Class Notes
SHIRTS FOR VACATION MODE Justin Goff ’90’s batik clothing inspires good vibes. By Megan Tady
“Wearing our clothing loosens people up. It just feels like you’re on vacation and you’re relaxed a little.”
Goff with his son in matching Three Islands shirts
When Justin Goff moved to Bali in 1999, he became captivated with all of the beautiful and colorful batik fabrics being sold at boutique markets. Rather than simply buying cookie-cutter shirts sold in stores, Goff began purchasing fabric and enlisting the help of a local tailor to custom make his clothing. Batik is an Indonesian technique of waxing and dyeing cloth to create colorful and unexpected designs. “I fell in love with pretty much everything about the island—the food,
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Berkshire Bulletin
the beaches, and the fact that everyone is smiling all the time,” Goff says on his website. “Bali is not only the most beautiful place in the world, but to me, it feels like the happiest. I quickly swapped my polos and t-shirts for a new uniform—a permanent smile and batik shirts made by an amazing local tailor, Pandu. I loved how they made me feel—instantly in vacation mode.” Each time friends came to visit Goff in Bali, having custom clothing made was part of his unofficial tour, and he
began to hear over and over again: “I love these shirts. You should sell them.” So he did, forming his clothing company Three Islands in 2009, which has a brick-and-mortar location in Watch Hill, R.I., where Goff grew up, as well as an expanding online presence. The company now sells men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing. But long before customers could order shirts online or try on swimwear in a fitting room, Goff first began selling his clothing unconventionally with his cousin, Phil Barney, who had initially coowned Three Islands with him. “We bought 2,000 men’s shirts and borrowed my dad’s truck one winter,” Goff said. “We started in Florida and drove up and down the East Coast selling shirts out of the back of the truck. It was 2009, so the country was deep into the financial crisis. It was a pretty funky time to be showing up and trying to sell clothing out of people’s houses or in street markets, but it was a lot of fun and we learned a ton.” Goff discovered that customers were extremely receptive to pop-up trunk shops, and he built his business model around traveling from location to location for a few weeks at a time as he followed the tourist
