The Sharpshirter Story

Sharp Shirter began as a reply to rejection. During his high school days, Dan Lachman would spend many an afternoon submitting ideas to t-shirt sites in hopes of getting them to send him a tee or two for his efforts. Although in retrospect, the ideas were horrible and justly deserved rejection, Dan was oblivious to this fact. Rather than hunker down and admit defeat, in a fit of juvenile angst Dan decided that he could do it himself. There was just one problem: He could only draw stick figures (and the occasional flip book). With a high school budget, Dan sent out an SOS via Craigslist for designers that would be willing to work with him for the greater good of making clothing that guys would want to wear. The responses were numerous, and out of them emerged a godsend: Stefanie Gafke.

Explaining that the idea sounded like fun, and that she wanted to expand her portfolio, Stef worked with Dan for an entire summer. Sending emails back and forth, the two of them cranked out a bunch of tees based on Dan's ideas. Throughout this process, Dan began to hone his tee imagination. Initially, all his ideas were funny word shirts with minimal imagery to convey the slogan. However, as Dan grew older, he grew out of this style and turned his attention to animals and fantasy. Being an aspiring film major and a Discovery Channel lover, ideas like a girl hanging onto a dandelion, or a captain octopus with seven dagger tentacles and a hook were much more interesting.

By the end of the summer, Stef was back in school and Dan was designer-less. Rather than retaking the Craigslist route, Dan scoured the design contest website: Threadless. This way, he was able to look at designers' portfolios without having to make contact with them unless he was interested in their work. This is where Dan hooked up with his longest running Sharp Shirter designer and #1 g-chat friend: Chalermphol Harnchakkham. Threadless also introduced Bart Van de Vel, Dann Matthews and Jessica Walsh to the Sharp Shirter team.

Now armed with an arsenal of ferocious designers, Dan launched sharpshirter.com in 2006, and it's been a snowballing ever since. What initially started as a couple of choices for men's tees has now become a range of choices for men's and women's tees, dresses, hoodies, laptop skins and ipod skins. Along the way, Dan dropped the plan of thinking up every Sharp Shirter idea and having his team draw it. There's just way too much good art lying around on the web in search of a t-shirt home. Currently, Sharp Shirter is on its way to becoming a fulltime gig for Dan. With one more semester left at Wesleyan University, Dan is planning on expanding his line into more stores, doing more craft fairs, and working away at new designs. Now working side by side with wily web-designer and regionally recognized don juan 'El Perro' and also with his roommate and best bud Andrew Kneynsberg, things are looking up. Thanks to the huge support that the line has received from its customers, Sharp Shirter continues to go strong!