To pay the bills, many Iowa State students work a typical minimum-wage job, but one student has taken a different approach — marketing his own line of clothing.

Wendell Mosby, a freshman double majoring in fashion design and production from Chicago Heights, Ill., created his own line of clothing when he was a freshman in high school.

It began, he said, when fellow classmates told him he looked like the “Fresh Prince,” a character from the television show “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.”

While sitting in class one day, Mosby said a friend told him the real Fresh Prince had his own line of clothing, called Willy Wear. His friend suggested Mosby come out with his own line.

That’s the story of Wimp Wear, Mosby’s apparel.

During the summer before his sophomore year in high school, Mosby brainstormed.

“I went to Kmart because a lot of my friends wouldn’t shop there, and I knew that I could get something that they have never seen before,” he said.

Mosby said he bought three outfits and had his brand name embroidered on them.

Wimp Wear is Mosby’s nickname.

When he went back to high school that fall, Mosby said his new clothes attracted a lot of attention.

“Everybody was like ‘Man, what’s that?’ They thought I had my own clothes line, and that is how it all started,” Mosby said.

From that point, Mosby began printing T-shirts, sweat pants, hats and jackets with “Wimp” on them.

Mosby said being different paid off.

Through his junior year in high school, Mosby continued to produce his line of clothing. His classmates bought the Wimp Wear.

In November of his senior year, Mosby said he decided to take his Wimp Wear to college.

“It hit me. Somebody told me that if I could make money off a hobby, then it was a job, and that is when I thought more about the future scope of Wimp Wear,” he said.

Mosby applied to Iowa State because his home economics teacher said ISU had a good textiles and clothing program.

“[Iowa State] was the first college that I looked at, and the only one that I looked at,” he said.

When Mosby came to ISU, he brought Wimp Wear with him.

Mosby already has had a few opportunities to promote his threads. He had a booth set up at the Big Eight Conference on Black Student Government and has given a presentation in his Management 310 class, an entrepreneurship course.

Mosby said he is confident Wimp Wear will be successful in Ames.