Shining "armor"

By Jill Oestreicher Gross
Friday, June 2, 2006

They're flying off the shelves at the boutique Pure, and children and adults have been spotted all over town wearing them. Newburyport's newest fashion statement comes in the form of a T-shirt, emblazoned with one of nearly 60 powerful slogans meant to promote self-expression and self-esteem.

The person behind the message is Jenifer Hoffman, a wife, a mother, an athlete and an entrepreneur whose idea for a business has resonated with Newburyporters, Bostonians and New Yorkers, and has even caught the attention of national retail chain Federated Department Stores.

"The T-shirts are meant to motivate, inspire and celebrate the good inherent in all of us," Hoffman writes on her Web site. "Each slogan is open for interpretation, allowing an individual to be just that, an individual."

Tired of the negative messages found on T-shirts and in the media, Hoffman, 36, a Newburyport resident, decided to take matters into her own hands and create positive messages instead. The result is "emotional armor," a company she started in January with her savings.

"I looked everywhere and I wasn't seeing enough of it," she said about the presence of positive messages in society. "So I started putting it everywhere, my way."

Among the most popular styles for women are "princess not in need of rescue," "walking my internal red carpet" and "tough warrior princess"; the men's line features "protector of peace" and "good will always prevail."

For children, girls' shirts include "i'm the knight" and "happiness fairy," while boys' shirts read "natural born hero" and "pure energy." There's even a baby line of onesies with peace and celestial symbols.

Born in Newburyport, Hoffman lived on Plum Island until she was 7. She and her mother then moved to Pennsylvania. Hoffman attended the University of Delaware and met her husband there, later moving with him to Camden, Maine. When a job opportunity arose for Gregg Hoffman in Boston, the couple in 1997 moved to Newburyport. They have three children ages 9, 7 and 4.

Last year was a challenging one for Jenifer Hoffman. She fell and seriously injured herself during the cycling section of a triathlon, she was assaulted outside of her South End home, her grandmother died, and her youngest child started school. The events left Hoffman with the will to start a project of her own.

She came up with the company's name after a conversation she had with her mother, a therapist who lives in the British Virgin Isles. Counseling her daughter on how to face her challenges, she told her to leave the house every day wearing her "emotional armor."

That phrase, displayed in the company's logo with the first "o" as a peace sign and the "o" in armor as a heart, as well as the popular slogans "princess. not in need of rescue" and "walking my internal red carpet" are now trademarked.

Business boomed after an AprilBoston Globe article on Hoffman and her line, which generated more than 700 e-mails and 65 phone calls from people interested in buying T-shirts as well as people who wanted to share their reactions to Hoffman's messages. Hoffman said more than 1,000 shirts have been printed, and hundreds have been sold.

"The T-shirts have taken on a life of their own," she said. "I want this to be something that keeps spinning out. This isn't a one-shot deal."

Hoffman is currently donating all of her net profits to two local causes, a community cultural enrichment program for children that she hopes to start, and to the Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center, the violence-prevention organization where she is a board member. She may at some point take a salary from the business, but for now is happy donating the proceeds.

Suzanne Dubus, the center's executive director, is thrilled with the additional funds and with being a part of Hoffman's campaign. "It's really nice to have funds raised in a way that resonates with our goals and purpose," she said. She said her daughter has two of the shirts, and even at age 6, she seems to understand the message behind the "i'm the knight" shirt, to be strong and unafraid.

"It's a reminder to kids and adults that you are everything you need to be, just the way you are," she said.

Hoffman said looked at her own life and the lives of those around her when writing the slogans. For example, the "tough warrior princess" shirt was inspired by a friend of Hoffman's who is a breast-cancer survivor. The "princess. not in need of rescue" shirt represents Hoffman's desire to be known as a fighter, not a victim.

Jungle Inc. in Ipswich prints the 100-percent-cotton shirts in a variety of colors. They cost $36 for women, $39 for men and $28 for children. For now, they are only sold at Pure at the Tannery and at in*jean*ius on Hanover Street in Boston, but both locations are shipping shirts to customers nationwide.

"I just loved [the shirts] and thought they had such a positive and important message," said Elizabeth Hopkinson, owner of Pure. "My customers come in and look through them, and they are smiling. I think people just feel good about the shirts."

Hoffman is in talks with New York City boutique Scoop for distribution there, but decided at this point not to move forward with the bigger and more commercial Federated Department Stores, which includes Macy's and Filene's. She is planning to launch the e-commerce component to her Web site in the coming weeks, and is already working on her fall line.

Hoffman's passion for the business is clear.

"I am not reinventing the wheel, just placing my simple, unique imprint of thoughts onto a T-shirt," she said. "But for me it is extremely fun and honestly a huge leap toward my own authentic happiness. It combines a lot of who I am at the core and allows me to share it in a huge way. It honestly feels terrific."