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





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.