Cynical Clothing was Founded in 2008 by Will Schaule, Brad Schooley, and Justin Hasty in Burleson, Texas. The idea of starting a clothing company seemed crazy at the time. Outside of Will taking a simple screen printing class in High School, none of the three had any experience in design, much less screen printing. When Will presented the idea to Schooley and Justin, they were all in. It was time to get a game plan together. First, we needed a name. Nights were spent with many, many bottles of vodka, lots of paper, and plenty of names... but nothing seemed to really standout. We aren't really sure how it happened, but we can tell you that driving in his truck one day, the word "cynical" bounced into Will's head. All it took was one text to Schooley and Justin with one word.... CYNICAL.

 

So we had a name but zero equipment to start printing shirts. A few nights later some more vodka was consumed and Schooley gave Will $225 to go and get some supplies to get the ball rolling. We started off with a homemade printing press that Will's cousin had made from 2'x4's, springs, door hinges and c-clamps. It wasn't pretty but it worked! As mentioned before, none of us had any idea how screen printing worked. We were unaware that screen printing ink had to be heated to to a high temperature to dry and cure. The very first shirts printed were worn by Justin and Will the next day and ultimately ended up rubbing off and transferring to their car seats. Tough lessons learned to say the least. 

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In his down time, Will taught himself Photoshop and started working on the very first Cynical designs. The first designs we very simple, one color (since we were all still learning the process).  Now that we had a handful of designs and some shirts printed, it was time to start thinking about how to get them out for sale. At the time Schooley, worked with a guy that did website development. After a short meeting with him, we had him on-board to design the Cynical website. Fast forward several months, the website was ready and we were more than ready to launch the Cynical brand to the world!

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In 2009, we held our official launch party at Bar 9 in Fort Worth, Texas. We invited all of our friends and family to help celebrate what we had accomplished. The day after the launch party our website would go live... here we go!  It's going to happen! We are going to click this button and our shirts are going to be available to the world!!! CLICK.... Nothing. No sales.  Just nothing.  In our heads there was going to be people standing by their computers waiting for the site to launch and we were going to sell hundreds of shirts within minutes. Needless to say we had a lot more to learn.

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Enter the band Parabelle. Will, Schooley and Justin had been big fans of a band named Evans Blue. When it was discovered the lead singer (Kevin Matisyn) for Evans Blue had left the band and started another project called Parabelle, the guys were intrigued.  PB was set to play at a tattoo convention in Dallas, and the guys were not going to miss this. Will started working on a PB inspired shirt design. It was a simple design with a tree branch, some birds flying and the bands logo emblazed across the front. Will ended up wearing this shirt to the show and was confronted by the guitarist of the band at the time.  He asked if we could make some for the band to sell as merch.  The rest is pretty much history. We consider it fate that we were starting a clothing company the same time PB was starting as well. 

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As time went on the designs got better, the equipment we were using got better and the amount of shirts sold was staying pretty constant. We were starting to get asked by local bands in the DFW area to design and print their merch. Will, Schooley and Justin all worked  full-time jobs and were printing shirts at night to fulfill the overwhelming number of orders from around the world they were getting. This was the new normal and it started to take a toll on everyone. We would get off of work at 5, come home, and work in the garage with equipment running temps that would sometimes reach well over 100.  We spent nights printing, sorting, and shipping orders until 2-3am, 7 days a week. We all needed a break...

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Back to the BACYCS? Cynical went on a hiatus for about a year and a half, when we decided it was time to come back. After a soft relaunch and releasing a handful of shirts the brand fell flat... Maybe it was time to bury the Cynical name.

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Looking for something to fill the void, Justin and Will got into racing RC cars and shifted the Cynical name to Cynical Race Wear. We started designing and printing shirts and hats inspired by the RC racing community.  It was definitely a different direction from where we were, but it seemed right at the time. For those wondering what will happen to Cynical Racing? It's not going anywhere!   

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Now... 

 

CYNIKAL, swap a C for a K and lets flip the system. It has been a long road to get to where we are at today. There has been many lessons learned.  A LOT of blood, sweat, and tears. But we are BACK and this time it's different....