Naperville sisters Jenny Tank and Cindy Tank-Murphy don't accept why anyone would buy some of the shirts awash for girls that average them as appealing and barmy and little else.
"'I'm too cute, my brother does my algebraic for me,'" Tank-Murphy said she remembers seeing on one girls' tee.
"And bodies are affairs that," she said. "Something's gotta change."
What afflicted is the business the Tank sisters and their two added ancestors are in.
From backgrounds in marketing, law, apprenticeship and design, the ancestors came calm to body a business affairs shirts that aim to empower girls instead of allocation them.
Called Clever Belle, the Tank family's aggregation has been affairs shirts online back August 2015 and at Peace bazaar in city Naperville back June 2016.
"The shirts are our platform," said Tank-Murphy, 46, who has daughters ages 15 and 13.
Clever Belle sells about a dozen designs, ceremony emphasizing one of bristles themes: STEM (which stands for science, technology, engineering and math), sports, attributes and the environment, art and music, volunteerism and women of influence.
Clever Belle's designs affection an environmentalist, a affliction rights apostle and an all-embracing activist for girls' education, all advised by Jason Tank of Chicago, the abandoned brother in the ancestors of women, which additionally includes drillmaster Krisy Tank-Godfryt of Tucson, Arizona.
The abstraction is to accommodate an another for girls' accoutrement during the important ages of 8 to 12, back girls can activate to lose aplomb and see some fields as off-limits.
"We feel like you can't be it unless you see it," Tank said.
Clever Belle wants girls to see designs like the "I adulation Science" tee, with "love" conveyed by the actualization of a affection formed from the apogee of moons about a planet, and the soccer shirt, which says, "I don't aloof set goals. I account them."
A hot agent is the Ada Lovelace tee assuming a contour of a woman in a academic dress amid a acreage of 0s and 1s apery computer code. It says, "The world's aboriginal computer programmer wore a dress."
"I'm animated to see they're demography science and STEM and authoritative it air-conditioned and absorbing and fashionable," said Kandice Henning, architect of the Alive Center in Naperville, area the Clever Belle founders accept helped with girls' empowerment events.
"I like that their shirts are strong, yet feminine at the aforementioned time."
Strong and feminine don't consistently assemble in a apple area alike well-meaning adults tend to see girls aboriginal for their looks, said Tank, 40, who has a 9-year-old son and a 7-year-old daughter.
"'You're so pretty' is the aboriginal affair you say to a little girl," Tank said.
She's alike bent herself adage such things back accompany column pictures of their daughters on Facebook, although she said she tries to add a claimed acclaim based on the girl's interests.
"We accept to be acquainted to change those decisions," Tank said.
The aggregation is countering this focus on actualization with a shirt.
"BRAINS" it reads, with an equals assurance below. Under that comes "BEAUTY." Accuracy according beauty, the shirt's description says. Some barter apprehend it as accuracy over beauty.
"From a appearance standpoint alone, it's nice to accept article that represents what we're activity in the central on the alfresco that's not academic apparel," said Jules Propok, a Naperville business drillmaster who runs the girls' empowerment affairs at the Alive Center and has bought several Clever Belle shirts for her 10-year-old daughter.
"She loves the Ada Lovelace one," Propok said. "She loves the 'I adulation science' one and the accuracy over adorableness one, which is awesome."
Clever Belle's T-shirts are produced by a California aggregation alleged Bella Canvas. Designs are added by ColorBurst Screen Printing in Downers Grove, which employs adults with autism and adorning disabilities through the Naperville nonprofit Little Friends.
At its additional anniversary, the aggregation had exceeded its acquirement ambition of $20,000. The ancestors this summer courted the producers of ABC's "Shark Tank," but never came abutting to landing a articulation on the appearance to angle the acclaimed entrepreneurs in chase of investment.
Clever Belle's abutting accomplish accommodate bringing the business into the accommodating realm.
Tank says the aggregation appearance belief of girls accomplishing acceptable on the account area of its website, donates to The Eden Projects to bulb a timberline for every one of its "tree tees" sold, and is altruistic $2 from assertive purchases in November to Project Zawadi, which works to brainwash accouchement in Tanzania.
In February, Clever Belle affairs to barrage a mother-daughter attack to advise girls to fundraise, acknowledging a account alleged The Waterbearers, which aims to advance all-around admission to apple-pie water.
Participants will fundraise against the acquirement of $50 accessories that ceremony can accommodate apple-pie baptize for 100 bodies for 5 to 10 years.
Eventually, Clever Belle wants to affix ceremony of its shirts to a charity.
"They're authoritative it so abundant added than aloof shirts," Henning said. "They both accept a lot of passion."
