In 2010, 23-year-old Shek Tarawallie was selling t-shirts out of his locker for $20 apiece. Now, he is the owner and creative director of Swavor, a clothing company that, according to their bio, draws inspiration from different periods of time in history and modernizes them through fashion.

Tarawallie is a confident, young entrepreneur and he isn’t shy about sharing his path to success. I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with him and discussing how Swavor got started, his creative inspirations and what the future holds for him and the company.

Though he grew up in PG County, Md., Tarawallie went to high school in London. He credits his time in London for sparking his interest in fashion and for giving him the desire to be an entrepreneur. “I had seen wealth in abundance, kids at my school were getting picked up in a Rolls-Royce,” he remembered. “I knew that the way to obtain that wasn’t to just go get a college degree.”

When he came back to the U.S., Tarawallie was filled with ideas like opening a restaurant, but didn’t have the funds to really start a business. Ultimately, he decided on a t-shirt company here in Maryland because it was his cheapest option. His budget was roughly $191, which he got from cashing in his coins at a supermarket.

The name Swavor was created by a friend of Tarawallie while they were at Montgomery College. “He came up to me and he was stoned out of his mind and he said ‘You…you should call it…Swavor. Just call it that’,” he chuckled, imitating his friend’s voice. When I said that I thought it was a mix of the words swag and flavor, Tarawallie said, “A lot of people think that. I prefer the pronunciation to be suave-or.”

 

Eventually, Swavor became an acronym for Sheik (a derivative of the word for a wise leader in Arabic, pronounced like chic), Wealthy, Arrogant, Victorious Original Retail. “I guess we figured we needed an acronym for it in order to make more sense of it,” Tarawallie said. “I didn’t like the name at first but it really grew on me.”

After the logo was designed, Tarawallie and his partner, Christofer Brito, began selling t-shirts at Montgomery College. Brito was in charge of graphic design and Tarawallie dealt with the marketing and selling aspect of the brand. For the most part that has stayed true to this day, though Tarawallie began to design as well. Tarawallie has enough confidence to understand what he excels at and ample humbleness to know what areas he needs help in.

“Chris is an amazing designer, he went to fashion school. We both design now, but I can’t do graphic design at all,” Tarawallie admitted. “Chris is very good at graphic design. I’ll sketch something out and tell him about a concept and the next day he’ll bring back something incredible. When it comes to design, his is the only opinion I take very seriously.”

Their t-shirts gained a steady and loyal following on social media, and after their first official collection in the Fall of 2011, they started selling their shirts on Karmaloop. They had a one-year contract with Karmaloop, but decided not to renew with them because of scheduling and shipping complications. Still, they gained more followers and buyers and branched out into long sleeve shirts, jackets, sweatshirts, and pants.

Now, Swavor clothing can be bought from their website and in five boutiques on the east coast. They are working on being sold in some more boutiques, in locations such as Paris and London, but Tarawallie’s main goal is to open a flagship store. He says that “expansion isn’t really the biggest thing” for him because he wants to keep the clothing somewhat limited in order to retain value.

 

The collections are based on artists and various periods of time. Tarawallie got this idea after going to a museum one day and realizing that the works of art were going to be art forever; he wanted his fashion to reflect that same sentiment.

“I went to Chris and I told him that if we’re going to make clothes and do it the right way then it has to be thematic. When people buy something, they’ll be like ‘I bought this, this is the Alexander the Great piece from Swavor. And they’ll remember it,” he said.

Swavor’s first collection embodied the life and told the story of Alexander the Great. The collections following that had themes of war, Rome, and Asian art. Tarawallie told me about one customer in Virginia who owns every Swavor piece that has ever been put out since 2011 and hangs up them on his wall like one would with art. “To him, it’s art. And it is. That’s the biggest accomplishment for me, personally,” he explained.

Tarawallie said he has a lot of fashion designers and brands that he looks up to, like designers Raf Simons and Riccardo Tisci and urban brands like Stussy and Supreme. “They paved the way for any kid with a t-shirt company that wants to make it big,” he said. His biggest inspiration, though, is Tom Ford because “he doesn’t change that much, but he still finds a way to stay current.”

 

Tarawallie is graduating from Towson in May of this year, with a major in Psychology. Though his major hasn’t had a direct effect on his designs, he said it has been influential in how he deals with people, which has helped him with the business and marketing part of Swavor.

“You have to know how to keep customers happy. And then there’s little things like knowing what colors elicit which reactions and certain words get people’s attention. Imagery and sex get people’s attention,” he said.

More recently, Tarawallie has been experimenting with other forms of media. Just like media powerhouses Drake and Kanye, Tarawallie has recently put out an experimental film. The film incorporates designs from his brand as well as topics like female power and interracial relationships.

 

2114 – The Experience from JoeMooreProductions on Vimeo.

I asked if he wears his own pieces, and his response was that of a person who knows they don’t have to brag: “Ah. Eh. No? I don’t think it’s tacky or anything. One of my biggest joys is being somewhere, seeing someone wearing a Swavor piece and him not knowing that I’m the designer. I’m not my own billboard.”