The Franklin and Marshall clothing line originated from its founders' wish to preserve the iconic past Americana symbols such as "big rounded cars, the red Coca-Cola fridge, and pinball machines." Surprisingly, apple pie wasn’t on their list, but the clothing line whose heritage lies in the Pennsylvanian college of the same name, is now a worldwide brand that gets love from New York to Nairobi. Whether it’s Australian teens yearning to dress like American jocks, or Japanese fashionistas who wake up one morning and feel like adopting the ‘preppy’ look, ‘F&M’ has become a contemporary clothing staple with lovers of vintage-style sports and casual wear. psychoPEDIA talked to F&M’s Max Menegazzi about the brand's appeal and tried to bag ourselves some free clothes:

Hey, Maxy. It’s ok if I call you ‘Maxy’, right? I hate to tell you this, but I once saw a kid wearing an ‘F&M’ jumper and it was pretty badly stained. It had quite a few holes, and I think there was some food on it. How does that make you feel?
I don’t really mind-- as long as they’re enjoying the jumper, it’s cool.

Really? I’d be pretty pissed. When I look at your clothes I think of teenage Americans having frat parties screaming ‘duuuuuude’ and dipping their heads into barrels of nachos and/or beer. Is this the image you’re trying to portray?
No, it’s not. I think our image is for people that like have fun, but it’s more like ‘sports guy’ fun, not the ‘stupid screaming guys’ type of fun. Obviously, everybody gets drunk, but it’s not very intelligent to go around screaming …

Let’s say a young lady came up to you and said that she just made herself throw up to lose weight and look good in her new ‘F&M’ outfit. How would that make you feel and what would you say to her?
I would say that you can always feel good with our clothes, and if she wants to lose weight, then that’s good for her!

Sorry to break it to you Maxy, but losing weight by making yourself puke is not really cool. Can you describe what a ‘cool’ person who wears ‘F&M’ looks like and does in a typical day?
I’d say they are people who really know what they want from life!

Is that it? You don’t wanna elaborate on that? Who would you say are your main competitors?
In the fashion business, I think our main competitors are all the Sportswear brands, particularly, Abercrombie & Fitch and Converse.

Katharine Hamnett had a rant about there not being enough ethnic models at this year's London Fashion Week. Why do you think there aren’t many black models being used in runway shows nowadays?
We usually include black models in our shows, but if you do a casting, nearly 90% of the models that turn up will be white.

I didn’t get to go to Fashion Week this year. I think I stayed at home and watched my Ren and Stimpy DVDs. There hasn’t really been a great animated cat and dog duo since those two were out. What's up with that?
Sorry, who are Ren and Stimpy?

WTF?! You’ve never heard of Ren and Stimpy? I can sense this interview is about to come to an end. Can you let us know the last really amazing thing that happened to you, in less than 20 words?
Well, so many amazing things have happened to me, that I really couldn’t describe them with such a small word count…

OK, don’t worry about it, Maxy. What can we expect from the brand in 2008?
This year you can expect more growth and lots of love from Franklin and Marshall!

~Donald Crunk @ Styleslut