Prayer pays off for O'ahu couple

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

Andre Dukes sat in the pews of Wahiawa Christian Church for hours, praying for an answer to his family's financial problems until sleep finally overtook him.

Andre Dukes and his wife, Shareen, relax in beanbag chairs with their 1 1/2-year-old daughter, Diami, at their Island Comfee Bagz store in Wahiawa. The couple also owns Nfaithwear, a faith-based urban clothing line. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

"My eyes got big and I went, 'Whoa, this is something,' " Dukes said. "Urban wear with a spiritual concept. There was nothing out there like it."

The idea turned into a $30,000-a-year clothing line called Nfaithwear, which is in the process of renewing its license from the University of Hawai'i to churn out shirts, caps, leather-sleeved lettermen jackets and other clothes bearing the UH logo.

The 5-year-old company changed the fortunes and future of Dukes, 30, and his wife Shareen, 29, a former retail manager. Nfaithwear LLC has now spun off a second company called Island Comfee Bagz that produces Island-print beanbag chairs, trying to capitalize on the Island-print craze.

The two products have nothing in common, except that the ideas for both came to Andre Dukes through prayer, he said.

"These weren't my ideas — God came in," he said.

Andre wasn't raised with any particular religion and started going to church with Shareen, whose father, John Lee Parish, is the pastor at Wahiawa Christian Church.

Shareen and Andre met at Leilehua High School in 1990. He was a senior and the son of an Army family that had traveled the world. Shareen was a junior who was born in Northern California but raised in Central O'ahu.

After high school, Andre worked as a store security guard while Shareen went to UH to study business. They married in 1994 and Shareen had the first of their three girls.

In 1997, they decided she would stay home in Wahiawa raising their children while Andre went off at the age of 25 to take his belated shot at a college football career, first at a California community college and then at West Texas A&M University.

To make money for his young family, the 6-foot-1, 290-pound defensive lineman walked around campus selling puka shell necklaces, board shorts and aloha shirts that Shareen sent him in bulk from the swap meet. But $600 a week worth of sales wasn't nearly enough.

So he went to the church where Shareen's father pastors and came away with the idea for Nfaithwear. They spent their entire $2,500 income tax return for 1997 to print oversized T-shirts, head scarfs and "bucket hats" with their bright red Nfaithwear logo in huge print. A church member invested another $15,000 and Andre and Shareen started selling their line of clothes at the swap meet and record stores, and gave them away as prizes at dance clubs to promote the name.

They tried to sell inside the UH bookstore and were told they needed to get a license, which then cost $100.

"We didn't know what we were doing," Andre said. "We were trying to shoot a deer without a gun."

With the UH license, Andre got the idea to produce Island-print baseball hats with the UH logo and T-shirts and sweatshirts with UH applique rainbows.

J.C. Penney bought 600 pieces, which quickly sold out and Nfaithwear soon took over as Penney's exclusive supplier of UH clothing, which often included the Nfaithwear logo discretely on a sleeve.

They also produced personalized head scarfs for high-school football players that included the players' numbers, team colors and school initials. They drove around to high schools downtown and in Pearl City, Mililani, Wai'anae and 'Aiea with their kids in the car, trying to make $13 sales.

"They worked around our schedule and they came at crazy hours just to accommodate us," said David Tanuvasa, former football coach at McKinley High School. "I know they traveled a distance and our practices don't always end on time. It was already dark and they would be real patient and wait."

McKinley players loved wearing the scarfs — printed in the team colors, black and gold — under their helmets. The Dukes "did a great job printing, embroidering and personalizing them for each kid," Tanuvasa said.

Andre and Shareen soon found that good times were seasonal and that sales of UH clothes rose and fell with the success of the football team. Even if the UH volleyball team won a national championship or the basketball team took the WAC conference, clothing sales only went up with football victories, Shareen said.

With a peak sales year of $32,000 in 2000, the income wasn't enough to sustain the family year round.

Andre and Shareen didn't sleep well and argued about money as the bills piled up.

So Andre went back to praying, hoping to be touched by another idea. He was in their Waipahu town home in 2001 when he looked up and said, "We need another one, Lord. We need another idea. Once again we're strapped. ... And God came in again."

Shareen remembered seeing her husband walking toward her, carrying their daughter's Winnie the Pooh beanbag chair.

"He said, 'Hawaiian print beanbag chairs.' "

They made a 10 cubic square-foot prototype and spilled polystyrene pellets across their living room floor learning how to fill it up. They took it to a trade show at the Neal Blaisdell Center right after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and didn't make a single sale.

But they were encouraged by the huge interest.

"Everybody went, 'Wow, a Hawaiian print beanbag chair,' " Shareen said. "They kept repeating that there is no beanbag chair in the Islands."

Although the Dukes had modified the zippers to make them childproof, retailers worried about liability because children had died on the Mainland when they unzipped the bags and ingested the stuffing.

So Andre and Shareen lugged 13 of the 12-pound bags to the swap meet and sold 11 of them at $40 each. They rented a truck and were soon selling up to 40 bags a day.

They've since bought a 1997 tour van that can hold 50 bags. In September, they rented a 1,100 square-foot store on Wilikina Drive, along a little strip of shops sandwiched between Wheeler Army Airfield and Schofield Barracks.

The store, next to a tattoo parlor and a few doors down from a pornographic video arcade, is close to the Dukes' house and caters to military customers who often need transitional furniture in a hurry. Now, by selling 70 bags a week at a new cost of $49.99, Island Comfee Bagz is on a pace to double the Dukes' clothing sales.

In the coming months, Andre and Shareen plan to expand their 10 print patterns to include a beanbag chair with the UH logo, animal prints and camouflage pattern. They also plan a waterproof chair to use on boats — which they said prevents seasickness — a beanbag ottoman and beanbag neck roll.

They're also planning bigger sizes: "The Big Duke," which is twice the size of the original and will sell for $120 to $150, and "The Double Duke," which will be the size of a love seat. (They're not sure yet how much the Double Duke will cost.)

Shareen and Andre can now feel themselves on the verge of good times. But they're glad to have gone through the hard times together.

"We're married, we argue, but we're partners," Shareen said. "Basically, we're friends."

Do you know of a small business that has overcome challenges? Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.