Downtown shop gets new home

Abbie Stuart

There are many stores in downtown Topeka, but none quite like BOHOmojo and Reliant Apparel, which boasts two businesses run by one family.

During November’s First Friday Art Walk, BOHOmojo and Reliant Apparel celebrated their move to a new location with a ribbon cutting ceremony.

“We moved our screen printing because we ordered new equipment,” said owner Carol Casale. “We were never going to put it in the old space, but we thought we had a space in which it’d fit in and that didn’t happen. So we ended up with this space downstairs.”

Casale added that it became too difficult to run the businesses in two different locations, so they sped up their moving process to move into their new space.

The ceremony began with Vince Frey of Downtown Topeka Inc., giving a talk about what BOHOmojo and Reliant Apparel meant to downtown businesses.

Casale spoke to the crowd about how they had come to move and introduced the team of people who help run the two businesses. Her grandchildren, Lillyan and Colton, cut the ribbon to make the re-opening official.

BOHOmojo began when the family decided to expand their screen printing business to include retail.

“We had a small screen printing business and we were outgrowing, we needed space,” said Casale. “We were looking at some retail space and decided we would do some retail. [We] sort of experimented and latched onto free trade as something we liked.”

BOHOmojo sells fair trade items from Africa, Guatemala, Asia, India and more. Fair trade means that the all of the clothing is hand-made by workers who are paid proper wages for their work.

In the basement of BOHOmojo lies Reliant Apparel, a professional screen printing service. Besides screen printing, Reliant Apparel does embroidery, heat transfers, DTG printing and promotional products using the most advanced technology on the market.

BOHOmojo and Reliant Apparel are located in downtown Topeka between Wolfe’s and Absolute Design by Brenda.

“It’s sort of a family effort,” said Casale about the way the two businesses work hand in hand. “We’re glad we’re moved and things are going well.”