If there’s one myth Donney McMullin and LeQuan McKitric don’t believe in, it’s that Toledo is a miserable place to live. In fact, that assessment couldn’t be more wrong, according to the co-owners of Filthy Feathers, a local graphic t-shirt company that produces apparel with attitude.
A branch of apparel and accessories company Dough Dynasty Enterprises, LLC, Filthy Feathers came to be in December of last year. The clothing store VILLA (on Dorr and Collingwood) requested they create a secondary brand of John Dough, another apparel subsidiary of Dough Dynasty, under a different name. The duo decided to create a streetwear line that specialized in graphic t-shirts. “It’s the least resistant [clothing type],” McMullin said. “Through streetwear, we can play with more parodies and fiddle with other brands or idealisms. We like it because it gives us a voice.”
Birds of a feather
The pair were attracted to the idea of Toledo t-shirts with mass appeal. At the time, the only brands to represent Toledo pride were 419 and Glass City shirts, which McMullin is a fan of, but notes, “aren’t scalable. It’s very hard to push anything with core 419 digits in a big market.” McMullin and McKitric are partial to subtle designs: the brand name comes from a spin on the American coot, a bird indigenous to the former swamp area, nicknamed the “mud hens”(a coot in mud would have filthy feathers). They’re currently in the process of getting their name trademarked.
Filthy Feathers has a wide variety of designs that is growing with time, which McKitric attributes to “being able to express yourself for that day.” The most popular shirt is the “FLEET,” an American coot sporting a backwards snapback emblazoned with the brand logo (an F crossed with a feather). McMullin and McKitric seek inspiration from popular culture and “non-artistic things” – especially important to them since they believe the fashion world is full of art snobs, and unnecessarily so. “It’s just fabric, man,” said McMullin, laughing.
Flying high
The core of the brand is Toledo pride, down to the ten to twelve exclusively-local suppliers they use. Their designs are currently being sold online, and will soon be carried in several local stores including Red Sky and Hot Kikx, though they eventually plan to open their own shop on Collingwood. Filthy Feathers has several things going in addition to their retail outlets: appearances at the Old West End festival in June and at the Ohio State Fair later in the summer, and an invitation to audition for Shark Tank.
Though they definitely don’t lack passion when it comes to clothing design, McMullin and McKitric have bigger motives. “We wanted something that we could be proud of in Toledo, but even if you never associate the brand with Toledo, it can supersede the border and be sold anywhere,” McMullin explained. “The mission really is to promote entrepreneurship, following your dreams and going after it with everything you have.”
Filthy Feathers,
facebook.com/filthyfeathersfashions.
(917) 747-9718.
