27274: Hermantin(News)Brothers from Haiti stitch together a business in high-fashion dr (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Leonie Hermantin


Posted on Mon, Jan. 16, 2006



Brothers from Haiti stitch together a business in high-fashion dress shirts




Being told that someone you don't know is wearing your clothes might be 
disconcerting. When brothers Patrick and Fabrice Tardieu received a telephone 
call to that effect last spring, it made their year.

A frantic friend ''urged me to turn my television to American Idol,'' Fabrice 
says.

Host Ryan Seacrest, standing center stage and under the spotlight, sported a 
black dress shirt of Jacquard fabric, with square brown buttons and golden 
brown stitching -- a creation of the Tardieu brothers, who came to Miami from 
their native Haiti to found a fashion empire.

That evening was the first big break for the Tardieus.

''I cannot tell you in any case, how elated we were at the time,'' Patrick 
says. ``But as I said -- and I pray this does not sound arrogant -- we knew it 
would happen. We just didn't know when.''

Both Patrick, 37, and Fabrice, 27, will tell you their upbringing in the Delmas 
83 community between Petionville and Port-au-Prince was not one of poverty. 
They were raised comfortably, both men say, by hard-working parents who 
operated a successful import/export business.

Even so, the route from childhood in Haiti to adulthood as creators of Bogosse, 
a high-fashion line of men's dress shirts, ran thousands of miles through 
several countries and more than one other career.

Patrick, a youth soccer prodigy in Haiti, moved to Brussels at 16 to play 
professionally and study at Belgium's European University College.

In 1993, three years after graduating with a business administration degree, 
Patrick -- the first Haitian ever drafted to the United States Major League 
Soccer league -- moved to South Florida for a gig with the Fort Lauderdale 
Strikers.

But he knew there had to be a life after soccer, so he started Tarimex, then a 
tiny, exclusive-to-Haiti freight shipping business. With office space in the 
galley of a rusty freighter ship in the Port of Miami, Patrick at first shipped 
one or two small boxes of household goods per week. Today, Tarimex operates 
from Doral and sends at least one large shipping container to Haiti each week. 
The company also has a large warehouse and more than 50 employees receiving the 
containers in Port-au-Prince.

Even with that success, fashion remained on Patrick's mind.

''People will tell you of Patrick that as a child he was meticulous with his 
style. He was dapper. He had a love for a good look,'' Fabrice says.

Fabrice followed big brother's lead when he was 13, living first in Miami, 
where he graduated from Sunset Senior High School, and then it was off to the 
European University de Paris.

Then came a full-time job in Paris as the top sales rep and distribution 
supervisor for Emporio Armani to retailers in France and the French Caribbean. 
It was while visiting Fabrice that Patrick decided it was time to try his 
passion for fashion.

After a failed attempt at importing and distributing a line of shirts he 
discovered in Paris, Patrick decided in 2002 that he and his brother -- who 
studied art in college -- should break out and offer their own clothing line.

''I tell you with no exaggeration that I was so excited for my brother that I 
dropped everything. I mean everything,'' says Fabrice, who was then barely 25.

A short time later, Fabrice left Paris behind and joined Patrick in Miami.

With little fanfare and literally no money to pay themselves a salary, the 
brothers Tardieu immediately began to develop Bogosse -- derived from the 
French phrase for a stylishly handsome man.

By late 2003, Patrick had consulted his longtime advisor Ray Heraux, a Miami 
attorney, and Eli Akiba, a friend prominent in the Miami-area fashion scene for 
decades.

''You have to understand that Patrick is relentless, an amazing young man,'' 
Heraux says. ``When he came from Europe and was on his way to completing his 
soccer career, he had nothing, not a dime. And he even tried other things, some 
of them not successful. But when he told me about Bogosse, it was different.''

After a trip to Turkey to line up a manufacturer, Patrick asked Heraux to come 
by his office in Doral and look at the model shirt he'd designed.

''Not only did I like it and approve,'' Heraux says, ``but I have it! That 
shirt! I told him that when Bogosse takes off I want that shirt, specifically. 
I told him he had struck a gold mine.''

As for Akiba, owner of Lulu and Lulu Couture in the Bal Harbour Shops and the 
first vendor in the United States to carry Bogosse, he insists it's one of the 
best fashion lines he's ever seen.

''I knew immediately there was a market for them,'' Akiba says. ``I was so 
impressed with the shirts, I gave him an order for my stores. And they have 
sold very well.''

And Bal Harbour's not the only place Bogosse shirts, at $160 to $200 each, are 
selling very well. From selling just a handful the first year, in 2005 Patrick 
and Fabrice have sold nearly 14,000 of the custom shirts at more than 70 retail 
shops worldwide, including stores in Washington, D.C., Marseille, France, and 
Fukuoka, Japan.

Aside from Idol's Seacrest, Bogosse shirts have graced the backs of other 
celebrities: Alfonso De Anda, Mexico's own version of Seacrest, donned Bogosse 
at a Billboard music award show; R&B powerhouse Usher rocked a Bogosse shirt on 
the red carpet at the 2005 Chanel Costume Institute Gala. Crunk rap guru Lil' 
John wore Bogosse to a formal MTV event. And Miami Heat center Shaquille O'Neal 
flossed in Bogosse on the cover of Ocean Drive magazine.

What of the future? Patrick would like to see the shirts available in high-end 
retail outlets like Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue.

The brothers and business partners say they thrive on each other's differences.

Patrick drinks Martinis. Fabrice prefers Woo Woos, concoctions of peach 
schnapps.

Patrick is quiet in social settings, but outspoken and charismatic for business 
matters. He can't sing the praises of Bogosse enough. Fabrice is introspective 
where work is concerned, but is always the life of the party.

''We are yin and yang. And finding something trendy and functional that we both 
liked proved a big test,'' Patrick says.

But observe them both in the Bogosse ''shirt room'' -- a war room of sorts in 
their Doral office -- and it's immensely clear why their business is taking 
off.

Patrick absentmindedly but lovingly caresses the fabrics in the shirt room as 
he surveys the room. He nods in approval and mutters the shirts' names to 
himself.

Fabrice reflects quietly at a table, studying new concept sketches they drew 
together.

Their personal styles are different, but meld with the brothers' shirts. 
Patrick favors a side-vented blazer over ripped jeans, mirror-shined Chelsea 
boots and an open-collar Bogosse shirt. Patrice goes for high-end sandals, 
tailored cargo pants and, of course, an untucked Bogosse shirt.

Either could mingle easily with the likes of hip-hop fashion plate Sean 
''Diddy'' Combs.

On one recent afternoon, those Bogosse sleeves rolled up, sweat on their brows, 
Patrick and Fabrice were engaged in lively sibling debate over everything from 
collar heights to cuff lengths to color combinations.

They disagreed. They crumpled up and tossed aside sketches. They compromised 
and drew their concepts again. The result: an addition to their already 
extensive collection of Western-themed and military-influenced dress shirts, 
with trademark big square buttons and multicolored French cuffs.

In the end, they laughed, gave each other dap -- that hippest of handshakes -- 
and hugs, and head out for Martinis and Woo Woos to celebrate yet another 
Bogosse shirt.

Their next venture? A line of baby tees for young women called ''Woo Martini,'' 
named after their favorite drinks.