Brockton entrepreneur launches clothing brand to give son a better life

BROCKTON – Every parent dreams to give their child the world, and for John Pires, he knew the best way to do that was to become a self-made entrepreneur and create an urban streetwear brand, No Amor clothing.

“My son is 7 years old, and I wanted to create a legacy for him and show my family I can make something of myself. I wanted to prove to myself I could do something different,” Pires said.

Pires, a Brockton native, and Brockton High School alumni, created No Amor in 2019. The brand name translates into English as no love. “Amor” means love in Portuguese .

As a kid growing up in Brockton, Pires tried many things to show his artistic side, from making YouTube videos to rapping, but was not too good at it, Pires said.

One August afternoon in the basement of his cousin’s house, Pires started different wordplay to find a good name for the new business.

Pires’s cousin didn’t like any of the names the pair suggested and offered some advice that the name should roll off the tongue.

After a few hours of deliberation, the two were able to come up with No Amor clothing.

“No Amor, to me, means you can do anything you put your mind to. That’s what the brand stands for being creative. What I want to display in my clothes are my ups and downs. No Amor is a way of life. It’s putting your mind to something against all odds,” Pires said.

Pires commissioned a tattoo artist to illustrate the logo to look like an ancient cave painting on a wall. He wanted the logo to have a raw feeling to it, Pires said.

Once the artist created the logo, Pires researched finding the best fabric for their brands. They purchased several samples of wholesale items for testing their durability and quality.

“We want to provide our customers with the best quality items. I researched and sampled for months before picking a vendor for the brand,” Pires said.

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Once Pires finalized the first collection, marketing began. Pires said local rappers 5981 KAL and Dtheflyest bought the collections and showed support, which meant a lot to the upcoming clothing designer.

The brand sells T-shirts, sweat suits and shorts.

Other local clothing brands in Brockton also show support to No Amor by buying items, reposting the collections on social media and spreading it through word-of-mouth, Pires said.

Brockton has its own Harlem Renaissance once it comes to clothing brands and creativity emerging in the city, Pires said. Some of the popular local clothing brands he enjoys are GAS, CFN, Banks and Brancos, Dreams from the East, Stadium and Gutter Gear.

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“I received a tremendous amount of support from my city, and it makes me want to work harder,” Pires said.

Each collection from No Amor has a different design and a limited release, meaning they only release that particular collection once.

The clothing brand created an autism awareness collection that donates 2.5% of its proceeds to the National Autism Awareness program.

“My best friend’s son has autism, so we created a collection for him to bring awareness and do something positive with the brand. We dropped our first autism collection last May,” Pires said.

No Amor plans on continuing their autism awareness shirts but will change the design each year. This year, there were some manufacturing mishaps, but Pires is planning to go all out for his next autism release this month.

One of his collections was, “Hug The World,” cotton shorts with “Brockton, MA” stitched on the back, a bleeding heart on the left side and eight other countries embroidered on the right side.

The creative concept for these shorts was to bring people from around the world together.

“Knowing what kind of world we live in today, it’s me trying to bring people closer together that might not see eye to eye daily, but I could bring them together in fashion,” Pires said.

The end goal for No Amor clothing is to expand the brand globally and influence the next generation of creators. Pires wants to create jobs for people in Brockton by hopefully one day having a factory and leaving a legacy for his family to continue with the business.

No Amor clothing can be found at Fit Champs Boutique, a sneaker store and boutique on 1 Torrey St. Brockton.

Enterprise Alisha Saint-Ciel can be reached by email at [email protected] You can follow her on Twitter at @alishaspeakss. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Enterprise today.

This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: Brockton No Amor: John Pires sells urban streetwear at Fit Champs