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ORLANDO,
Fla.
—
James Love
, a third-generation firefighter from
Orlando, Fla.
, always wanted a tattoo.
He
finally sat down and sketched a design incorporating a
cross, an eagle, wings of flame and a skull in a black
helmet.
"When
my brother-in-law saw it, right away he said, 'You
should put it on T- shirts,'" Love recalled.
"He's a Web designer. He told me: 'Draw something
up; get it made; I'll put it on a Web site, and we'll
see if it can sell.'"
Love got
to work — and in June, his Black Helmet line of
firefighter-themed apparel for men, women and children
was launched online.
Sketching
comes naturally to Love, who majored in art at
Miami-Dade Community College
and planned to be a graphic artist — until the family
firefighter gene kicked in.
Things at
Black Helmet were slow going at first, Love said:
"If we had two sales in a day, I was stoked."
Now they
average 120 sales a day — and have more than 21,000
Facebook
fans in countries around the world.
"I'm
humbled people like my work," said Love, 30, who is
based at Station No. 3 in
Orlando's
College Park
neighborhood. "I see people at the gym wearing my
shirts. It's weird. It feels surreal."
His
T-shirt line has expanded to include a range of shirts,
shorts and accessories. All the designs have
firefighting references such as axes, hoses or flames.
Some include sayings: Fight Fire, Adapt & Overcome,
Remember the Fallen. A best-seller is a long-sleeved
thermal printed with a Maltese cross and a prayer from
Love's department chaplain.
"It's
cool stuff," said
Rick Walker
, Love's station chief. "I like the way a fire
element is tied into the design: The stem of a rose is
actually a fire hose. It's pretty unique," Walker
said.
Several
months ago, Love was commissioned to make shirts for the
Camp Liberty Fire Department
in
Iraq
. The designs should be on the Web site by mid-January.
"I'm
stoked about that," he said. "We are fighting
fires here. But they are fighting fires while someone is
lobbing mortars at them."
Black
Helmet Apparel is now making a modest profit. All the
same, Love is not about to give up his day job.
Firefighting is in his blood. His father and grandfather
were firefighters in the
Metro-Dade Fire Department
; his uncle and cousin are with the
Orlando
department.
His wife,
Victoria, who recently gave birth to their second son,
manages the Black Helmet inventory, works with the
screen printer and embroiderer, and takes product
pictures for the Web site — using local firefighters
as models.
Pedro Sostre
, his brother-in-law, maintains the Web site and is in
charge of marketing.
And in an
interesting turnaround, the clothing line that was
inspired by a tattoo now is inspiring tattoos.
Love's
Gothic-style Black Helmet logo has become quite a
popular tattoo design, especially among firefighters.
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