Photo courtesy of beloved.com
The people at Beloved want you to stop playing with your food and start wearing it. From pizza onesies to pickle socks, the Utah-based clothing company is taking social media, the Internet and your closet by storm one cat-print snapback at a time.
Flash back to 2012 when Beloved was just an idea, or rather, a joke. Founder Jeremiah Robinson thought it would be funny to juxtapose fitness gear such as soccer jerseys or shorts with images of greasy foods printed on them. He cooked up a sample, created an Instagram account for it and soon people were hungry for more.
The Instagram account now has over 105,000 followers and several subaccounts. The success has let the company expand past sweatshirts and tops to hats, leggings, socks, jewelry and more. The designs aren’t limited to food either, and now feature many images including memes or edits made famous by the Internet.
“Our culture is obsessed with memes and stuff on the Internet,” explains Coby Gerstner, who’s in charge of marketing at Beloved. “The Internet has given us a kind of platform for clothes that are really quirky and expressive.”
Most of the workers at Beloved double as designers and artists for the clothing. They all bring their different ideas to the table to fix up something people might enjoy. It brings a lot of personality to the branding and you can actually see the designers working or modeling their products on the Instagram accounts.
The growing appetite for Beloved has expanded outside of Utah. Katy Perry was recently pictured in a Buzzfeed article wearing one of the company’s very own pizza Belovsie (Beloved’s version of the onesie).
If you aren’t hungry for food clothes or you enjoy real dogs over hot dogs, don’t fret because Beloved still has you covered. They have clothes covered in cats, sloths, stars, oceans and any number of things you could think of. Also, each customer has the freedom to create exactly what you want on a shirt.
Because not everyone’s tastes are the same, the company developed a Beloved shirts app to satisfy anyone’s specific craving, allowing people to use their own creativity in making something they would want to wear. The app allows you to upload a picture of your own on an article of clothing. If you love it, you can have it custom made and shipped to you.
“We aim to let people express their own creativity in the way they see fit,” says Robbie Welch, a staff member for Beloved and popular featured model on Instagram. “Why go around telling people your favorite things if you can just wear them?”
Beloved is continually expanding and is announcing the launch of a new line Sept. 26.
So if your closet is missing some flavor or maybe in need of some tiger-print leggings, check out Beloved to find something delicious.
Follow Beloved on Instagram, @belovedshirts, or visit the website www.belovedshirts.com to see more of their awesome designs or create your own. Bon Apétit.
