Alumni’s upcycled clothing business features vintage ASU pieces

Gianna Petrilli, owner of Petrilli Clothing, found her passion for fashion as a student at ASU. Petrilli graduated in May 2020 with a degree in communication and a double minor in film and media production and fashion. 

According to Petrilli, her idea to start a vintage clothing business developed over time. It all started when Petrilli was a first-year student. 

“When I was a freshman at ASU I remember my first tailgate I went to. I noticed everyone was cutting up their ASU shirts,” Petrilli said. 

One of Petrilli's upcycled tops

Petrilli thought the restyled ASU shirts were cute and immediately began watching tutorials on how to cut and remake shirts herself. 

“I remember watching my very first YouTube tutorial on how to do it. I remember thinking, this was so much fun. It made me feel so confident,” Petrilli said.

Before long, Petrilli began to notice that her friends were also interested in showing their Sun Devil spirit through redesigned ASU shirts. However, cutting the shirts was not always easy. Most of her friends struggled with cutting straight lines in the fabric, Petrilli says.

Petrilli quickly found that she had a special knack for cutting T-shirts. 

“Everyone needed that person who was good with scissors to do it for them, to have the straight edges. I was always that person for my friends,” Petrilli said.

Over the summer between her freshman and sophomore year, Petrilli learned to sew, and before long Petrilli took restyling T-shirts to a new level. Throughout her sophomore year, she worked on designing ASU shirts in different styles. She gave shirts as gifts to her friends and started to make various shirts for her Alpha Chi Omega sorority sisters. 

As a junior, she created an Instagram account to market her spirit wear after being encouraged by friends. The account was a hit. Petrilli’s main customers were students involved with Greek life on campus. 

For Petrilli, upcycling shirts was a fun hobby that quickly turned into a passionate business. Upcycling is the practice of recycling old clothing by reusing it in a way that increases its value. 

“It’s when you get shirts from thrifted stores and re-make them then sell them for more than what they are worth,” Petrilli said.

“My Goodwill trips are insane,” Petrilli added, reporting that she usually buys up to 50 shirts at a time when she goes thrift shopping. 

As Petrelli's thrift shop trips grew, so did her business. Petrilli partnered with her sorority and began hosting small pop-up shops so she could sell her clothes at sorority events. After successfully selling shirts through pop-up shops, she created a website for her business, where she currently sells most of her products. 

During her time at ASU, Petrilli’s main customer was ASU students, and most of her products were vintage ASU spirit wear. Now, however, Petrilli has branched out to other themes aside from Sun Devil spirit. 

“I want to expand it to not only just ASU shirts; I want to expand it to vintage clothes in general,” Petrilli said. 

According to Petrilli, she is working on rebranding her business from ASU clothes one would wear to go out on the game day to comfortable clothes Sun Devils can wear at home. 

“More ASU spirit wear and not just going out clothes, just cute wearable clothes at home,” Petrilli said. 

The ongoing sale section customers can find on the Petrilli Clothing website is just one way Petrilli works to make her clothing affordable to college students. She also gives out discount codes regularly. 

“I always have an ongoing sale section, and then I’m always doing discount codes. I try to make it fairly priced for college students,” Pertilli said. 

Although Petrilli’s scheduled pop-up shops have been canceled due to COVID-19, customers can still buy clothes off the Petrilli Clothing website.

“I hope people know I love doing this so much, it just brings me so much joy and I hope they see that when they get the clothes and view the Instagram and the website.”

As for the future, Petrilli aspires to work in the film industry. Her dream job would be to work in an environment where she can combine her passions for fashion and film. Get your own gear by checking out the Petrilli Clothing website and Instagram.