SPECIALISTS IN CUSTOM APPAREL & PRIVATE LABEL SERVICES
One Off Apparel (OOA) has evolved from a “one off” t-shirt printing business operating out of a basement in the beginning stages into a high volume custom apparel producer for top brands such as; Reebok, New Balance, Hasbro brands, Boston Red Sox, New England Patriots, Boston Celtics, Diageo brands, MIT, and more... Our in-house art department and top of the line printing equipment allows us to offer our customers the HIGHEST QUALITY garments and accessories with the LATEST imprinting technology at the MOST competitive prices.
OUR STORY
TALES FROM THE WOODSHED
In 2006, as a senior at UMass Amherst, Jeff Lavin (One Off Apparel Founder) was very hungry to gain some real world business experience. He took up a family friend on an offer for a free trip to a tradeshow in Las Vegas in exchange for helping him run his exhibitor’s booth. At the show, they were going to debut a brand new apparel printing technology that merged silk screen printing and digital printing… a revolutionary new technology in the field. After being introduced to the apparel imprinting industry for the first time, Jeff was hooked.
Upon returning from the show, Jeff’s family friend offered him the opportunity to sell these new printers to local screen printing and embroidery shops. As Jeff soon found out… local shop owners didn’t want to spend $30k with some kid who knew nothing about the printers he was selling. So… Jeff was never able to sell a single printer. Discouraged, he decided it might be a good idea to head home on weekends to learn how to print on a demo unit that his family friend had at his house. In the process of practicing with the demo printer, he was able to gain some technical knowledge that he was hoping would lead to a printer sale. While learning how to use the machine, Jeff ended up printing & selling beer league softball jerseys, bar crawl tees, and the like for his buddies at UMass. With this new found way to generate beer money, Jeff decided to throw in the towel by trying to sell a printer and instead figured it would be a better idea to start a business using a printer.
After graduating, he passed up some opportunities to work in the Finance field and began printing t-shirts in his parents’ basement. After a short time below ground, his father generously offered to renovate the woodshed on the side of the house to move the print shop into. Soon thereafter, Jeff had brought on his brother Mitch Lavin and long time friend Bob Skinner to help print tees. He also brought on another buddy from UMass, Mike Tran, to help with sales and at times Jeff also had to have his Dad come into the shop to help print tees when things got busy.
OUT OF THE HOUSE AND INTO THE WILD
After many days and nights of working around the clock to get orders out, warehousing product in the living room & dining room, and having to constantly battle the family cat and dog off of stacks of shirts that were laying around… it was time to move out.
In mid 2008, One Off Apparel moved into an old Civil War era building in Millbury, MA. After spending a couple of years there, another move was made to our latest print shop in West Boylston, MA in 2010. It was in this new 10,000 square foot facility that the business really started accelerating to new heights. With our core business starting to take off, we decided to launch a new retail arm for the business with a custom print shop & retail store on Gloucester street in Boston in 2012.
After being on Gloucester street for about a year, we decided to move our new retail store to Newbury Street in Boston. One Off Apparel’s retail store and custom print shop was the first of it’s kind by allowing customers to produce private label quality apparel including All-Over printed tees, tanks, socks, and tons of other items in under 10 minutes
TO THE GREAT BEYOND
One Off Apparel has con tinued to upgrade equipment and increase capacity at their West Boylston, Massachusetts, high volume production center over the years to better meet the needs of their clients. The team at One Off can produce 20,000+ units in 24 hours and has done this on numerous occasions for the Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox directly after championship victories or for last minute stadium giveaways.
Their second location retail store & custom print shop on Newbury Street in Boston was converted from a brick & mortar location to an online store in 2015.
In 2018, they partnered with their sister company Levi Mason Trading to expand the markets they serve. Levi Mason Trading is a Veteran Owned Custom Apparel Division that provides apparel imprinting and private label services to government entities, Veteran organizations, corporations, and other business brands.
With countless loyal and satisfied customers, One Off Apparel continues to grow and improve every day. It will be exciting to see what the next chapters hold!
Now, we want to hear from you! What’s your next clothing project? Send us a message—we’re excited to bring your vision to life!
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