When Remi Lubcher was 13, her mother Mari Lubcher yelled at her for cutting up T-shirts and leaving fabric all over the floor.

“I would yell at her all the time because she was ruining shirts. She was young — she was 13 maybe — and she was cutting up a good shirt, and she wouldn’t ask for permission, and it was a really big thing in our house,” Mari Lubcher said. “Like every time I turned around something else was cut. But then she started getting neater and neater.”

Five years later, Lubcher has turned a hobby into a business at Syracuse University. As someone who doesn’t like to wear anything more than once, she started cutting T-shirts to add her own personal touch to them.

“I tried out new things because I am very crazy about my clothes,” said Lubcher, a freshman broadcast and digital journalism major. “I don’t like to wear something more than once and that’s very difficult to buy new clothes all the time, so I take my T-shirts and make them into cool things I can wear whenever.”

When she was in high school, the habit she formed as a young teenager piqued the interest of others, and students at her school starting asking her to cut their shirts, too. It inspired her to start Snipped and Styled, a business that transforms plain T-shirts into different styles for $10.

Lubcher’s most popular style is the braid, in which she cuts shirt into a halter with fabric braided down the back. Snipped and Styled made its way from Lubcher’s hometown and summer camp to SU after students saw her shirts during the first football tailgate of the year.

“A lot of the freshman were aware of it, and my roommate had a shirt and she wore it and people saw that,” Lubcher said. “People would stop me and say ‘Your shirt’s so cool, how did you get that?’ And I would say ‘I actually made it.’”

When Lubcher and Ali Skinder decided to room together at SU, Lubcher sent Skinder a custom Syracuse shirt for her birthday. Skinder now has four Snipped and Styled shirts.

“I like that they’re kind of simple,” said Skinder, a freshman child and family studies major. “She just cuts them in a simple way, but the shirts end up looking really good and awesome, and everyone loves them.”

Lubcher attributes the success of Snipped and Styled to the amount of sporting events Syracuse has.

“I’ve been doing so many Syracuse shirts,” Lubcher said. “Also, a lot of people like to go out, and they’re fun to wear out. Costumes and theme parties — there are just a lot of opportunities to wear Snipped and Styled.”

The business has also expanded from the East Coast. Lubcher gets orders from out-of-state colleges regularly.

“Someone in California knew who I was because I was making their sister a shirt in California,” Lubcher said. “It was just so strange to see that it became national.”

Since the school year started, Lubcher has completed more than 50 shirts. She said that although the demand can get overwhelming, she still enjoys doing it.

Skinder believes Snipped and Styled is successful because it’s unique, and to Lubcher, her business is about more than just making money.

“She just loves making things for people that make them happy,” Skinder said. “She loves when she’s just walking on the street and she sees someone wearing her shirt, and she’s like, ‘Oh, I made that.’”

Lubcher hopes to use the entrepreneurial attitude she’s developed in her future. She said it has become part of who she is.

Lubcher’s mother said she is proud of how the business has taken off and is even happier that Snipped and Styled has allowed Lubcher to meet people at school and establish herself.

Said Mari Lubcher: “The way that it took off on social media and the way that everybody knows her for this, that she’s made her mark for this and made herself known is just so fitting for her personality because she’s never been a low-profile, ‘blend into the woodwork’ kind of kid.”

Published on October 29, 2014 at 12:01 am

Contact Emma: ekbaty@syr.edu