URB1 EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH SUPER SEXY CLOTHING

Article written by: Rodrick Rainey
Posted on: July 7, 2004

The Queen of airbrush designs, a title many want, but only a few can even think to deserve. Urb1 thought it would be good to get an interview on a clothing line that’s putting it down for the ladies proper-like! Custom, original, creative, all words that can describe this clothing line. Super Sexy Clothing’s designer and owner, Anna gives Urb1 the scoop on everything…

( URB1 ) HEY, WHAT’S UP SUPER SEXY CLOTHING? TO WHOM AM I CONVERSATING WITH AND PLEASE GIVE THE HISTORY OF SUPER SEXY CLOTHING ALSO!

(SUPER SEXY CLOTHING) Hi Rod! My name is Anna Pereira, sole owner, artist and designer of the Super Sexy brand Couture Custom Tees located in NJ. To give your a brief history on my line I’ll tell you why I started it. As you go into stores, high end specialty or more moderately priced junior’s stores, you see racks of the same garment. I was in search of something different and unique but cute, trendy, casual and more personalized thus the line Super Sexy started to evolve – a highly customizable airbrushed and embellished clothing line using only the finest materials available introduced to the world in spring of 2003.

My background is an artist, I’ve done everything from faux finishing and wall murals via hand painting to airbrushing since my early teens. I’ve painted children’s clothing for Norstrom out here in Jersey, received awards for my talents, yadda yadda…. I apply the airbrush technique to my shirts so they have a professionally ‘printed’ look, but being airbrushed, the design stretches. I was looking for something sexy, fun, glitzy and expressive. When I put a screen printed shirt on, that was fitted, you would get puckering and after a few washes peeling and that was something I was trying to ‘fix with my line, Super Sexy. Coupled with the highest quality embellishing like Swarovski crystals applied by hand, my customer can make their own design as custom or basic as they want.

( URB1 ) AITE, LETS GET DOWN TO THE BEEF OFF TOP. I MEAN, EVERYONE CAN LOOK AND SEE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN PINK COOKIES AND SUPER SEXY. WHAT’S UP WITH THE UNCANNY SIMILARITIES?

(SUPER SEXY CLOTHING) OK, At first glance, just seeing ‘airbrush shirts’ and girls makin’ em, you may think we are the same…but we are completely different. When I began Super Sexy, I had no idea who they were and in research found them. Funny, but their website used to be pink, black and white, now they represent Super Sexy pink and blue? That’s the only similarity you will see once you go into the sites and compare. They offer freehand throwback styling – which is cool. They didn’t offer glitter enhanced text – until recently I noticed one design. They do not offer the high end embellishment options Super Sexy offers … and so on. A car is a car – 4 wheels, brake, gas pedal…right? NOPE. Tell that to the owner of a Bentley! That’s what I’m sayin bout me and them. They’re cool, I like their stuff, everything has it’s place – you wouldn’t wear an evening gown/tux to McDonald’s would you? Super Sexy is about upscale casual, custom shirts and accessories with a professional look.

( URB1 ) I NOTICE YOU DO ALL KINDS OF CUSTOM CLOTHING FROM AIR BRUSHING INTO RHINE STONING. CAN YOU GIVE URB1′S FEMALE VISITORS A DETAILED LIST OF WHAT YOU CAN DO AND HOW LONG IT TAKES? ALSO WHAT KIND OF QUALITY GUARANTEES ARE YOU GIVING?

(SUPER SEXY CLOTHING) All of my garments are guaranteed as noted on the ‘terms’ page of my website www.SuperSexyClothing.com. They are hand wash or machine wash delicate, flat or hang dry; you can even add a little bit of bleach to the whites cycle and throw in a white Super Sexy shirt.

I produce all the designs myself and make them as customizable as possible – not just ‘Pink or blue? Which do ya want?’ Fashion is nothing but a revisit of styles form the past but how you do it makes it your own – like pants will always have 2 legs, but the styles are ever changing – ya know?

I try to stay as innovative as possible yet be casual-sexy enough that anyone can wear my work. My focus is confident females – all ages – and letting people around them know that they are filled with positiveness, playfulness, self-esteem, and a non-trashy sexy appeal! 95% of my designs are completely customizable – you can choose the shirt style, color, airbrush paint color, glitter, crystal color, layout of the rhinestones, fun shapes like hearts or kisses to add to your Couture Custom Shirt or choose one of many designs available – like my Bling! Bling! design with crystal carets adding up to over 100 diamond carets! – and make it your own. Super Sexy offers cute trendy designs that you can make your own by picking all of the options listed above, ensuring you that you won’t be goin’ out, lookin all cute and see what you got on, on someone else.

Super Sexy shirts take time – as one may go through many stages- it all depends on how much work is involved. Honestly, a shirt can take from 15 minutes start to finish for a ‘Plain Jane’ initial shirt to something totally blinged out taking hours. The airbrushed part is the quickest step though. Meticulous hand embellishment takes the longest; all of the rhinestone work is done with an industrial adhesive – no iron ons, no tiffany settings (those prongs around the rhinestones – I HATE them!!! They take away from the beauty of the crystal rhinestones as well as cause ‘pulls’ in garments that brush against them). A single shirt can take hours and hundreds of crystals.

( URB1 ) AND OF COURSE, ME BEING THE EQUAL RIGHTS GUY I AM, I MUST ASK. WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO START DOING THINGS FOR GUYS? *HAHA* NAH, I’M JUST PLAYING… BUT WHAT’S GOOD WITH THE PUBLICITY? WHERE ALL HAVE PEOPLE POSSIBLY SEEN YOUR WORK IN THE MEDIA?

(SUPER SEXY CLOTHING) As, for Guys stuff – well, I don’t know too many men that would wear ‘Super Sexy’ *chuckle* the clothing label, so I’ll have to come up with something a little more masculine! As for media, I am featured in ‘Us Weekly’ in their shop-a-thon section about every 2-3 weeks. Currently, I capitalize myself, and don’t work with publicists. I rather spend my $$ on advertising rather than try to get a shirt on celebrities, spending thousands of dollars in the process without knowing if they will give you props or not. Of course, I’d love to have celebrity endorsements, but, the bottom line is about making sales, making individual people happy and filling the gap for my customers who seek my items at reasonable prices for the value of my work.

( URB1 ) I KNOW YOU’VE DEALT WITH SOME MEMORABLE IDEAS IN YOUR TIME AS YOUR CLOTHING IS ALL ABOUT EXPRESSION. WHAT’S SOME OF THE MOST MEMORABLE MESSAGES SOMEONE HAS ASKED FOR ON CLOTHING?

(SUPER SEXY CLOTHING) ‘Silicone’ was a funny one; ‘Turn up the Valium’ – I don’t advocate drugs, but I can relate! ‘You’ll do for now’…and some common designs that people have seen but want a more flashy version of – ‘What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.’ Some real good ones have come through here – some I’d choose not to mention – but as I said custom means custom. I never will do anything that promotes violence or recreational/street drugs, completely vulgar, promotes any race religion or creed as #1, or bashes any race, religion or creed. There are enough ‘trash tees’ out there – and those are not the kinds of messages Super Sexy conveys.

( URB1 ) IN READING YOUR SITE, I SEE YOU SAY AIRBRUSHING HAS AN ADVANTAGE OVER SCREEN PRINTING. BEING AN ART MAJOR I ALREADY KNOW SOME THE MINOR DIFFERENCES, BUT WHAT’S SO DIFFERENT ABOUT IT THAT MADE YOU WANT TO GIVE NOTICE ABOUT IT?

(SUPER SEXY CLOTHING) I touched on it earlier, but the difference is: Women have curves and garments can conform to these curves – but inexpensive methods of screen printing cannot conform to her curves without ‘puckering’ and/or wear well. In essence you cannot create a CUSTOM screen printed line with out major, major expense – and still you will have limitations. Airbrushing goes right into the fabric and becomes part of it; when your shirt conforms to you, so does your design. Cheap screen printing puckers and cracks and peels after washing; Super Sexy airbrushed garments are soft, and the color stays vibrant wash after wash. Airbrushed shirts make a great canvas to design on …period. You can achieve looks with airbrushing that you can’t with inexpensive screen printing. Also, each shirt is completely unique yet, with the Super Sexy method, you get exactly what you ordered since our text is not freehand written. Industrial screen printing is a whole other thing – which again, would cost you around $200 just to get one letter on one shirt because of the process and not what I’m referring to when it comes to the ‘custom game.’

( URB1 ) IS THERE ANY PRODUCTS YOU HAVEN’T CUSTOMIZED THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO?

(SUPER SEXY CLOTHING) I haven’t worked on bags yet. I would love to get into hand bags. I do embellish bags for Luxeorama custom photo handbags, but I don’t airbrush them. I’ve hand painted and airbrushed denim, rhinestone embellished you – name – it, even rhinestoned my car.

( URB1 ) WHAT DESIGN IDEAS DO YOU HAVE COMING UP? DO YOU PLAN ON EVER GETTING INTO A FULL FLEDGED CLOTHING LINE THAT IS PRODUCED IN THE MASSES?

(SUPER SEXY CLOTHING) I have been working on that recently – What fabulous female wouldn’t slip on a pair of ‘Super Sexy’ jeans?

( URB1 ) A LOT OF PEOPLE READING THIS MIGHT BE LIKE SUPER SEXY KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT HIPHOP. BEING THIS IS A HIPHOP FASHION SITE, I WOULD LIKE TO GET INSIGHT ON WHAT HIPHOP ARTISTS HAVE INSPIRED SOME OF YOUR DESIGNS. WHO’S YOUR FAVORITE EMCEE TO TOUCH THE MIC? WHO DO YOU LIKE TO LISTEN TO WHEN COMPLETING DESIGNS?

(SUPER SEXY CLOTHING) Let me tell you, I may come across as ‘Jane Suburb’, that’s cool. But, I have been into hiphop since they used to be played on stations you had to bend your antenna on your ‘boom box’ to catch. Back in the day when on some random radio station during a one hour show it’d be nothin’ but HipHpop!

Back around … 82? I didn’t know who I was listening too I was so young – Grandmaster Flash, UTFO, Sugarhill Gang, Melly Mel, Curtis Blow, …. Then came Run-DMC, LL, Big Daddy Kane, Slick Rick, BDP, EPMD, Public Enemy, Erid B and Rakim, Rob Base, Roxanne Shante, Ice-T, who could forget Sir Mix-a-Lot?, 3rd Bass, Salt & Peppa, De La Soul, Mc Lyte, Q-Tip, Biz, Queen Latifa, NBN – Naughty By Nature (Take it to ya face), Nas, Redman, Gravediggaz, Black Moon, Wu-Tang and Meth steppin it up to Biggie, Big Pun, Mase, Camron, Fat Joe, P Diddy, Jay-Z, Luda, Outkast, Nelly, Fabulos, Ja, to 50 Cent and other present day artists.

Currently the CD in my ‘miracle whip’ is Kanye West – I love ‘Jesus Walks’. I’m very spiritual and when I heard that – I ran out and got his CD. That’s a pretty accurate timeline from what I can remember.

I like all kinds of music from HipHop to Sarah Brightman, Ella Fitzgerald and Sinatra (clasical and jazz) to Maroon 5 and Switchfoot (rock). As an artist, an appreciation for a scope of things music/environments/hobbies/men (lol) broadens your influences – mixing little bits of each to make something totally new will be the result. So, as far as influencing my designs – I don’t know who or what my influence comes from! As for what do I listen to when I work, I usually work in silence – I don’t know why. But if I have the stereo on, just a top 40 station like z100 here in NJ, so I hear a little bit of everything.

( URB1 ) BROWSING YOUR SITE, I SEE A LOT OF YOUR DESIGNS ARE LEVELS ABOVE THE COMPETITION. WORKS SUCH AS THE “FANTASY FLOWER” ARE HOT TO DEF! WHAT ITEM IS BEING FELT THE MOST YOU WOULD SAY RIGHT NOW?

(SUPER SEXY CLOTHING) Thanks Rod! The Couture Custom and Couture Custom Blinged Out Shirt styles fo’ sho’! Coming in next would be Bling! Bling! Ladies who want something totally unique LOVE the Couture Custom Shirts. I can honestly say – they are truly unique and you simply cannot find this caliber of custom shirt with as many options as Super Sexy offers anywhere!

( URB1 ) WELL, THAT’S ALL THE SPACE WE HAVE FOR THE URB1 I-VIEW. ANY REMAINING COMMENTS YOU WANTED TO GET OFF YOUR CHEST? ANY SHOUT OUTS? DON’T FORGET TO SHOUT OUT YOUR TOP CUSTOMERS… YOU KNOW THEY BE BUYING YOUR STUFF SO THEY CAN STROLL HOLLYWOOD LOOKING FAMOUS. WHY NOT MAKE THEM FAMOUS TO URB1?

(SUPER SEXY CLOTHING) The one comment I’d like to make is since Super Sexy is a ‘Couture Custom’ clothing line, indicating ‘a cut above’, I adhere to a ‘classy business practice. I just want people to know I would never, ever capitalize off of one of my customers ideas or designs without permission and compensation. So THEY know their custom shirt is truly owned by them. Actually, to this day I still have never taken an idea from any of my customers or from competition – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen my ideas and concepts stolen – but that’s the biz!

Shout outs go to: Ronnie my art teacher from SPFHS – without her influence I would never have gotten here. Laura my best friend and advisor in Florida. Jeanne, my best friend and customer in NJ. Coco a totally Super Sexy chick from NY. Patzi in NY – just opened a ‘Brazil Bronze’ airbrush tanning salon in Great Neck – huge fan of Super Sexy. And to all of my Super Sexy customers around the Globe! Every customer is a top customer, every one is special to me – or I wouldn’t be making such special custom shirts. And last, but certainly not least, I thank God and my angels for watching over me every day and blessing me with opportunities and talents that I am grateful to receive..