7th Floor Clothing Claimed

The inception of 7th Floor Clothing began when childhood friends Frank Miller III & Preston Clark came together in 2016 to collaborate on a t-shirt project during the 2016 NBA Finals. The two designers favored the hometown Cleveland Cavaliers over the opposing Golden State Warriors and expressed this on a pre meditated championship t-shirt. At the time of production, the series was far from over and tied at 3 games each. Luckily for 7th Floor Clothing, the Cavaliers reigned victorious and the tee shirts where a hit. 

The breakthrough for 7th Floor Clothing came with a little help from the best basketball player in the world, Lebron James. During the welcome home ceremony for the Cavs, the superstar exited the team plane wearing a dad hat with a frog sipping tea. At the time this was a popular meme on social media that sparked a new idea from 7th Floor Clothing. Preston approached Frank about creating a customized championship version of the frog dad hat complete with the Cavs jersey, Larry O’Brien trophy and a crown on his head. After manufacturing the hat, the designers sent hats to Lebron James through mutual friends. One month later, Lebron posted two consecutive pictures of himself on Instagram wearing the hat.  Fans went in a frenzy looking for the hats.  After the posts from King James’ Instagram, the local news called in search of the two designers from Akron. After the news story aired other media outlets such as Bleacher Report and USA Today also reported on the hat and worldwide sales skyrocketed.  The “Kiss The Trophy” dad hat was a great success & 7th Floor Clothing was now a worldwide viral phenomenon. 

In 2017, 7th Floor Clothing released many new products, but the most popular campaign was yet to come. In the fall Clark and Miller teamed up with All Star Sports to create the “Stay Home 23” line. This concept came about when rumors started swirling in the sports world that Lebron James would be leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers after this final year of his contract. 7th Floor Clothing and All Star Sports created hats and tees expressing the desires of local sports fans for the King to “Stay Home”.  This campaign exploded when a local reporter caught wind of the merchandise and posted a story along with pictures on twitter.  Immediately after his story broke, the “Stay Home 23” merch was featured on ESPN’s The Jump, USA Today, The Bleacher Report and NBA.com. 

Nationwide sales started to rise once again among the fans. The “Stay Home 23” campaign eventually grabbed the attention of the #1 newspaper in the world, The New York Times.  In most of the previous articles about 7th Floor Clothing and it’s merchandise, Preston Clark & Frank Miller III remained anonymous until the New York Times sent a reporter and photographer to cover the brand. The New York times article was a sensation and a milestone for 7th Floor Clothing. 

7th Floor Clothing has been featured in some of the top media outlets in the world. Some of these publications include INC. Magazine, Forbes, Cleveland.com, The New York Times, The Beacon Journal, Craines Business, U.S.A. Today, The Devil Strip and The Reporter. Remarkably these two business owners have a story that resignates with people from all walks of life that have dreams and goals, thus making a great story for all of these publications.

In 2018, 7th Floor Clothing was selected by the City of Akron to be a part of a new pilot program called “Retail Revival” powered by the company that invented e-commerce, Ebay. With this partnership, Ebay took 7th Floor Clothing to new heights by sharing it’s recourses and showcasing the brand to a whole new online community.  Ebay believed in the vision of this company so much, that they booked Preston and Frank to come and speak at world headquarters in San Jose California. 7th Floor Clothing also teamed up with Ebay and Reflections of Trinity to create a t-shirt that helped feed 800 families for Thanksgiving in 2018. The sales from the shirt helped pay for turkeys and food boxes for all the families. 

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This year 7th Floor has releasesd some of the best and most exclusive pieces around. The world famous “Akron” logo hat has been a great seller along with other new designs. There has also been some memorable collabs. The Knight Foundation collaborated with 7th Floor for a limited Edition hat for its “Knight Arts Challenge”. 7th Floor also did a pop up shop in SOHO New York with credit card company American Express. The theme of the pop us was The Future of Shopping Small. American Express also filmed a documentary featuring 7th Floor Clothing called “Saving Main”. 

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7th Floor Clothing also prints clothing for other clothing lines and businesses. They have printed campaign T’s for the Mayor of Akron, many small businesses in and out of town, and a few larger companies. Frank and Preston pride themselves in serving the community and vistit many schools to tell the story of 7th Floor and motivate students that have a dream to go be great. 

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