Can Christians Make Cool Clothes?

This interview is part of The Reconstruct, a weekly newsletter from Sojourners. In a world where so much needs to change, Mitchell Atencio and Josiah R. Daniels interview people who have faith in a new future and are working toward repair. Subscribe here.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, I started paying more attention to what I was wearing. It had been a year of sweatpants and T-shirts, and I was ready to switch things up to be presentable for the outside world. So, I started doing research on places that put time and effort into well-made pieces of clothing that look good, are built to last, and are ethically produced by people who care about their employees. And for menswear, you don’t have to do much of that kind of research before you start seeing the name 3sixteen everywhere.

Founded in 2003 by Andrew Chen, 3sixteen specializes in finely crafted garments that are coveted by fashion nerds the world over. Chen was later joined by Johan Lam and, together, the two built 3sixteen into a fashion powerhouse, and they’ve done it the old-fashioned way: by ignoring fleeting trends and fast-fashion economics in favor of crafting timeless pieces that age like wine.

It’s embarrassing for a guy in faith-based editorial work to admit this, but the obvious biblical reference in the name didn’t occur to me until our news editor pointed it out. Chen and Lam are Christians, and in my conversation with them, they explain how they’ve built a different sort of clothing brand: an intentional one focused on garments that are both well-made and ethically made, one where the Christian message doesn’t come through a logo on the shirt but through the quality and creativity of the craftsmanship. Read ahead to learn more about Chen and Lam’s thoughts on being the “Amy Grant” of the fashion world, why they said no to selling their clothes in Christian markets, and why their clothes are so expensive.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tyler Huckabee, Sojourners: Can you give me the origin story of 3sixteen, how you guys met, and when you first started dreaming about this?

Andrew Chen: I don’t know that Johan has ever shared his thoughts on what I’m about to talk about. Growing up in the church, as I did, the only interface you had with faith and clothing would be a T-shirt from your church retreat or the type of stuff that you would see for sale at a summer festival. And if it wasn’t a band T-shirt, it would be something that was poorly flipped. Like a label that got changed to “Christ” or something.

Marketing for Jesus, basically. I don’t have to talk about Jesus if my shirt says “Jesus Christ” in the Coca-Cola font.

Andrew: If you view Christ as the number one thing in your life, then you view fashion as a way to get people on your side. It’s a tool that serves your agenda.

So, you wanted to start a fashion brand, and you knew your faith was going to be a part of it, but you wanted to do it differently.

Andrew: Johan and I both follow Jesus. When we started talking about our ideas for graphics to put on T-shirts, streetwear back then was very conceptual. It was a countermovement to big brands with huge logos all over, like Ecko or Akademiks or something like that. [The countermovement we were interested in] had headier graphics. They would platform political free thinkers and ideas and promote knowledge and creativity. They were led by underground street artists who were doing graffiti and whatnot. So, it was very countercultural in that way. And we find the teachings of Christ to be pretty countercultural. We were like, can we design some graphics that expose the beauty or wisdom that you can find in the Bible in a way that’s creative?

There is no scripture reference on [our clothing], but there are kingdom values that are [on our clothing]. There was a whole season where we talked about death through our graphics and how your time on earth is limited. And that’s an idea that people can relate to even if they don’t follow Jesus. Our hope was that we put out stuff that we’re proud to wear — that anybody, Christian or non-Christian, could get down with, could be into.

We said no to a lot of things. We never wanted to bring it to a Christian festival. We never wanted to try and sell it to a Christian bookstore. That wasn't the home for the brand. We wanted to put it alongside brands that we admired and respected, looked up to, all who — to our knowledge — were not run by Christians, to see if the product could hang.

So you didn’t want to necessarily create PR campaigns for Jesus. But there are ethical considerations that go into your work, like determining what sort of materials are being used, how those materials are acquired, where the shirt is made, and how the person who is doing the sewing is being compensated. Are those questions that you guys have had to wrestle with?

Johan Lam: I don’t know if I ever thought of it as a moral issue. I certainly never tied it back to my faith, except just a desire to try to live as Christlike of a life as possible and being intentional about every interaction and every relationship.

It goes back to: What kind of person are you when nobody’s looking? In business, a lot of times, people only see the final product. So, if you’re making a Christian T-shirt, for example, that might be the only factor that matters to some people: that you’re making a Fear Not T-shirt or something like that.

To me, just as important as the quality of the product are the relationships that go into making that product, relationships where you treat people like Christ would treat them. That applies to how we treat our employees. That applies to how we treat our vendors. The people that make our products, the people that ship our products, the mailman that comes and delivers stuff, the truck driver that delivers huge pallets of stuff.

There are other things that inform us as well. There was a time where this mid-phase of 3sixteen where “Made in America” was super, super important to our customers and to the industry that we’re in. I was young and brash, and I remember talking down about “Made in China” clothing to my parents and just saying, “Oh, there’s a lot of sweatshops and we’re doing it better and we’re paying people here in the U.S.”

I’m Chinese. My dad was born in China. My parents met in Hong Kong. They had a much wider worldview and a much richer worldview than I did.

And they said, “Sure, there’s sweatshops in China, there’s factories in China. But there are also factories that employ and provide for the lives of many, many people in China. You can’t just generalize and say that because it’s made in a certain place that it is good or bad.”

It would be nice if you could just say, well, it’s good if it’s made in the USA and it’s bad if it’s not. That’s how some consumers do think about manufacturing, especially now. But you’re arguing for a more nuanced and thoughtful approach.

Johan: Yeah. In more recent years, we’ve had to, in many ways, reeducate our customers and remove that crutch that everything made in America is good; everything made in X country is made from sweatshop labor. And it’s just simply not true. There are terribly-run factories in the U.S. that exploit their workers and don’t pay fair wages. And there are amazing factories in many other countries that get a bad rap for their manufacturing.

As we’ve expanded and started producing products all over the world, we’ve also been a very transparent company, explaining to our customers and our wholesale accounts why we’re doing it and what we value about the manufacturing in these places. It’s allowed us to expand our product range. I always say it’s like we’re able to paint with more colors now.

Andrew, when you think back at some of the early days, when you were first thinking about this company, what were some of the rejected ideas or rejected names before you landed on 3sixteen?

Andrew: [Laughing] I don’t really remember. We were talking about how people hold up John 3:16 at sporting events, and how it’s probably the most widely known verse, at least in America. And you saw “Austin 3:16,” which was a big deal for a while there. A lot of people thought we were a wrestling brand or something.

Over the years, I sometimes think about what it would be like had we just named it something that wasn’t as faith adjacent, that no one would be able to figure out. Would that have affected our trajectory in a better way?

But, you know, it has been good for us. It continues to guide us. We can give the caveat that like, listen, you don’t have to be a Christian to operate in a fair and honest way. But if you want to know our why, that is our why.

And we have to put our employees in that position, right? Especially our retail team. They’re the ones that are working in the shop every single day and talking to people face-to-face, and they’ve had to explain a faith that they don’t ascribe to. And they’ll just be like, you know, “Our owners are Christian. That’s where it comes from.” Hopefully that just means that even though they don’t ascribe to our faith perspective, they see a value in how it helps Johan and I lead the company.

Have you ever felt any pressure from Christians to do something different, or just confusion about like, what sort of thing is this?

Johan: For so long, Christians — especially in America — the church was sort of living in this separate society. Christians would make music, but it would only be for Christians. Christians would make movies or TV shows, and they would only be for Christians. And oftentimes, they’d be real bad.

I don’t know if you remember this, but Amy Grant in the ’90s started making love songs instead of Christian songs or whatever, and then all the Christian radio stations banned her music from being played. There was a huge backlash against her.

I remember that very well.

Johan: I just feel like that’s such a wasted opportunity. I don’t think we’re called to live in a society that’s separate from nonbelievers and to make things only for ourselves and to only try to speak to ourselves. What would that even mean as a clothing brand? It would be so strange to only try to appeal to people that believe exactly what you believe. I think it’s much more impactful to try and make something good that appeals to a lot of people and that is well respected and good by the standards of the clothing world or whatever it is that you make.

So, would it be fair then to call you guys the Amy Grant of the fashion world?

Andrew: Oh, I love that.

I will say a few years ago, a friend of ours worked at Reach Records and wanted to do a little profile on us. The people who responded were all Christians and also Reach Records fans, but they had no context of who we are and the kind of work that we do. And the comments were like, “If Jesus saw these prices, he’d be flipping tables.” So yeah, like, you know, no honor in our hometown.

Just because something is not particularly for you, whether it be price point or quality level or aesthetics, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have a place. I mean, if it didn’t have a place, we wouldn’t be around still. Which we are.

So, I don’t particularly see Christians as being particularly unaccepting. Very few of my personal friends buy and wear it, but they think it’s cool.

For people who read this and are like, maybe I should be paying more attention to what I wear, what should they be keeping in mind when they start shopping for clothes?

Johan: I personally think the predominant way that Americans shop for clothing is that everybody has been brought up to buy way too much clothing. And a big part of that is because clothing is seen as disposable. It’s seen as temporary.

People buy clothes to meet current trends and then dispose of that clothing or let it sit in their closet after those trends pass. I’m sure most Americans have way too much clothing in their closet, way more than they actually wear.

I remember that Reach Records article interview that we did that Andrew mentioned. And that probably would apply to a lot of Americans: They look at the prices of the things that we sell and are shocked or immediately categorize it as luxury product. And part of it is because everybody is so accustomed to buying really, really cheap clothing that doesn’t need to last long because they’re just going to buy more cheap clothing. I would encourage people to be a little bit more thoughtful about what they buy, how much they consume in all things, not just clothing. Be a little bit more thoughtful about who’s making their product, if the brand has a reputation for quality, if the piece that they’re buying is something that they can really see themselves wearing for a long time. That would be my encouragement.

Andrew, anything to add?

Andrew: By and large, when people are surprised by how much our stuff costs, the way that I try and relate to them is the fact that everybody has their thing that they are willing to spend a little bit more money on, take their time researching, understand a little better.

A lot of these customers that are in the comment section upset about the price of a pair of jeans from us are probably spending close to $100,000 on a pickup truck or something. There’s nothing wrong with that. Some people, food is their thing, and they’re spending money there.

So yeah, if clothing is not your thing, I get it. It’s not a lot of people’s things. But if you’re interested, you can learn. There are places to read about it. You can find a shop nearby you where you can go in and talk to people and ask what makes something special. I like to learn about what makes a cup of coffee expensive. I’ll ask the barista about it, if they’re not trying to serve eight other people at the same time. Be curious. And you are pouring into your local neighborhood too, which is, I think, pretty special.