BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT:Pimpit isn’t about selling yourself

Derek Jaeger doesn’t design clothing for shrinking violets. The name of his retail company — Pimpit Empire — is up-front enough, and the logos on his products include pistols, brass knuckles, grenades and other hair-raising images.

It’s urban clothing to the core, but Jaeger, who operates his company on the Westside, doesn’t see it as spreading a negative message. He’s into boosting self-esteem, not encouraging violence, and he even interprets his company’s name differently than some people would.

“I think Pimpit doesn’t mean selling girls or selling yourself,” Jaeger said. “It means looking good, feeling good and being positive.”

As far as he’s concerned, it’s also about individuality. Pimpit, which sells its American-made clothing online, at its Costa Mesa store and at a handful of boutiques and retail chains, changes its designs every few months to keep them from getting overexposed.

So far, the store has had a steady enough flow of customers to keep it a fixture on West 17th Street for half a decade.

Jaeger, who earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing from San Diego State, got into the clothing retail business while attending Irvine Valley College at the age of 18.

One of his classmates worked for a Japanese apparel company that was seeking to distribute American surfing clothes, and Jaeger took a job there as a buyer.

The job ended, he said, when the company’s profits began falling due to the Japanese yen losing value.

At San Diego State, he and classmate Keith Scheinberg founded Pimpit with the goal of distributing hard-to-find clothing brands.

The two moved to Newport Beach after graduation and operated their first warehouse out of a rented home on 34th Street.

Scheinberg eventually left Pimpit, and Jaeger stayed on as its chief executive.

Almost daily, he leads his eight-person staff in creating new designs for products. Jaeger hopes to get more of them into mainstream stores, but for the time being, he relishes the company’s outsider status.

“We’re not providing products to the sheep,” he said. “We’re the originators, not the imitators.”