Waterloo start-up shows off the wonders of Waterloo region

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An up-and-coming online, local, hometown pride clothing brand, 43×80, has begun selling its merchandise to the general public focusing on the idea of taking a piece of the Kitchener-Waterloo region worldwide.

With an emphasis being put on locally-made and sourced products and clean and simple designs, this โ€œlifestyle brandโ€ business sells clothing from shirts and sweaters, to hats and throw pillows.

They also feature โ€œhometown prideโ€ slogans, such as โ€œHome is KW,โ€ โ€œKaydoubleyouโ€ and โ€œUptown Downtown Smalltown.โ€

The numbers in the companyโ€™s name, โ€œ43 degrees North by 80 degrees West,โ€ are the geographic, GPS coordinates of Kitchener-Waterloo, meaning the company is making Waterloo region its focal point.

Its logo, which features the phrase โ€œEst. 1973,โ€ refers to the creation of the Regional Municipality of Waterloo. The region was formerly called Waterloo County which was created in 1853.

Though Alli Bearinger, the founder of 43×80, is a newcomer to the business world, she is enthusiastic about creating a sense of unity in the Kitchener-Waterloo area.

โ€œI wanted to do this for a long time but didnโ€™t know how to go about it. I had all these ideas and I had the creativity, but I didnโ€™t know how to execute it,โ€ Bearinger said.

โ€œThere are so many community efforts already, so itโ€™s just an extra thing to make people excited about where theyโ€™re from, give people a sense of pride.โ€

As someone with a lot of pride for her hometown, Bearinger couldnโ€™t help but believe that there were others that felt the same way.

โ€œI wanted to start paving the way for people to join together and show people that KW is on the map and weโ€™re proud of it โ€” and [to] look out [for us],โ€ Bearinger said.

The business officially launched four months ago and has been garnering attention from the regional community within the last two weeks. Currently, their most popular item is the โ€œUptown Downtown Smalltownโ€ basic t-shirt.

โ€œThere are always things going on, people to connect with. There are always things to do โ€” and itโ€™s a beautiful part of Canada,โ€ Bearinger said.

โ€œBut now Midtown is coming in, so I have to work with that as well,โ€ Bearinger said.

Like any new enterprise, especially for someone new to business management, Bearinger has run into a number of obstacles while establishing the company, such as where to source her clothing materials from.

โ€œI wanted to source everything from Kitchener-Waterloo โ€” [be] the only Canadian-made and eco-friendly [product] โ€” but from my price point, it just wasnโ€™t going to happen. In the future, thatโ€™s maybe something we can do, but for now, itโ€™s [impractical],โ€ Bearinger said.

Though the company is small, utilizing an online drop-shipping method of retail, she hopes to expand it through collaborations in the coming years as it gains influence in the area.

โ€œI want to eventually have a store or be featured in stores within the region, have a lot of collaborations and networking, collective thinking and creativity with different companies already formed or future companies in the region,โ€ Bearinger said.

Because there are so few stores of any kind in the region which emphasize the concept of local or regional pride, Bearinger sees 43×80 as an opportunity to feature important aspects of Kitchener-Waterloo.

โ€œThere are always things going on, people to connect with. There are always things to do โ€” and itโ€™s a beautiful part of Canada,โ€ Bearinger said.

โ€œI just donโ€™t like all the negative thoughts around it, so I wanted to have something that would create a positive feeling of pride about where youโ€™re from. Kitchener-Waterloo people are spread out all over the place, so I wanted them to have a connection to home.โ€


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