For years, NYU alumnus Fareed Hawwa felt something was missing in the world of men's fashion. There simply wasn't enough clothing for confident men. So in 2005, he created A Shirt For A Stud, a company that sells t-shirts with such salty, boastful slogans as, "Not Modest, Sorry" and "I'm Better Looking Than Your Boyfriend."
Five years later, Hawwa danced with glee in his apartment when he spotted his shirts worn by Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino on three episodes of "Jersey Shore". Apparently, cocky is in.
"Mike has the talent to entertain five million people a week and those five million are my target audience," Hawwa said.
Growing up in a mostly Italian neighborhood on Rhode Island familiarized Hawwa with the flashy confidence of "Shore"-style Guido culture. And his swagger skyrocketed even more, he admits, when he was recruited to the NYU varsity wrestling team.
"At NYU there's no football team, so we were the tough guys," he said, though he added that he was never the best on the team.
Hawwa believes that the physical and mental endurance he learned from wrestling helped him manage A Shirt For A Stud while working toward his doctorate in mathematics at Louisiana State University. At LSU, he also managed to juggle being head coach of the wrestling team.
"I solve things line by line like I'd solve a math problem, because I have to make order out of chaos. My character is straightforward like math," he said.
Never straying from that core philosophy, Hawwa voices his opinions in a blunt and matter-of-fact manner. He doesn't hesitate to say that cockiness is a good thing.
"Women don't want men to buy them flowers all the time and do everything they ask," he said. "You can be a player who is cocky, but remember that studly
confidence is never anything where you put women down. Be cocky but still be nice."
But despite his alpha-male attitude, Hawwa's sister Renda said her brother is one of the nicest people she knows. And head coach of NYU wrestling Bruce Haberli agrees that Hawwa has a different side to him.
"When Fareed gets to know people, he gets personable with them and they see a side of him that's comedic," Haberli said. "He tells jokes and does magic tricks. He's the kind of guy who would wear a bright red tie and a sports jacket."
The self-proclaimed "CEO of the Stud Empire" is currently searching for a trading job on Wall Street. Meanwhile, he stays busy with his shirt company and steers clear of negativity from people who scoff at his stud philosophy.
"The sun shines for billions of people but some people still don't like being in the sun. To people who say that these shirts suck, I just say that they don't have to buy them," he said.
