Posted on 11/18/2001 6:16:16 AM PST by real saxophonist
Companies filling niche with 'classy' Rebel shirts
Southern business selling clothes with subtle references to Confederate heritage
By Jay Reeves
Associated Press
PIEDMONT, Ala. - Dixie Apparel Co. produces T-shirts that glorify the Old South without being "rednecky," as the owners put it.
One of the company's most popular designs is a rich, silk-screen image depicting Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and three of his top commanders on horseback. A Confederate battle flag is visible, but just barely.
The artwork is surprisingly good for a T-shirt, drawn from a painting that's both historically correct and inspirational to Dixie Apparel co-owner John Peppers.
"People are proud to be from the South," said Peppers, who sometimes spends his spare time fixing up the graves of Confederate soldiers. "You ever heard anyone say they are proud to be a Yankee?"
Dixie Apparel is one of a handful of businesses across the South that is appealing to a neo-Confederate niche market:
People who want to wear something that glorifies their Rebel roots, but subtly.
Go to a Saturday night dirt-track race or a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert any night and you'll likely see black T-shirts emblazoned with big Rebel flags, skulls or the motto "Forget, Hell!"
Companies such as Dixie Apparel, Dixie Outfitters and Confederate Clothing Co. offer more understated designs.
Their shirts and hats typically feature pictures of Confederate generals or scenes of outdoor sports such as hunting, with the Rebel flag reduced to the background.
"We don't want anything rednecky," Peppers said. "It's all pretty classy."
The target market for such apparel is primarily young, white, Southern men with enough money to spend $17 for a T-shirt advertising their heritage. Dewey Barber, owner of Dixie Outfitters, said his line appeals to people "who are searching for who they are" in a day when it seems like everyone is a hyphenated American.
"When they see our designs it tells them who they are," said Barber, of Jesup, Ga. "It's pretty deep, but I think it's what makes our line sell."
Peppers and Tillison, both members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, started the T-shirt company almost by accident.
The two first went into business making Rebel bumper stickers in the early '90s when black lawmakers and civil rights groups were urging the state of Alabama to remove the Confederate battle flag from atop the state Capitol.
They produced a "Keep it Flying" sticker, which was an instant hit among flag supporters.
Dixie Apparel now has about 25 employees, 1,000 accounts and annual sales of about $2 million, Peppers said. The company's lines are sold primarily in retail stores in the states of the old Confederacy. Peppers and Tillison said they sell only to established retailers and do all they can to keep their products off the backs of Ku Klux Klan members and other white supremacists.
"The Confederate flag's biggest problem," Peppers said, "is ignorant white people."
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On the Net:
Dixie Apparel: http://www.dixieapparel.com
Dixie Outfitters: http://www.dixieoutfitters.com/
Confederate Clothing Co.:
http://www.ussurplussales.com/ccc/ccc.html
I saw this shirt on a man in the Kentucky Fried Chicken in Harrisonburg on Veterans Day. It was a nice shirt, but it's sad we've gotten to the place where t-shirts are the substance of news articles. All up and down U.S. 11 are stores that sell items with Confederate emblems on them. This is the way it is, and hardly newsworthy, editors.
And wearing this shirt to a public school in Georgia will get one suspended. The war on Southern Heritage continues.
Okay will this one do?!
Or how about this one?!
I kind of like this one also.
Stand up and be counted!
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