The American South and cotton have a troubled relationship. But thanks to Chris Bandy and his homegrown apparel brand, Southern Fried Cotton, things are changing.
\nWhen Bandy first entered Clemson as a textiles major, he hoped to have the same job that his dad had in the pulp and paper industry. Instead, he jumped straight into sales after graduating in 1992 instead of heading to N.C. State like he once planned.
\nSome 26 years later, he\u2019s a co-owner of TigerTown Graphics \u2014 a Clemson tradition started by his partners, John Earle and Chuck Rice, in 1988, when Bandy was a freshman at Clemson. The three are also the proud co-creators of Southern Fried Cotton, a Southern-themed apparel brand that has grown from one store in Greenville in 2012 to a second store in Clemson and more recently, 200 retailers selling their t-shirts throughout the Southeast.
\n\u201cI remember hand-combing cotton and learning those properties involved in making cotton softer. It has been very interesting being in the apparel industry as all the new blends change the T-shirt world, and some of the softest shirts are made,\u201d said Bandy.
\nThe sign in the back of the store is of a John Cougar Mellancamp quote: \u201cI was born in a small town and I can breathe in a small town.\u201d For Bandy, that\u2019s what these Southern-themed T-shirts are about \u2014 \u201croots, being homegrown and small towns.\u201d
\nThat \u201csmall town\u201d feel that his shirts evoke come from his heart. He and his wife Maggie, who he met while in college, have raised their two sons JT and Carter in Clemson. He helps coach local rec teams and volunteers at his church. Southern Fried Cotton is about sharing that feeling of belonging \u2014 the sensation of someone memorizing your coffee order \u2014 with people who have had to move on from their own hometowns.
\n\u201cAlmost 10 years after returning to Clemson to live, I still don\u2019t take it for granted. I\u2019m not getting special treatment; that\u2019s just part of living in a small community,\u201d said Bandy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Spreading the Small Town Gospel The American South and cotton have a troubled relationship. But thanks to Chris Bandy and his homegrown apparel brand, Southern Fried Cotton, things are changing. When Bandy first entered Clemson as a textiles major, he hoped to have the same job that his dad had in the pulp and paper […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21],"tags":[171,1675,2670,2953,3023],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-12713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumniprofiles","tag-alumni-profile","tag-john-cougar-mellancamp","tag-southern-fried-cotton","tag-textiles","tag-tigertown-graphics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2014\/12\/Profile-Chris-Bandy.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12713"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=12713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}