HOLIDAY HANDBOOK
When Jordan Basile and Morgan Miller made T-shirts for North Tahoe High School’s basketball rally squad their senior year, little did they know that the shirts would catch on like wildfire. Their second batch of 50 shirts, which featured an outline of Lake Tahoe and the words ‘TAHOEMADE,’ were gone in one week. But it wasn’t until both boys graduated from college that they were able to devote more time to their clothing project, brand their name, and in 2010 officially start the company TahoeMade Attire.
Their mission: ‘Represent the culture that is Tahoe.’
In addition to T-shirts, TahoeMade makes hoodies, sweatpants, trucker hats, face masks, and water bottles, almost all featuring the symbol that has made TahoeMade clothes so sought-after — the Lake Tahoe silhouette.
‘A lot of people like the idea of having Tahoe on a shirt that is not a tourist thing or a souvenir,’ Basile said. ‘It allows you to represent Tahoe without looking like a tourist.’
When Basile and Miller first started, they would order blank shirts and embellish them with their own logos and designs at home in Tahoe City. As demand for their clothes grew, TahoeMade moved manufacturing to Reno and then to Los Angeles, where the clothes are now created from scratch. Basile does all of the design work in Tahoe, emphasizing comfort. Their most popular item is the serape hoodie, where the Lake Tahoe logo is patterned after a Mexican blanket. No two are alike.
‘People love that sweatshirt wherever we go,’ Basile said. ‘They can choose one that speaks to them the most.’
TahoeMade attire can be found at Tahoe Dave’s, Fine n’ Funky, and Alpenglow in Tahoe City, and Down by the River, Closet Cowgirl, and Kalifornia Jean Bar in Truckee, as well as on TahoeMadeAttire.com. Basile and Miller hope to break into Bay Area surf shops, as well as stores in South Lake Tahoe and Reno. They would like their brand to become synonymous with outdoor sports, similar to Patagonia, Quicksilver, and Reef.
‘Tahoe is a place that people find a lot of pride in,’ said Miller. ‘People always want to take away something that says Tahoe on it.’
And now people can, without looking like they just walked out of a tourist shop.
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