Entrepreneurs can be found in the most unlikely of places. In this case, an ‘extraterrestrial’ clothing company found its footing in the heart of one Kennesaw State student.
Alexis Litsch, a freshman art major at KSU, owns and operates her own clothing company called Peace Alien. Litsch’s company offers t-shirts, hats, stickers, long-sleeve shirts, socks, sweatshirts and even a pop socket for the back of phone cases.
Litsch started her company at 17 as a “happy accident,” creating clothes for her own wardrobe by tie-dying shirts and drawing designs on them with fabric markers. Her first design was an alien with the peace sign, and after many requests, she started to design t-shirts for a small fee.
Litsch said her dad encouraged her to take her business to the next level by sharing tips about entrepreneurship and bought her a heat press. Peace Alien started out as an Etsy account and blossomed into a full-blown website with the title of Litsch’s original design, a simple name coined by her father — Peace Alien.
For almost two years she has operated Piece Alien completely by herself, only periodically relying on her family members, like her dad and sister, for brand advice and help to sell merchandise at places like Ponce City Market, Wonderroot Artist Market and the Crab Apple Festival.
With the brand’s growth, creating shirts by hand simply isn’t fast enough anymore. Therefore, printing the designs and tie-dye on the T-shirts has been outsourced to Advanced Embroidery and Screen Printing, a business located in Cumming, Georgia, Litsch’s hometown.
Litsch is currently working on a new design and plans to take a poll of Peace Alien’s Instagram followers on color choices.
“Instead of a tie-dye T-shirt with an alien print, I am going to make a solid-colored shirt with the tie-dye inside the alien,” Litsch said about her new design. “I asked my followers what color they want the shirt to be and most popular responses have been light yellow or black so far.”
With more than 10,000 followers on her Instagram account @peacealien, Litsch’s brand has attracted a lot of traffic, even garnering a shout out from actor Jake T. Austin who bought a Piece Alien shirt and posted a picture of it on his Instagram.
Litsch also shares posts of happy customers wearing her clothes on the Peace Alien Instagram, which she says is her most effective marketing tool.
Most of the models on Peace Alien’s website and Instagram are Litsch’s friends, KSU students, satisfied customers who send pictures and sometimes herself.
The majority of Peace Alien orders are placed all over the U.S. and in Canada with only a few coming from Kennesaw, but Litsch is far from done growing her brand.
“As far as retailing, I don’t think I will have my own store until I am out of college if that were to ever happen,” Litsch said. “I do retail my shirts to two stores — Rising ‘Cloud Vape’ in John’s Creek and ‘Pinspiration’ in Cumming.”
Beyond the scope of Kennesaw, Litsch hopes Peace Alien will become a household name and plans to participate in more festivals, including the Spring Arts Festival at KSU in April.
