Strands of denim, uncapped highlighters and makeup brushes cover the floors and tables of Darshay Davis’ home as bleach trickles down a once-plain pair of jeans into Tupperware.
Davis, a 20-year-old journalism sophomore, and Will Wynne, a 21-year-old family, youth and community sciences junior, created their own urban-style clothing line called Off White Apparel last month.
Davis and Wynne use materials found in most students’ homes to create their designs — highlighters, scissors, bleach, towels, needles and thread.
But creating a finished product is more complex.
“We’ll have a pair of jeans and figure out how we want to cut it, like a ‘U’ cut, a diagonal ‘V,’ or just do them straight,” Wynne said. “But then maybe we’ll want a fringy look, so we’ll have to go through and pull apart each of the threads to get a nice fringe.”
After Davis and Wynne decide on a cut for a pair of shorts, they use highlighters to draw designs with bleach.
The two then head down to their laundry room to wash the clothing and decide if they want to make any more cuts.
“We’re trying to make a trademark now where we cut off the back pocket of every jean that we do so you know that’s something we did,” Wynne said. “Right now, we take a highlighter and write our trademark where the missing pocket is.”
Although the students sell most of their clothing out of their homes, some of Davis’ custom-made shorts became available last week at Gifthorse, a small clothing store on North Main Street.
Kerri Duffield, an associate at Gifthorse, said she was interested in the shorts because they were creative and interesting.
“Cutoff, bleached shorts are kind of trendy right now,” she said. “I kind of had my eye on them for a while, and I thought this was perfect and something we would like to get into.”
On weekdays, when Davis and Wynne aren’t busy coming up with new designs, the two spend their time training as members of UF’s varsity track and field team.
Wynne, a two-time All-American hurdler, even worked out a deal with Mike Holloway, the head coach of the team, while he was being recruited.
Holloway told him he could make a uniform after the team won its first national championship, Wynne said.
“Then we won one, and I said, ‘So I can make a uniform now, right?’” Wynne said. “We actually won two championships, so I got to make two of them.”
Holloway said the team liked the uniforms.
“They’re really nice and came out really well,” he said. “He did a good job with them. The sprinters in particular like to run in them.”
Davis, a sprinter, and Wynne said they both have aspirations of becoming professional runners.
Wynne said he wants to use professional running as a way to design track clothing for Nike.
But for now, the two athletes have one long-term goal in common for their new clothing line.
“We’re going to take over the world,” Davis said.
