His company started with a GoFundMe account. Now he’s making bow ties in Macon.

As the hum of a sewing machine fills the room, Aaron Brown’s quick, confident movements and few scissor snips turn a piece of fabric into a royal blue bow tie.

The 28-year-old Macon native does it all without a pattern and while sharing the story of BowFRESH Bowties.

His story as a business owner started in 2014.

Brown originally set up a GoFundMe account and raised $5,000 to start his company.

Although he began by opening a storefront in downtown Macon, he decided to go fully digital in 2016 and now runs the company as an online store.

“My customers supported me,” Brown said. “It was like ‘what do you need to make this happen?’”

Brown recognizes that the community has played a huge role in the success of his business.

He remembers an occasion when he made a bow tie for a young man going to a freshman dance. A few years later, Brown made bow ties for the same guy’s senior prom and then his high school graduation.

“That’s the beauty of a small business. You get to see people grow up, you get to see their families, and they become a part of your family.”

The “family” that Brown refers to, his clientele, has included everyone from a newborn baby to a 90-year-old man. He even once created a tie for a pig. Brown’s custom bow ties have also been featured in many bridal parties.

“Sometimes you look at your work and say, ‘I can’t believe somebody trusted me to do that with something so fragile, to me, so sacred,’” Brown said.

One of Brown’s favorite projects was brought to him by a mother who had recently lost her daughter. Brown was able to take the fabric from the child’s favorite dress and create bow ties for her father and brothers to wear.

“You know, people don’t have to trust you with stuff like that,” Brown said. “I was so delicate… I didn’t want to mess anything up.”

A family affair

It was Brown’s own family that introduced him to sewing.

His father was a tailor for members of the Seattle Supersonics, a former NBA team. Brown said his dad would design and create suits from scratch for all of the athletes. His paternal grandmother, as well as his mother, were also seamstresses. He said it started with him making pillowcases.

“I was young, and I wanted to sew,” Brown said. “That was what they showed me how to make, so I cut up old shirts and made a lot of pillowcases.”

According to Brown, one of his strongest mentors is his god-sister, Monique Pitts-Taylor. Pitts-Taylor used to put on fashion shows, and Brown would work with her to show off his new creations.

“I would call her all the time and be like ‘Monique, look what I made! Look what I made!’ ” Brown said. “I was like her young protege.”

However, it was Brown’s brother who helped him come up with the name for his store.

“I had a name in my head, and BowFRESH was in my head,” Brown explained. “I sent my brother a text message. I said, ‘Could you give a name for my company?’ and he sent like six different names, and guess what, BowFRESH was one of the names.”

Brown’s mother also still plays a huge role in the company. Brown has moved full time to Atlanta and works in administration at Emory Hospital in Atlanta.

With the store being online, Brown is able to work on bow ties part of the time from Atlanta and part of the time from an office-turned-studio in his mother’s Macon home in order to keep his business local.

Brown hopes to eventually build his bow tie business into a full time job. Rights he’s building his clients list.

Brown has already created bow ties for Atlanta-based comedian and actor Rickey Smiley.

Brown said Smiley did a stand-up show in Macon in June 2015. Before the show, Brown made a few bow ties using Smiley’s fraternity colors. Brown walked up to Smiley after the show and said, “I have some ties for you.”

The next week, Smiley posted photographs of the ties and thanked Brown on his Instagram account, bringing an influx of business.

Even with all his early successes, Brown said he wants to continue to grow and help others see that owning a business is possible.

“I just want to keep doing it,” Brown said, “and take it as far as I can go and inspire a lot of young people to do what I did.”

Visit BowFresh Bowties Facebook page for more information.

This story was originally published November 19, 2019 at 6:00 AM.