By Lauren Desloge
When cheering on a favorite college sports team, fans want to be able to look and feel the part, and for ASU supporters, there’s a local online start-up company that is making it easier to support your team’s colors.
Petrilli Clothing is a shop for Arizona State University game day gear that was started in 2018 by Gianna Petrilli, who first launched the online store in her junior year of college.
Now an ASU senior, she is excited and ready to be able to grow and expand her business.
As a fashion minor, Petrilli always loved thrifting and “upcycling,” or restyling, clothes and started out thrifting ASU shirts for gamedays and selling them to girls in her sorority.
Her hobby soon transformed into a business when her friends saw the shirts she was producing and encouraged her to expand outside of her sorority circle.
“I soon began redesigning all of my friends’ shirts so they too, could feel like they stood out in a crowd. Seeing how confident my friends felt in the clothes that I created is what inspired me to start Petrilli Clothing,” she said in her description of the company on her website.
Now, she has started purchasing clothes at Wholesale and selling those, as well as her upcycled t-shirts online and through Instagram.
To buy her products, Petrilli said customers can direct message the Petrilli Clothing Instagram page and from there she will coordinate with the customer about a time to pick up their order.
All other products are available on the website and items are shipped after purchase.
Petrilli also does pop-up shops once a month in the ASU Greek Leadership Village, where people can stop by and shop.
Shirts are priced between $20 to $35 online. Petrilli said sales depend on whether there is an ASU game coming up or not.
“I would say I make $180 a week, however that number fluctuates depending on whether or not there’s a game that week, in that case, I make more,” Petrilli said.
Pop up shops also help sustain the business and allow her the opportunity to increase sales. Since she is a startup business, she said that most of her money gets put back into the business to provide more product for customers.
“I love Petrilli Clothing because it makes me feel confident on game day and there are so many different styles plus, she delivers my orders to me which is nice,” Customer Lexi Quinn said.
Petrilli is in the process of building a team around her to help grow the business.
“As I have been expanding through this tailgate season, I realize that I cannot do this all on my own, and I would grow a lot faster with a team of people,” Petrilli said.
Although she doesn’t have any official employees, she has plenty of friends who help her out as much as they can.
Carly Kramer said she helps with the pop-up shops and when Petrilli needs someone to model the clothes for the website.
“People are so much more willing to buy clothes when they see it on someone, so I always help her when she needs someone to wear the clothes,” Kramer said.
Petrilli wants to continue the business after she graduates, and said her goals are to one day make ASU an icon for gameday clothing, being sold in huge name-brand stores such as Urban Outfitters and have people that don’t go to ASU want to wear the clothes.
“The shirts are so fashionable you want to wear them even when it’s not game day,” said Petrilli customer Sydney Ferre.
As far as moving on from ASU and producing clothes for other schools and sports teams Petrilli doesn’t think she will stray from her ASU roots.
“I go to ASU, and will soon be an alum, this is my ‘love letter’ to my school,” Petrilli said.
Check out Petrilli Clothing!
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