Faith+Values: Halowear melds fashion, faith

We could say that Gina Howard wears her religion on her sleeve, but she already has used that pun. Or we could say that she has "altared" her life, but she beat us to that one, too. So all we can say is that the Stillwater entrepreneur has faith that her business venture is going to be a success.

How much faith? So much that in February, she quit a sales position that was generating a six-figure income to sell T-shirts out of the trunk of her car. The shirts carry humorous inspirational messages such as "Altar your ego" and "The Bible. Buy now or pay later."For me, this isn't about the money," she said. "The purpose was to use the shirts as a tool for reaching people and make them think about their faith more."

Howard, 39, cites an industry estimate that in a normal life span, a T-shirt inscribed with a logo will be seen by 3,000 people.

"I've sold 400 T-shirts," she said. "Multiply that by 3,000, and it means I will have reached 1.2 million people! These shirts are like a billboard, and the message is a mini-prayer."

The business, called Halowear, was an answer to her prayers, literally. As she tells the story -- and she loves to tell the story -- she was having a bad day that was part of a bad week. She had an appointment with a client near the St. Paul Cathedral. After arriving early and finding herself with a few minutes on her hands, she parked outside the cathedral and went inside.

"At the time, my youngest son, who was 3, wasn't sleeping through the night," she said. "My husband and I tried all the parenting tricks, but nothing worked. I was exhausted.

"I'd only been in the cathedral once or twice before, so I didn't know where I was going. I just started wandering around, admiring the beauty of it, until I stumbled on a mini-altar that had a sculpture of Mary holding the baby Jesus. I figured that if anybody was going to understand what I was going through [as a mother], she would."

Howard prayed for divine intervention in getting her son to sleep. She also asked for help in finding a way to help her son. She was about to leave when one last thought hit her.

"At the end, I asked for a new direction in my life," she said. "It was one of those, 'Oh, by the way' things. It was an afterthought."

A flash of inspiration

By the time she'd gotten back in her car, her life was headed in a different way.

"I had an idea," she said. "It was simple: I needed to combine fashion with religion. After doing research, I found nothing on the market that was cute and fashionable that also carried a fun, lighthearted, spiritual message. Everything available looked pretty plain, and the messages were overused and predictable."

Her shirts are sleek and subtle. There is no artwork, just lettering. The shirts are black with the message on the front in bright neon colors. The only other thing on the shirt is a small embroidered Halowear logo on the sleeve. The shirts come in short-sleeve ($29) and long-sleeve ($32) versions for men and women.

She quit her job as an account executive for Aveda. It was not an easy decision. She'd worked there for 13 years and enjoyed every minute of it. "I loved working with the clients," she said, "especially showing them the new products." And there was that sizable income attached to the position.

"But once I made the decision, I had no fear," she said. "That's how I knew that God was behind this. And I knew that God would never lead me into something disastrous."

One person whose advice she sought was Bill Casey, director of the youth and young adult ministry for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

"I told her that she had received a calling," he said. "We had a long conversation about how she felt God's presence inside her. That's a calling, but she didn't believe me at first."

Howard admitted as much. "I thought that only priests and nuns got a calling, not girls in the beauty industry," she said.

Keeping it light

She has two requirements for the shirts (which now includes a line for dogs): to be stylish and to use humor.

"I certainly don't mean to be sacrilegious," she said. "I think a lot of people are drawn to the humor. It helps the message hit home."

Most of the time, anyway. A couple of messages have puzzled people. "Benedict. Not just for breakfast anymore" has stumped those who either don't get the reference to the pope or eggs Benedict. And as for the woman who didn't understand a reference to Noah because she didn't know who he was, well, Howard reminds herself, the original purpose of the shirts was to start a dialogue.

"We need to talk about our faith more," she said. "In Minnesota, we don't know how to talk about our faith, so we keep it hush-hush. But in other parts of the country, like the Bible Belt in the South, people talk very openly about their faith. We need to do more of that here."

Jeff Strickler • 612-673-7392