Creating level ground

L3vel Nation aims to stop human trafficking with its clothing brand

Founded in 2011 by CEO R.J. “L3vel” Wilson, urban clothing brand L3vel Nation has set out to be a positive influence to the world, using its line of clothes, hats, skateboard decks and accessories to bring important social issues to people’s attention such as human trafficking, child soldiers and broken homes.

“I want to use our company as a tool to help stop human trafficking,” Liberty student and chief financial officer Josh Chen said.

“Even though there are so many organizations already that are trying to help stop it, I don’t think there’s enough. There can never be enough. It’s such a huge problem, and in order to be effective, you need a large amount of organizations.”

According to Chen, L3vel Nation started off as a for-profit business that gave about 2 percent of their profits to charity.

Now, the company is working on becoming totally nonprofit in order to give more to mentoring programs for children and organizations dedicated to ending human trafficking.

“We were like, ‘No that’s not enough. We need to do more than that,’” Chen said “Once we get larger, I want to make our company into an actual anti-human trafficking company if it’s possible. If not, we’re just going to help support anti-human trafficking organizations.”

Chen said some of the organizations he hopes to support in the near future are Freedom 4/24, the A21 Campaign and Jars of Hope, which is run by a fellow Liberty student.

To help illustrate its mission, many of L3vel Nation’s graffiti-style clothing designs are based around the social and global problems the company is trying to combat.

Its logo is a boy with crossed out eyes, headphones over his ears and a zipper over his mouth. The original intent for the design was based off the three mystic apes: see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil.

“I describe it more with the Gospel message,” Chen said, “The Xs in the eyes are to represent people who are too blind to see the truth. The zippered mouth is for people that don’t care to speak the truth. The headphones are for people who don’t want to hear the truth. It’s kind of like a reminder to not be like (the logo) – to be bold in your faith and preach the Gospel.”

L3vel Nation is also dedicated to staying independent.

Although the company has yet to launch any storefront locations, their products are available in close to 350 independent skate and clothing stores across the U.S. and worldwide.

“We don’t sell through big corporations,” Chen Said. “You’re never going to see us in Wal-Mart or J.C. Penney.

We want to sell in local stores – local skate shops and local clothes stores that aren’t big chains.” Online, L3vel Nation products can always be found at l3velnationlifestyle.com.

FRATICELLI is a feature reporter.