A crowd gathers as a performance trio breakdances at Yonge and Dundas Square. Every coin tossed their way helps fund their business dreams.
“We actually financed our entire business through dancing,” said Weiming Yuan, one of the breakdancing entrepreneurs.
The trio — twins Weiming Yuan and Weidong Yuan, 19, and Patrick Lum, 20 — create fashionable tapers to accessorize pant cuffs.
“And the way we do it is by performing at Yonge and Dundas Square and street performing,” Weiming Yuan said. “We bought a busking licence and we just went out there and put a bucket out, put together a routine to kind of show the audience and we made a lot of the money to finance our business like that.”
The team created their line, Aeon Attire, in May 2012. They wanted to create something new and unisex for a wide audience to use.
The Aeon Attire team. To the left Weiming Yuan, middle Patrick Lum, Right Weidong Yuan
“We noticed that in fashion, pants were becoming slimmer and you see people with pants and they roll up their pants to make pant cuffs,” Weiming Yuan said. “We were thinking why not make a fashion accessory that can do all of that and make it accessible to regular people and I suppose create something that hasn’t been created before.”
Lum has known the Yuan twins since high school. Dance is what brought them together.
“We all met in the breakdancing scene I think in 2009,” Lum said. “We kind of evolved organically from friends to business.”
The creation of their products was no easy task. In their prototype, the team experimented with materials ranging from Velcro, a frog loop, belt buckles and a bra strap to hold the tapers together.
“We decided to come up with a rose gold buckle — it’s also reversible and it adds a lot more weight and feeling into it,” Yuan said.
When they found High Output Apparel, contractors in Scarborough located in the Ellesmere and Lawrence area, the manufacturing of their products became easier.
“We weren’t planning on getting it done overseas because we still wanted that authentic Canadian feel to it,” Yuan said. “We wanted to support our own people.”
Aeon Attire is growing and has ventured into creating different products for their line. They will continue to present “timeless pieces” as their name defines, “aeon” meaning an immeasurably or indefinitely long period of time.
The sunglasses that Aeon Attire recently launched: They offer wayfarers and cat eye.
“For spring we wanted to expand and go into different avenues,” Weiming Yuan said. “So we came up with sunglasses. We picked ones that we felt were trending and the next big thing for the summer.”
A passion for both dance and design is what Aeon Attire hopes customers will appreciate.
“I’d like people to know the name, I’d like people to remember and I’d like people to identify and relate to what we’re doing, ” Weiming Yuan said.