Fred Flather TG’90 Promotes Confidence and Character in his New Clothing Line for Girls

Fred Flather’s business is a family affair. The company’s name comes from Grandma Hilde Makoshey. “She was always herself, and we believe that’s how girls want to be.”

“DO GOOD. HAVE FUN!” FRED FLATHER TG’90 PROMOTES CONFIDENCE AND CHARACTER IN HIS NEW CLOTHING LINE FOR GIRLS

Career changer Fred Flather is one year into a new business venture: running Makoshey clothing company with his wife Kristen from their home in Illinois. The new Chicago-based company makes clothes that “keep up” with active, independent girls ages 6-14. Their positive messages inspire girls to confidently “be who you are and who you aspire to be” and “do what you love!” We talked with Fred about how the business began, the hurdles he has encountered along the way, and his formative experiences at Nashoba Brooks School.

“I’D ALWAYS WANTED TO START a business... it was just a question of finding what exactly we were going to do,” Fred remarks honestly, when asked how he began Makoshey clothing company. After graduating from Nashoba Brooks in 1990, Fred went on to The Fenn School and then to Phillips Academy Andover. Upon graduation from Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law, he began work as an attorney—first as a prosecutor and then for the state government of Illinois in the Department of Human Services. After “a decade or so” of practicing law, he sought a “fresh start” and decided to embark on an expedition into entrepreneurship. Fred’s two criteria for this new venture: “do some good and have fun while doing it.”

Generating ideas for a business began with seeking solutions. Fred and his wife Kristen, with whom he runs the company, need look no further than home—to their oldest daughter Sophie—for inspiration. “She is a girl who’s very sporty, and she’s always been closer with boys than with girls,” Fred explains. “Her interests align with stereotypically, historically male interests.”

According to Fred, about three years ago, Sophie stopped wanting to wear dresses. Then she “dropped the color pink from her wardrobe” followed closely by purple, then sparkles and rainbows. “We were trying to be as supportive as we could be,” says Fred sincerely, “and it became a real challenge to find clothes that worked for her.” Their first step was shopping in the boys’ department because the themes and colors appealed to Sophie, but the clothes did not fit right; they were long and baggy and loose. Faced with this dilemma, Fred and Kristen devised a solution—not just for their daughter, but for girls everywhere. “We decided that it would be really cool if we could find a way to make clothes that were in the middle—that had the colors and the styles she liked, had a fit that was made just for girls, and had messages that were inspiring for moms...and for their daughters.” Voila! The idea for their business was born.

Makoshey’s motto is “Feel free to be you.” On the company’s website, the Flathers candidly explain that, “As parents of three daughters, we see most brands featuring tight and short clothes for girls. And it all seems the same! With messages and color palettes conforming to gender stereotypes, we constantly struggle to find awesome clothes to match our daughters’ interests. We know there are millions of girls, like our daughters, hungry for something fresh. That’s why we created Makoshey.”

Some of the company’s T-shirt graphics depict bold, silhouette images of girls playing various sports while others include inspiring quotes from influential women in history, like Amelia Earhart, Harriet Tubman, and Marie Curie. The brand even has a line of positive, power word shirts, so girls can wear their character—kind, fearless, independent, or gritty—with confidence. “Now, I’ve become so much more aware of, and familiar with, how much clothes do message who you are,” notes Fred. “For someone like my oldest daughter, Sophie, who’s trying to

Fred and his four children show off Makoshey wear.

signal that she likes science, math, and sports...to have clothes that can signal that, and have the colors that signal that, means a lot to her and allows her to feel more comfortable with who she is.”

Meanwhile, the Flathers are becoming increasingly more comfortable with navigating the various steps in the process from design to production. Starting a new business offers no shortage of opportunities for learning and growth, especially given the daily surprises that inevitably pop up. Although Fred’s prior experience in law has helped him when it comes to handling problems, he admits that, “running a business is like whack-amole solving problems. Every day, a new issue comes up...and [we] have to all of a sudden become experts in some brand new thing that we’ve never tried before.” The Flathers know that tomorrow, another problem—or several—will arise that they have to solve. The process is “exhilarating and a lot of fun” but also “daunting and overwhelming” at the same time.

Makoshey is still in its infancy, so right now Fred and Kristen are building products and developing their marketing. The first line of T-shirts came out last November, and the company has plans to eventually

add shorts, pants, swimwear, blazers, and suits. Most mornings, Fred responds and sends emails to producers in Asia, trying to negotiate with them and get samples back and forth. Meanwhile, Kristen heads up marketing, spreading the word through Facebook and Instagram. They have hired a couple of people to help with messaging and public relations, as well.

“Everything takes longer than we want it to take,” says Fred. And that is true now more than ever, as the complex challenges of COVID-19 have undoubtedly affected small businesses, like Makoshey, around the world. Fred explains how the production chain has slowed significantly, given the pandemic. The fabric that comes from Korea could not ship on time to the factory in Virginia that cuts the material for Makoshey’s shorts; and that factory is not currently able to cut the shorts, since it has recently shifted gears to make personal protective equipment, which Fred recognizes is both necessary and admirable. Despite the slow down, company sales are up. Fred believes Makoshey’s uplifting messages “strike a chord” with people, and the company is committed to giving back. Currently, Makoshey is donating 10 percent of its power word T-shirt sales to No Kid Hungry. They have also teamed up with the

Game On! Sports 4 Girls to offer scholarships to girls for summer sports camps. Corporate social responsibility is important to Fred, and the company’s care and concern for others speaks to a core value he learned early on at Nashoba Brooks School: be kind.

“Be kind was something that really stuck with me, that’s always stuck with me,” Fred says with a smile. “In fact, one of the very first shirts we designed is a yellow shirt that says “kind’ on it in green, and part of what I was thinking about was Nashoba Brooks...that’s a value that I got from being at Nashoba Brooks.”

“When I look back, the thing that I feel I got out of my experience at Nashoba Brooks was this encouragement to build and to create. Our teachers were very flexible in letting us explore the interests that we had.”

Fred also fondly remembers classes with Ms. Webber, Ms. Kindleberger, and Mr. Potsaid and recalls how he was often the first student dropped off and the last student picked up because both of his parents were working in Boston. “I didn’t mind it at all because it was more time with my friends,” Fred reminisces. “When I look back, the thing that I feel I got out of my experience at Nashoba Brooks was this encouragement to build and to create. Our teachers were very flexible in letting us explore the interests that we had.” Fred recounts hours of art time, paper airplane-making, and his “wonderful science teacher” who took the class out into the woods to build structures and walked across campus to model the distance between the planets. “Building and creating was such an important part of the education, and I think that’s probably a big reason why I wanted to build a company...I was really drawn to doing something creative.” When asked about his hopes and dreams for Makoshey, Fred replies earnestly and with a noticeable trace of emotion in his voice: “I think our biggest hope and dream is to give girls who are looking for something different, clothes that they feel really comfortable in...to find those girls who are like our daughter Sophie, that are struggling a little bit...It’s tough being a kid...You don’t

Fred and his wife Kristen run Makoshey from their home.

know who you are, what you’re supposed to be, what you’re supposed to look like...and for some kids, like my daughter...the world is sending her signals that the stuff she wants to wear isn’t right...and that’s sad, that’s hard. We want to find those girls. We want to get these clothes in their hands and have them feel good.”

One major benefit of running a business from home is that Fred now spends a lot more time with his four children. In addition to Sophie (11), Fred and Kristen have twins Kate and Finn (9), and Charlotte, who proudly proclaims to be “4 and three-quarters.” Fred’s girls have been models on the Makoshey website, and now that the

children are engaged in remote learning at home, they really see what it is like to run a business firsthand.

“They’re involved and invested in it, too,” Fred says proudly, “and it’s been great for them to see us working hard and building something...so that’s a lot of fun.”

Check out Makoshey at: www.makoshey.com.