On a busy strip of commerce on Chicago's North Side, the new Threadless T-shirt store is crowded with sporty young women in yoga pants and flip-flops, laughing as they take in the snarky slogans. The most popular shirt right now is a clever number in brown cotton that reads: "Haikus are easy/But sometimes they don't make sense/Refrigerator."
The 1,700-square-foot store, which opened in September, is the first from the folks behind Threadless.com, one of the hottest T-shirt Web sites. If it succeeds, the 35-employee company will join the likes of clothing startups Lucy.com and Delias.com in moving from online to bricks and mortar. If it fails? Oh well. "We really had no good reason to open a store," says co-founder and CEO Jake Nickell. "It just seemed like a fun thing to do."
Source: Business Week, http://www.businessweek.com