NoBasis customized apparel business sets up shop Downtown at 65A Monroe Ave.

Althea Young recently opened her customized apparel business NoBasis at 65A Monroe Ave. The idea for the business first occurred to her while in college in Ohio, but it solidified while she was studying aboard in France.

"I couldn't speak French, so I got a shirt that read, 'Parlez-vous Anglais?' — Do you speak English? — and once I got that shirt people were nicer to me. They tried to at least speak English," she said.

That's when the thought struck her that "fashion is communication" — the tenet of NoBasis.

Young went on to open a store in a mall in Ohio. It was part of a program to bolster small businesses and to pump up foot traffic in the mall. She ran that business for 6 years and moved the shop to Memphis when her fiancé took a job with the Memphis Grizzlies.

NoBasis offers four types of printing services — screen printing, embroidery, direct to garment, and HTV, or heat transfer vinyl — for both business to business and business to customer. They also offer hydrodip services for sneakers or any hard surface item like phone cases that turns them into colorful tie-dye pieces.

The store sells T-shirts, sweatshirts, collared shirts, tote bags, shirts for dogs and babies, and half and halfs (a shirt or sweatshirt split in two colors) for customization, all with the NoBasis tag. Customers can order one shirt at a time to be ready in as little as an hour, depending on the printing and complexity of the design.

"We offer real-time printing services," Young said. "For example, if you came in and said, 'It's my birthday. I need a T-shirt.' We can do it that same day. It's for baby showers, sports teams, any event. We're your go-to same day printers."

NoBasis can also deliver orders of several hundred for businesses and organizations.

Employees wear a lab coat with "Creative Coach" printed on the back. The coaches ask customers questions to draw out their personalities. "We coach them into their creativity," Young said.

"We're called NoBasis because the customer creates the base," she said. "Someone might come in and get something that's a political statement. Someone might come in and get a birthday statement. Someone might come in and get a religious statement. The brand is really just bringing out that person's values, beliefs. We don't create the base of the brand."

To that end, some of those statements can get racy, Young admitted. She said it's not the particular stance as it is how strongly people state that stance. When it comes to obscenities, she'll recommend the use of asterisks, mindful that the NoBasis tag is on the shirt.

NoBasis has a line of statement tees, with sayings, such as "Happy to Be Here," "I Am Art," and "Love Is the Only Law." It's been suggested to her that she Memphis-ize her shirts by incorporating the word "mane."

NoBasis is part of the Downtown Memphis Commission's Open on Main program, which offers spaces rent-free for businesses to test out their concepts.

Young said she's ready to size up Memphis' creativity.

"Memphis has a lot of personality. I'm actually eager to listen more to the city and what they want to say," she said. "I just want to introduce people to the brand."

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