have a special, discounted sale for Black Friday to Cyber Monday.

"Once we launched the sale...it was a blow out. I think we sold 10,000 shirts in one weekend." With a full staff of well over a 100 workers, they still had trouble keeping up with the demand. With profits the company gained, the team bought an army of sewing machines and found two plants in Colombia to continue with production.

In closing, we discuss a few more news articles before concluding the interview. One story delt with a group of college room mates who discovered $41,000 in their used couch from the Salvation Army. Tiffany and Nathan both mention new plans for the future before the discussion comes to its conclusion. To see more of Tiffany and Nathan's works, you can visit each of their respective companies at Freret and Napoelon, as well as Fraternity Collection.

To hear the full interview, click here to go to the Coastal Noise Podcast. As always, thanks for listening. We hope you'll join us for our upcoming 1 year anniversary episode in early June and we look forward to the coming year, which is shaping up to be a promising one. We have more shows in the works with new guests and the first order of Coastal Noise shirts has been placed. We will be uploading pictures of them and plan on taking additional orders for those interested in grabbing one for themselves.

Until next time!

Stefan

Sitting in my easy chair.

This weeks episode of the Coastal Noise Podcast featured two local musicians from the group Rosco Bandana. Jason Sanford and Emily Sholes talked for over an hour about music, weather, horrible Easter bunny pictures and much more. Here is a break down of some of the show's highlights.

Opening up, we talked about the super storm that wrecked havoc for three days this week. Tornadoes were reported in almost a quarter of all the US and the Weather Channel reported 75 million people were at risk for severe weather. Mobile saw one of its wettest days in over 140 years with close to nine inches of rain. To make matters worse, NASA has been following a colossal glacier the size of Chicago named B13, that is expected to break off the Antarctic soon, which could raise sea levels by 1.5 meters. This land mass ranging from 255 sq miles and 500 meters thick is one of the world's biggest, but is still dwarfed by B15, a glacier that was 4,250 sq miles, almost the size of Jamaica, that broke from Antarctica in March of 2000.

The Biloxi Skate Park will be shutting down soon, taking its place will be a sound studio reported for film and possibly music. As the day of closing nears, many wonder, where will Biloxi's roller derby girls go?

Neil Young showed the music world he meant business this past week when he raised $6.2 million dollars for his digital music device the Pono Player, which will deliver music in "the highest audio quality possible". Young hopes his device which delivers music at 24-bit and 192 kHz will change a generation that has become used to the insignificant and inferior quality of portable mp3 players. Fans were so supportive on Kickstarter, that the Pono Player beat its goal of $800,000 in the very first day. At $6.2 million raised total, it is the 3rd biggest campaign ever run on Kickstarter. The device will run approximately $400 with albums coasting anywhere from $15-$25 dollars on average. "Most major record companies are on board," Young says, and he has the video to prove it. Check out this video from the Pono website that shows first time reactions from big name industry artists such as Rick Rubin, Flea, Dave Grohl, Tom Petty, Sting, The Beastie Boys, Anthony Kiedis, Mumford and Sons, Jack Johnson, (and many, many more) all praising the developers device. Look for the Pono Player in the coming months to deliver studio grade sound quality to its listeners when it releases later this year.

Jack White broke the Guinness World Record for fastest released record on April 19th. He recorded a live performance from his Third Man Records studio in Nashville, pressed it to vinyl and released it in just 4 hours, beating the previous record held by Swiss Polka trio "Vollgas Kompanie" who released their album "Live" on August 16th, 2008 the next day after it was recorded.

Speaking of breaking speed records. There is a new land creature that holds a new record in distance in relation to body size. The Paratarsotomus Macropalpis can run 322 body lengths person second. Try to imagine yourself moving 322 of your own body length in one second. It would take a human running 1,300 MPH to match that speed. Cheetahs can only run a measly 166 B.L.'s a second.

Jason and Emily dive into more of their music life by discussing various side projects they are undertaking including "Em and Me" which highlights the two musicians in a more intimate, acoustical duet setting. Emily is also beginning a new project with other members of Rosco Bandana called "Della". The two talk about recording the bands next album and what it would be like to have a recording space of their own in the near future. They swap stories that give a glimpse into what life on the road is like with the full band. We talk about fun games like Boulder Dash, Killers and Villagers (see blog), Space Team, and Emily has us test her abilities at one of her favorite van pass-times: puns.

Other topics include a comic strip entitled, "Coffee With Jesus" a simple delivery of folks sitting down to have brief, humors conversations with the man himself (A must read for some), horrible (and scary) Easter Bunny pictures, Seasick Steve (see video), Ryan's arrival to Denver, and getting rid of our smartphones.

You can listen or download the episode here at the Coastal Noise Podcast page. You can also click here to keep up with Rosco Bandana and see where their next shows will be. Also check out the Coastal Noise Music page to see the date and time for the Diberville Crawfish Festival where I will be playing on May 10th.