About Us
bernos™ started in March 2006 as a venture to create high-quality graphic tees inspired by our childhood memories of Africa. Everyone of our tees screams Africa.
All of the design concepts for all bernos tees are entirely created by us and are printed on the world’s finest t-shirts by American Apparel which manufactures’ their products Los Angeles, California, in an absolutely sweatshop-free environment.
The bernos™ name
The word bernoose comes from Amharic, one of the many Ethiopian languages, and refers to a one-piece cloak originally worn by the Arabs who immigrated to North Africa. The style caught on and many in North Africa continue to wear variations of the original design today. The Ethiopian bernoose is thick, dark and made of wool. It features a tailored point designed in the 19th century to accommodate and protect a rifle.
For us, the name symbolizes our connection to the values passed down to us by our culture and at the same time offers us a chance to express how we’ve made it our own — with a design on a t-shirt — because we too want to show off our own modern-day bernos.
