Student Brad Riaze launches online clothing brand “Lite Apparel”
Briana Heaney
Staff Writer
“Lite Apparel” is a new St. Louis-based clothing company that’s about “more than just fashion,” says founder and Meramec student Brad Riaze.
Officially opened in fall 2017, “Lite Apparel” is the culmination of Riaze’s hard work alongside his best friend and co-founder Tobi Schweiger. The website, lite-apparel.com, offers a selection of hats, sweatshirts, t-shirts and other unique clothing items. According to Riaze, the young entrepreneur drew ideas from another venture.
“I got inspired by a friend who had his own business,” said Riaze. “Once I saw what he was doing, I thought, ‘I can do that.’”
After running the idea past Schweiger, the two chose “Lite Apparel” as their domain name and began creating their own designs. Riaze describes his style as “Vaporwave retro-minimalistic.”
“Retro will always be in, whatever retro at the time means. The 2000’s are on the cusp of this,” said Riaze. “Minimalistic is in. You defiantly see it in a lot of groups; you see it in a lot of rap or hip-hop inspired clothes and you see it in a lot of Korean style.”
Riaze debuted his clothing line at Meramec during a Black History Month event. During the Entrepreneur Showcase, Riaze showed off his brand in the cafeteria alongside his model and
fashion consultant Viri Suarez.
“When people say ‘wow Brad, that looks really cool’ he tells them it’s not that hard, you can go out and set up your own website and create a brand, and encourages them to go out and do it,” said Suarez. “I hope [“Lite
Apparel”] goes far. I have really positive vibes about it.”
Although Riaze loves clothing and fashion, he considers “Lite Apparel” a side project meant as practice for the future. An engineering major, Riaze plans to use the experience gained from operating his clothing line to open his own firm. Ultimately, says Riaze, his passion is business.
“Whatever I want to do, I want to do it big,” said Riaze. “You can apply [the experience] to almost anything that you’re interested in. If you want to do medicine or law for example, you can open your own practice. You can always make more money. It’s all about the learning experience.”
According to Riaze, the non-monetary benefits from “Lite Apparel” are the most valuable, which is why he encourages others to give entrepreneurship a try as well.
And when it comes to competition, Riaze isn’t concerned.
“Competition equals creativity,” said Riaze.
