A group of Roseville High School students have taken it upon themselves to create and model their own brand of tie-dye shirts. Senior Alexia Wade makes and ships her own custom-made tie-dye shirts, while junior Madison Dodson and junior Delaney Rhodes model them. Wade is the owner of Shoplunacy on Instagram, where she posts pictures of the t-shirts along with their prices.

According to Wade, she wanted to start making these tie-dye t-shirts because the cost of a standard tie-dye shirt at a store costs too much for her liking.  

“I wanted a tie-dye t-shirt and if you go to the stores or the mall to buy one they are like $50, which is ridiculous,” Wade said. “So I just decided to make one and a bunch of people wanted what I was wearing so I decided to make much more.”

Wade sells the t-shirts for various prices, which depend on their quality and variations.

“I’m currently selling them for around $12 – $13 for just a plain one, and then with additions because I’m doing screening and stitching and different custom designs. It’s around $15 – $20,” Wade said.     

After continuously making tie-dye shirts, Wade has been able to get the shirt ready for dyeing in a matter of minutes but it then takes several hours for the shirts soak-up the dye.

“Now that I’ve gotten pretty good at it, just to get the initial process done it takes me about eight minutes and then you just leave it for eight hours.”

Dodson, one of Wade’s close friends, had volunteered to become a model for Shoplunacy because Wade needed  someone to model. The two then spent an entire morning modeling shirts at a wide variety of different locations.

“I had said, ‘Hey do you want me to model for you, because I have all day?’,” Dodson said. “And Alexia said yes so we spent the entire day taking pictures in various locations.”

Dodson respects Wade’s entrepreneurship and her new way to make money.   

“I think it’s really cool. Alexia’s a really smart person and she’s very business savvy,” Dodson said. “She’s getting orders from out of state for her t-shirts so I think it’s really cool. I’m pretty jealous of her ability to market herself like that.”

According to Rhodes, Wade has had a huge impact on her since she had joined modeling for Shoplunancy. Her confidence has received a boost. Seeing her friend succeeding in her business makes Rhodes proud of Wade.

“You can say my confidence has gone up with the fact that my friend asked me to model for her, that was a confidence boost for me,” Rhodes said. “Also that I just get to help her with something as cool as this and to help her make one of her ideas come alive, it’s brought us closer together.”

Shoplunacy is currently an Instagram account, but they are looking to make the store into a full website and eventually into something bigger.

“Right now it’s just an Instagram page but we’re really looking into making it like a whole website, but really it’s just a small project that were hoping to build up something bigger.”

Dodson hopes that Shoplunacy gets very popular for the public.

“I hope for Alexia’s sake that Shoplunacy gets a lot of publicity and stuff and it goes pretty far. She’s not only a business savvy but also very crafty and is good at making the shirts,” Dodson said. “She has a lot of ideas that she wants to take and move forward with.”

Wade wants Shoplunacy to expand around the world in the future and have it trending for people worldwide at a reasonable lower cost.

“I want it to be something that I could maybe get trending and that I can ship the tie-dye t-shirts around the world to people who want them for a less expensive price,” Wade said.