THE STORY BEHIND THE SHIRT
More than 40,000 iconic shirts sold since founder came up with idea in 2011
The phrase is typed in Helvetica font and screen printed onto cotton Tshirts with a square surrounding it. The simple design has become an unofficial flag for the city, like our own “I heart NY.” Upper-case letters stacked in four lines spell it out: MILWAUKEE HOME. Since Milwaukee Home founder Melissa Thornton came up with the design in 2011, she’s sold more than 40,000 shirts. It’s a word-of-mouth business — she never paid for any advertising. The company does have an Instagram account (@MilwaukeeHome) with more than 33,000 followers.
Thousands wear the shirts — at the grocery store, concerts, bars and traveling the world — and tell Thornton their stories. One couple met while wearing the T-shirts in Chicago. They’re married now. Macaulay Culkin wore one when he played with his band the Pizza Underground at the now-closed Hotel Foster in 2014. A traveler in South America encountered another hiker wearing it and made a fast friend. Heck, Usher’s choreographer wore the shirt while in town.
‘Milwaukee wasn’t cool’
Thornton didn’t always love Milwaukee.
After graduating from Mukwonago High School in 1998, she moved to the city for college at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.
“To me, Milwaukee wasn’t cool at the time,” she said. There was nothing downtown. The Third Ward hadn’t yet filled in with restaurants, shops and bars. It seemed like everything closed at 5 p.m.
She graduated from MIAD in 2002 with a degree in communication design and went to work for an advertising agency in Hales Corners, Nonbox.
“Everyone’s mind-set was just to get out of the city and go somewhere else where there was more opportunity,” she said.
That’s what Thornton did: Nonbox started to partner with an agency in Florida. so Thornton moved just outside of Orlando.
Five years and a breakup later, she unenthusiastically moved back to Milwaukee. But she started to see the city in a new light. The Packers won the 2011 Super Bowl her first weekend in the city. Thornton moved into an apartment in the Third Ward. She tried new restaurants and bars.
“As soon as summer hit that year I was experiencing what the city had to offer, and I felt like it had blossomed in the five years that I was gone,” she said. Milwaukee seemed to have a pride and a creative energy that was lacking before.
That’s when Thornton decided Milwaukee was where she wanted to stay. Milwaukee was her home.
‘Where did you get that?’
Nothing about Milwaukee Home, as a business, was intentional, Thornton said.
She designed the original T-shirt to give as a Christmas present. She paired the words Milwaukee and home and made two prints on zazzle.com.
“My friend wore it out all the time,” she said. “We were at Bel Air and somebody came up and said, ‘Where did you get that?’”
Thornton thought it would be cool to see people wearing her shirts. So she made more of them. She sold them from her car outside bars and events. She gave away shirts to local DJs and bar owners. Then everyone wanted one.
Thornton remembers the first time she saw a stranger wearing her design. She was leaving the Oriental Theater after seeing a movie.
“I remember coming out and seeing a guy wearing it,” she said. “Then a guy was coming out of the frozen yogurt place over there. He was like, ‘Yeah, Milwaukee Home.’ They both were wearing it.”
Starting the business was a way for Thornton to show love for the city she now calls home. The idea is for everyone who wears a Milwaukee Home shirt to feel a distinct sense of hometown pride.
That’s exactly how Angela Damiani feels when she wears a Milwaukee Home shirt to work, out, anywhere really. She owns six of them.
Damiani moved a lot as a kid. She chose to live in Milwaukee as an adult. The NEWaukee co-founder and CEO been here nearly a decade.
“Perhaps there was some resistance to how great this place is,” she said. “People are starting to believe it.
“Beyond things being built, there is this sense of renewal,” she said. “I don’t know how much Milwaukee Home has to do with it as much maybe as it is a reflection of people’s excitement about being here.”
‘She’s doing it right.’
As demand for Milwaukee Home shirts ramped up, Thornton’s employer lost clients and she was let go from her full-time job. The living room of her 700square-foot Third Ward apartment was filled with boxes of shirts. So she began thinking about making Milwaukee Home her job.
Walking her dog through the neighborhood, she noticed a storefront on Jackson St. advertised as work/live space. Thornton took it. She cashed in her entire 401(k) and dedicated herself to Milwaukee Home.
The $1,250 rent was cheaper than her apartment, but the space needed work. She put up a half wall to divide the 400square-foot living space from the retail store. She refreshed the space with new carpet and a coat of paint.
She opened the store on her 33rd birthday, Oct. 25, 2012. She also sells the shirts online at mkehome.com.
To mark the fifth anniversary of the shop at 159 N. Jackson St., she plans to expand the store offerings, making the store a place to showcase local brands like Koss headphones, Summerfest, the Milwaukee Art Museum, Stone Creek Coffee and Milwaukee Brewing Co., among others.
Thornton redesigned the space again during the first week of October to make room for the extended offerings. The partition creating Thornton’s bedroom was taken out. Now, all 1,000 square feet are dedicated retail space.
Partnering with other local businesses has always been a point of pride for Thornton: The Milwaukee Bucks, Pabst, Summerfest, Florence Eiseman and others have partnered with Milwaukee Home on special edition T-shirts.
Milwaukee Home shirts are printed in Oak Creek at Red Wall Screen Printing. The print shop owner, Jeff Meilander, who grew up in Glendale, liked the way Thornton saw the city. After spending time traveling around the country playing guitar with a few different bands, Meilander was proud to be from Milwaukee.
“I would come home and say this is a cool city,” he said. “A lot of my friends who stayed wanted to get out. They didn’t appreciate the city the way we do now. There weren’t a lot of people thinking like Melissa and I. She’s doing it right.”