Got the T-shirt: Southern Junction makes Coast imagery wearable
BILOXI -- Slowly but surely, millennials are entering the market economy. They are opening restaurants, they're starting up consulting firms and breaking into the fashion world.
In early 2015, three friends put into motion the beginning of Southern Junction, a South Mississippi-based T-shirt company.
Jason Daniel, Kyle Moskal and Caleb Story, all Long Beach High School and Mississippi State University graduates, pooled their resources to start a business.
"We were thinking about starting a clothing store and selling all types of brands, in Long Beach," Story said, "but we decided to stick with our own brand we had in mind."
"Our idea is, there's always been Southern brands, and a lot of them are a deer-hunting thing or solely fishing and with the name Southern Junction, we wanted to encapsulate the whole South," Moskul said.
The brand offers an array of T-shirts, pocket tees, long-sleeve shirts and tank tops for men and women.
The main image of the company is the brand name with a simple iconic image outlined above, such as an oyster, the Biloxi Lighthouse or a crab. The images are created by Coast designer and Long Beach native Justin Ladner, a friend of the owners.
The shirts come in bold colors such as coral and seafoam green along with more traditional colors.
Many of the shirts have college football themes, such as a purple shirt with a yellow striped pocket or a navy shirt with a red and white pocket. There's also a shirt with a maroon cowbell on it.
The brand has been operating from a kiosk in the center aisle of Edgewater Mall since early summer. Shirts also are available at the Oyster Reef Club in Long Beach and at Bacchus in Biloxi.
The owners will eventually close the mall kiosk and have their brand in more stores around the Coast.
Plans are also in the works to offer a line of fishing shirts, hats and sunglasses straps.
Like many new businesses, Southern Junction is a family affair. The shirts are printed by Story's mother, Jill Anderson, in Long Beach. Moskul's mother, Cheryl Moskul, stitches the pockets onto the pocket tees.
"We really decided to give our idea a shot," Story said. Everything's printed locally, everything's designed locally. And you know, on the Coast there is Scuba Steve, who we have a lot of love and respect for, but other than that, there's not really a brand down here.
"We feel that because of that, we really just want to make something for the people down here on the Coast. Frankly, we feel inspired by a lot of the young people down here doing things. The Murky Waters (barbecue restaurants) guys are all millennials, and the Bacchus people and guys like Scuba Steve. A lot of these boutiques you see are owned by girls our age, so we decided to just go for it, too."
This story was originally published December 17, 2015 at 7:58 PM with the headline "Got the T-shirt: Southern Junction makes Coast imagery wearable ."