A new clothing line aims to reflect suburban and well-known metropolitan areas like Los Angeles. Senior business major Trenton Smith along with his team of interns made Suburba, a new clothing line that specifically targets the college crowd.
Suburba is an online clothing store that began as a dream that Smith had since he was in the fourth grade. The dream became a reality when Smith entered his clothing line in APU’s ZuVenturez, a competition for startup companies. Although Smith did not win, his business caught the eye of a few investors.
“I still had a number of investors contact me after and say that they were still interested in looking at the company after we had launched to see if our customer base was as aggressive as we predicted, so a few of those investors are just waiting to see how we perform in our first few months to see if they want to invest or not,” Smith said.
The name of the store comes from the word “suburban.” As the creator, Smith aimed to have a name that represented clothing that was similar to existing styles yet had its own attitude.
“The thing about the suburbs is that every suburb is different. Every suburb has its own identity, even though they have very similar architectural structure or real estate structure, and that is kind of what Suburba is based off,” Smith said.
Suburba started March 16 with a launch party that was sponsored by Red Bull. Sophomore business marketing major Kimi Byer was one of many APU students who attended the celebration in a suite on 11th Street in Los Angeles.
“It was so amazing to see Trent’s friends and family come and support his vision and accomplishment. The LA location was the perfect representation of Suburba’s brand, and the music only enhanced the positive energy in the room,” Byer said.
According to Smith, the awaited release of the college-targeted product attracted a few actresses, one of them from Spike TV.
“We definitely know what direction we are going for and definitely know what we want to sell, so I would say that the [uniqueness] about Suburba is that it is college students providing for college students, not a 35-year-old CEO saying what they think is going on in the college ages,” Smith said. “It’s college students saying that we know exactly what’s going on right now, and this is how we are going to appeal to our market because we are the market. We are the people that are buying these products.”
Suburba shoots to be a store where people can have their different styles catered to in one place rather than having to go to different stores or websites to look for different types of clothing. Sophomore business major Cole Gorrell is one of Suburba’s consumers.
“I believe Suburba relates to many individuals. It is sleek, trendy and cheap. The item I first purchased was the Blayne Baseball Jersey. It fits my style perfectly,” Gorrell said.
Suburba looks to have a balanced number of items for men and women at reasonably affordable prices. Even though the prices are good, the products on the newly opened online store are not made with cheap material.
“I love how affordable the items are. It is a mix between Forever 21 and H&M style-wise, but with a little more of a dark side. I also like that he has a variety of different styles to choose from,” Byer said.
Online items vary from men’s button-up shirts to women’s tunic dresses.
“Most of our items range from small to large, but we do have some excess regions as well for men and women,” Smith said.
For more information on the online clothing store visit: www.suburba.com.