King of the Hood

Minneapolis-based clothing company Hollyhoodz uses brightly-colored hoodies to showcase Dylan, Prince and other well-known faces

Bill Murray, Prince, Bob Dylan, President Obama, Joe Mauer and several other celebrities have been immortalized on Hollyhoodz garments.

Image credit: Courtesy Hollyhoodz

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By: Molly Burke

In a warehouse in Minneapolis there are 500 orders of Andrew Zimmern waiting to be shipped out. Soon, the “Bizarre Foods” host’s face will arrive at the doorsteps of many Minnesotans, Travel Channel clients and a few celebs like Rachel Ray and Guy Fieri.

Zimmern’s face, along with dozens of other celebs, has been screen printed on the hoods of sweatshirts by Minneapolis-based clothing company Hollyhoodz, which is using their brightly-colored hoodies to showcase life-size portraits of celebrities like Bob Dylan, Joe Mauer and Lil Wayne.

The business started in 2009 after a local guy (he only goes by “Hollyhoodz” in public; more on that later) saw a Vikings horn on the side of a hood.  “I thought, that would be the coolest thing if we could get someone’s face on there,” he says.

So he rushed home to plan out his ideas and with almost no money in his bank account, started his business. Two years later, hoods are moving and the small, start-up apparel company has become a full-time endeavor.

“I didn’t have the money to support this, so I got as many out there as I could,” says Hollyhoodz, who has used word-of-mouth and social media to spread the message about his garments (his Facebook page has grown to more than 9,000 fans in the last year).

But the rise in notoriety hasn’t yet persuaded Hollyhoodz to come out of the shadows and reveal his identity.

“It’s fun when people don’t know who you are because then you ask them about [the hoodies] and they give you their honest opinion,” he says. “If you tell them you own the company, they love you from the start.”

In addition to the hoodies, Hollyhoodz also screen prints designs on tee shirts, many with Minneapolis-themed logos or the company’s motto, “Hood Rich” (“We’re printing stuff on hoods to get rich,” says Hollyhoodz). 

But even if the business continues to grow it will remain locally rooted.  All clothing is made by American Apparel and designs, and the printing and shipping are all done in Minneapolis by Hollyhoodz and a few of his friends and girlfriend.

As for the future of Hollyhoodz? “I don’t have any intentions of stopping what I’m doing. I’m just going to try and keep my brand hot and stay above water as long as I can,” says Hollyhoodz.  “You can come up really fast, but leave even faster.”

+ To learn more about Hollyhoodz visit hollyhoodz.com. You can also find the company on Facebook and on Twitter @Hollyhoodz.