On Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024, the Kansas City Chiefs will take on the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII.
Among the players, Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker previously made headlines for his devout Catholic faith and infamous 2020 Commencement speech at Georgia Tech where he tells the graduates the “Key to happiness is to get married and start a family.”
Aside from his position on the field, as of March 2023, Butker is also a co-founder of Shepherd’s, a custom men’s suit company located in Kansas City. Harrison Butker, Nathan Price, Chris Cottrell, and Austin Wright are all co-founders and have one special thing in common: their Catholic faith.
In an interview with ChurchPOP, Cottrell and Price provided insight into the creation of their brand. Price revealed their intimate and unique made-to-measure experience, providing a high-quality product for each customer.
He also highlighted a quintessential aspect of fashion that is often overlooked: human dignity.
With fast fashion continuing to flood our environment, several brands and companies outsource materials ultimately using child labor and other means of dehumanization.
While Shepherds could have easily taken a similar path, they chose to actively live their faith as reflected in core Catholic social teachings, such as the dignity of work and the rights of workers, as well as the dignity of the human person and the rights and responsibilities of each individual person.
“Harrison is obviously a great athlete but he fits so well into being a cofounder of Shepherd’s because we all believe in elevating society,” Cottrell shared.
Cotrell stated that the faith brought their team together, as he believes sharing the same values is an important aspect of success.
“The right team with those characteristics can make any business successful. For all of us as faithful Catholics, we already had a foundation of shared values both in the business and in our personal lives and a high level of trust,” Cortrell shared. “As we saw the different skills and commitment to excellence we all had, it made a lot of sense to build Shepherd’s together.”
Cotrell noted that integrating faith in the company only positively impacts their work. He shared the importance of being a virtuous person, as that will always reflect the quality of their work.
“The virtues of the founding team will be reflected in the corporate culture; our customers will feel it and our suppliers will feel it. The same is true for parents. The children and the atmosphere of the home will reflect the virtue of the parents,” Cotrell said.
“There’s a great line from the Gospel of Luke that says, ‘out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks,’ and I think that’s true in all areas of life, whether you’re building a company or a family,” he explained. “You integrate virtue externally by building virtue internally.”
Cottrell continues, “The Catholic understanding of suffering—that it shouldn’t be avoided or wasted but counted as joy—has been so helpful over the years as I’ve gone through difficult times but especially as an entrepreneur. That view reframes every obstacle as an opportunity and gives me both an anchor and a buoy.”
While Butker has been seen sporting a variety of Shepherd’s suits, he is not alone!
More recently, Catholic actor David Henrie, who will reprise his role as Justin Russo on Disney Channel’s “Wizards of Waverly Place” alongside Selena Gomez, was seen wearing a Shepherd’s suit on Instagram.
Dressing in a dignified fashion truly never goes out of style, whether that’s in front of a hundred cameras or at work. How we choose to express ourselves with our clothing matters.
Modesty and respectability come in a variety of ways, and thankfully, the Lord has given talent to so many people that we have a variety to choose from.