A couple of Wilson High School students decided to take a risk and launch their own brand, Livevil Clothing, about a year ago because they were sick of spending all of their lunch money on clothes.
Livevil has evolved and expanded to become a well-known lifestyle brand. Their stickers are everywhere, people wear the clothes and the designs are influenced by the creators’ personal experiences and the city of Long Beach.
A close-knit fan base and one-on-one contact with customers have been the fuel to the fire for Livevil’s success.
“When someone buys a shirt from us, they’re not just buying a shirt, they’re becoming a part of the crew, a part of the brand,” co-founder Kevin Torres said. “Our fans, the people that support us, make a difference.”
Torres, now a freshman industrial design major at Cal State Long Beach, and his friend Ruben Hernandez started Livevil with a simple concept and it grew from there. Two more friends, Jason Tejeda, a business management major at CSULB, and Benji Gutierrez, a business marketing major at Long Beach City College, later joined the project.
There are now more people involved, but the company is still based on the work of a group of friends who want to promote their brand and design logos to appeal to a variety of people.
“We’re not a gang, not a crew, we’re a clothing company,” Tejeda said. “We’re a small group of friends just trying to get known. It’s our lifestyle. We’ve always been into clothes and fashion.”
According to Torres, the name Livevil just happened. He and Hernandez were hanging out one day and came up with the phrase “Live Evil.” Then they combined the two words into one palindromic word.
“It looks better [as one word,]” Torres said. “We created it so that, no matter how you see it, it’s still the same. If you look at it in the mirror it’s still spelling Livevil.”
The future designers said that, when they were younger, they would do things they weren’t supposed to do and get in trouble a lot, even though they were simply trying to have fun.
The name Livevil slightly represents that culture because it sounds bad, but it isn’t actually about being bad.
The early stages of launching the brand were a bit rough. People wouldn’t take the group seriously due to their age and lack of organization.
“It’s been a big trial-and-error since we started,” Torres said.
The idea of the brand was born in December 2009, and the first shirt was printed in February 2010. The early stages of production were rather unorganized, and focused mainly on just printing and shipping shirt orders. Hernandez would literally stand in line at the post office to ship shirt orders to customers.
Now, the company is highly organized. Each member has a specific job, all orders are tracked and finances logged. There is also a small warehouse where the shirts are printed and shipped — there is no more waiting in long post office lines.
“We’re a well-oiled machine,” Torres said.
The group now goes to trade shows and seizes every opportunity to network and promote Livevil. There is a difference now of how people respond to Livevil than when the brand first started, Torres said. Livevil is sold in approximately 20 stores in California and Texas, and the clothing is shipped all over the world.
Mixed in with all of the success Livevil has enjoyed, there is also negative feedback.
“We have a lot of hate,” Torres said. “But we love it because that’s advertising. They hate me, I love them. People see what we’re doing, they notice us.”
The main advertising for Livevil is the stickers that seem to be everywhere, and people talking about and wearing the clothes.
The stickers are all over CSULB, and are a main source of generating interest in the brand. The team hands them out to people to build buzz about Livevil. An order of 15,000 stickers are on the way this month.
All of the guys in charge of Livevil wear the clothing on a daily basis. Torres said he’s decked out in Livevil gear nine times out of 10. Tejeda said he has enough Livevil clothing to wear for at least two months without wearing the same thing twice.
“If we don’t wear it, no one’s going to wear it,” Tejeda said.
Gutierrez even put a little Livevil logo on his prom tuxedo, and wears Livevil all the time.
“Every day, I look at myself as a billboard,” he said. “But if I don’t put my logo on, who will?”
Future plans include opening up a Livevil store in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Long Beach, or other big street-wear meccas. Although there are big plans to expand the Livevil brand, Torres said he would never permanently leave Long Beach.
“I was born and raised here, Long Beach is my home,” he said. “The city’s so diverse — so big — there’s so much to do. I love the place, I don’t want to leave.”
The group is currently working on integrating aspects of Long Beach into some of their logos.
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