Comfortable clothing from the '80s in style

A couple of years ago, an entrepreneur named Thurman Jack began to reminisce about comfortable T-shirts from the 1980s.\n"The T-shirts from the '80s were so soft," Jack said. "There aren't many shirts like that anymore."\nAfter throwing around some ideas, he decided to start his own business re-creating the T-shirts he missed so much.\n"I just saw a lot of T-shirts that I thought would be good to remake," Jack said. "I started looking around and saw a lot of other people were selling old T-shirts on eBay, so I thought I could do that, too."\nIn April, he coined the name "Korduroy" and began to branch off from eBay, starting a separate Web site for his business, www.korduroy.com. Though one can purchase clothing through the Web site, Jack still mainly runs his Minneapolis-based business through eBay. He markets mostly to college students who can appreciate a good T-shirt.\nJack said the "Get High on Mountains" shirt has proved to be the most popular shirt so far.\n"Right now, we use American Apparel T-shirts, which are probably a step above Hanes or Fruit of the Loom in comfort," Jack said. "I'm hoping to use something even a little more comfortable than that, eventually."\nThe Internet isn't the only place to shop for vintage clothing. Many businesses around Bloomington, such as Amused Clothing, Cactus Flower, Vintage Warehouse, Ladi's Legacies and Material Plane, carry or create their own styles.\nKeddy McClain, a sales associate at Amused Clothing, said he has noticed the trend of students and the Bloomington community looking for unique and comfortable clothing.\n"There's a big trend right now of people not wanting to be too flashy," McClain said. "A lot of people don't want to look like they're really trying to be dressed up or wear the newest, cool stuff right now. If you get a T-shirt that says 'Hobart Motors,' that can be cool instead. People want comfortable and cheap clothes."\nStephanie Prather, an IU freshman and frequent shopper at Cactus Flower, shopped for vintage clothes at home in Illinois and continues to search for interesting clothing for good prices in Bloomington\n"College students don't have very much money," Prather said. "And we're at the time in our lives where we really need to express ourselves. We're finding ourselves here at school, and in doing that, we find our (sense of) fashion, too."\nBob Krusinski, Amused's owner, travels around collecting clothes to distribute between Amused's three stores located in Bloomington and Lafayette. The store also has a seamstress who re-tailors used clothes to create genuinely one-of-a-kind fashions.\nMcClain said he would describe Amused Clothing as a cross between Urban Outfitters and Goodwill.\n"Amused works well for Bloomington because it works on Bloomington's budget," McClain said. "If you're not interested in one section of the store, there's gonna be another section of the store that might suit you more. That's how we're competing with places like Urban Outfitters. That's tough competition. They get shipments of clothes in every day, but we don't have those kinds of resources. So the employees really take charge here and make the store what it is. It takes a lot of work to keep the store up. We try to base the store around the customers and what the customers want."\nAmused's apparel section of the store has recently undergone changes in floor layout, changing from three smaller rooms of merchandise to a more open space to display the clothing. McClain said he thinks this has helped with selling merchandise. \nAlso, to help bring in customers, the store has semi-annual sales and offers a 20 percent discount every day for students in the greek system if they bring in their card from the greek directory.\nAmused also sells a wide variety of skateboards, sunglasses, hemp, glass tobacco accessories, tapestries and incense. \nMcClain stops for a moment and says hello to a familiar customer that has walked into the store, demonstrating the personal relationships employees at Amused Clothing build with the customers. \n"People come in over and over so you get to know them. There couldn't be a corporate store like this. You just wouldn't get the same unique feel every time you came into the store," McClain said. "I also think that people like to shop at places that have a little more to do with the community." \n-- Contact staff writer Lori Snow at losnow@indiana.edu .