NEW YORK — Chip & Pepper is going back to school.
This fall, the denim brand is launching CP University, a collaboration with some of the country’s top universities, to produce a line of T-shirts, sweatshirts and fleece and track jackets emblazoned with school logos.
Collegiate Licensing Co. orchestrated the deal with the universities, and Chip and Pepper Foster, the twin brothers behind the Los Angeles-based denim line Chip & Pepper, also secured collaborative rights to work with the University of Southern California, which handles its licensing internally.
Chip & Pepper will roll out CP University at the end of November with 15 universities, among them New York University, University of Alabama, USC and Florida State University.
“These Ts are the best quality,” said Pepper. “They’re like the ones you find in your grandmother’s closet. The ones you throw on when it gets cool and you’re out at the pool or the beach. They’re all-American.”
“It’s really luxe collegiate,” Chip added.
CP University will be available at the same department stores and specialty boutiques that carry Chip & Pepper denim, such as Barneys New York, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus. The wholesale price range for T-shirts will be between $28 and $35, sweatshirts start at $70 and tracksuits start at $80. CP University won’t be available at campus bookstores, but that could change at any time, Pepper said, “if they could handle it.”
“We’re going to take this one step at a time,” he said.
Chip and Pepper began collecting vintage T-shirts from various universities in the early Nineties to complement their collection of vintage denim. Since the success of Chip & Pepper preempted their own college experiences, the twins are especially excited about the launch of CP University. “Maybe it’s because we missed going to university so much that we’re doing this,” Chip said. The company declined to provide a projection figure regarding the wholesale volume of CP University.
Getting the collection off the ground was no small feat: The Fosters have been working on the project for more than a year. “There’s a lot of red tape,” said Chip. “All the colors, every single piece, has to be approved by the university.”
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But it’s definitely worth the wait, they said. “These colleges have been around for hundreds of years,” Chip added. “And they’re not going anywhere.”