In 2014, Woolly Threads sweatshirts were just an idea that was sparked during a trip Mason Dupré and his partner Natalie John made to Nantucket, Massachusetts. In 2015, that idea became a successful startup grossing more than $1 million in revenue.
225 explains in a feature from the current issue how Baton Rouge-based Woolly Threads evolved into a company that now holds more than 140 collegiate licenses to make clothing with logos from LSU to Harvard University.
The idea to make the sweatshirts, known as Woollies, came to Dupré during that 2014 trip to Nantucket. John, a member of Kappa Delta, had spotted and purchased a terrycloth-style sweatshirt while browsing a thrift store there. The material was fluffy and light.
She told Dupré that sorority women would love a sweatshirt cut from the material.
Dupré thought it was a great business idea. Unable to shake the thought even after returning home, Dupré emailed 158 manufacturers before finding one in South Carolina willing to work with him and deliver the terrycloth fabric to make the sweatshirts. John crafted the clothing’s initial designs, perfecting their simple aesthetics.
Their first order for the soft sweatshirts came courtesy of a sorority house, and Woolly Threads took off the following spring. The pair fielded requests from schools such as The University of Alabama, Auburn University, Texas Christian University and Southern Methodist University and many more.
By September 2015, the business had a proper, 4,200-square-foot warehouse in Baton Rouge.
“I feel like I knew that we had kind of made it when people were applying for jobs at Woolly Threads, and they thought our headquarters were in L.A., as in Los Angeles,” John says. “We were like, ‘Nope, it’s LA as in Louisiana.’”
