umano, Italian for “mankind”, presents “PocketArt”, the empowering clothing concept providing backpacks and school supplies for impoverished children.
Not only do the children receive these needed supplies, they design the pockets with their one-of-a-kind masterpieces. From a bicycle to fish to your very own friendly monster, you’re able to choose your favorite pocket art, t-shirt style and color, and then, rock the pocket. You even get to meet your pocket artist on the website with short video clips.
Yes. It’s adorable.
Partnering with TOMS Marketplace and Bloomingdale’s, umano is striving to give 10,000 backpacks in 2014. So before you start heading over to Bloomingdale’s, meet umano co-founders and brothers, Alex and Jonathan Torrey.
What internships, classes or organizations in college would you say prepared you for your role now?
Alex: Jon and I would say that we’ve learned the most from on the job training and figuring this out as we go. It’s a very steep learning curve. We have very smart mentors and we have that support. Occasionally, we do fall back on things we learned from school or jobs. The phrase that Jonathan uses is, “We have a tendency to jump first and look for a place to land.”
Since you didn’t have a fashion background, how did you collaborate on your production?
Jonathan: We were back in Athens and we walked around in the UGA Family and Consumer Sciences department. We were lucky to meet with a professor and developed a relationship with me with him. He introduced us to a lot of industry people who we continue to learn a lot from today.
Alex: Supply chain is something Jonathan focuses on, but he spends a lot of time with our manufacturer. We’ve been very fortunate to have a good relationship with our manufacturer and Jonathan spends a lot of time on the floor ensuring that our business partners align with our values and learning the technical knowledge. It’s pretty remarkable to hear Jonathan speak now about the process and the technical stuff with our manufacturers. We do A to Z. We source our own fabric. The entire supply chain is in-house.
How did you connect with your first partner school?
Jonathan: Our first partner school was in Mexico about 1-1/2 to 2 hours outside of Mexico City. My first job out of college was based in Mexico City so we developed a strong network of friends with community leaders and eventually to the schools. The first school was very organic. We’ve developed a more sophisticated process. It takes a lot of prep work, energy and resources to do these giving trips. We have a very strong relationship with them and visit them periodically. We’ve had three giving trips now.
Our partnerships are in Mexico, Peru and Athens Clarke County (in Georgia where umano is headquartered) and we are in the process of creating a partnership in Haiti.
Alex: Our mantra is most in need: the most rural, the most impoverished communities that would benefit the most from our giving. We make that clear with our giving partners. We still have a case-by case basis for launching our giving program. One launch is never the same as the next.
From the beginning, it has boiled down to looking for those most in need. It’s difficult for us, people in the United States, to imagine the type of poverty we are talking about. These are place that don’t have running water, electricity. Many of them have dirt floors. It is poverty on a level we don’t really know. Even, in those circles, we still look for most in need. In this last giving trip, we visited 12 schools in 3 days, all in one community, but it could take 3 plus hours to go from one school to the next simply because of the terrains. Then, there’s no transportation. There will be 20-30 families for one school. Two to three miles down the road, there will be another group of families simply because the school needs to be walking distance and those miles can take a long time to travel.
During the giving trip, we had our van and two guides from our giving partner. We had to haul backpacks up the side of a mountain and this is something nine year old kids and women are doing every day.
It’s humbling seeing an older lady beating you up the side of a mountain.
Before you started umano, you both were working and establishing your careers. What would say is the most important thing to do when leaving that career and Plan A?
Alex: The gut check. It’s really important to know the reasons why you want to do this. The capital and business plans are important, but without the passion and fire in your belly, no amount of capital or solid business plan can substitute to do whatever it takes.
Jonathan: There is a different change in the standard of living when going out on your own. If you’re not 100 percent on the passion, it will get to you. That is probably one of the things underestimated. We worked for several years, but the reality is we worked for several years and that is not a lot of resources.
Alex: There are a lot of people who will tell you, with good intention, “This may not be the best idea.” You need to have that internal fuel not only to get through the financial aspect, the 7-day workweek, and the “No’s.”
We say that our former jobs were 99 percent perfect on a perfect scale, not a good scale, but perfect. We could have easily continued with our jobs, but at that point, we weren’t willing to settle for anything less than 100 percent perfect. It was about starting something on our own with a social mission, together. We thought this could be perfect.
What new products are you launching?
Alex: We have a spring color, a lavender V-neck. It’s the new spring color that we are going to run until we introduce a new set of styles later this year.
Where would you like to see umano in the next 5 years?
Alex: Jonathan and I pride ourselves on the number of backpacks given. For 2014, we would like to reach our goal of 10,000 backpacks given. We want to grow the number of backpacks given and grow the number of giving programs.
When life gives you lemons, you…
Alex: Plant the seeds.
Jonathan: Send a handwritten thank you note.
If you shop umano’s lavender V-neck on Bloomingdale’s before March 23, 2014, you will find the pocket art tee on sale. Go ahead, rock your pocket!
You can see pictures from umano’s giving trips and see their story on , and !
Support mankind.
By Lyn Woodward
