The son of Kurdish immigrants expands on his parents’ American Dream with Aesthetic Built clothing line
Alend Barzenji’s entrepreneurial roots extend halfway across the world.
The son of Kurdish immigrants says some of his earliest memories involve his family’s arduous asylum journey from the Kurdish state of Iraq to the United States.
“We immigrated to the US in 1997,” he says. “My dad was working for Global Partners, which was a nonprofit organization attached to the Clinton administration. When [Sadam] Hussein came to power, several Kurdish families like ours were offered asylum. Next thing I know, we’re in a taxi and headed to the airport, then we were [in the US].”
They settled in Greenville through the relationship Alend’s father had with a local businessman who worked with Global Partners and opened his home to the Barzenji family while they got on their feet.
Alend is proud of his Kurish heritage and credits his parents—Basheer and Bohar Barzenji—who came to America with $200 in their pockets, for creating in him a desire to work hard and achieve the American dream. “It was my mom and my dad, both,” he says. “That’s where it comes from. Mom was in international business, and Dad was always a risk-taker.”
When Bohar died of breast cancer during the month of Ramadan in 2007, Alend, who was in high school at the time, watched his dad react with a mix of hope, faith, and hard, hard work. “They had no health insurance, and he had to find a way to pay off what was a pretty sizable medical debt,” the son recalls.
Therefore, when Alend launched his Greenville-based athletic clothing line, Aesthetic Built, he went at it with the same level of commitment his father modeled for him. “I was cutting the netting out of a pair of $50 name-brand gym shorts one day, and wondered if I couldn’t create a better, more affordable product,” he says.
Within 90 days, Alend had developed and launched his e-commerce site, designed and ordered his first batch of apparel and accessories, and built a social media marketing presence around the brand. That was October of 2022.
Aesthetic Built Growth
A little more than two years into a five-year plan, Aesthetic Built is a thriving, 100-percent self-funded, home-based business for Alend, who by day is a stylist at Salon Barzenji, his father’s business in Greer.
“I do a lot of market research, and that sets [Aesthetic Built] apart,” he says. “I ask customers what they’re looking for, if they like the material, if it’s performing the way they expect it to.”
Aesthetic Built’s robust product line is built for the everyday athlete, and features accessories, unisex apparel, and a stable of short- and long-sleeve tees, tank tops, shorts, joggers, and hoodies for men, along with sports bras, joggers, hoodies, sweaters, shorts, and leggings for women.
He designs every item freehand and strives to keep prices in line with the market, if not a little bit lower. “The price is enticing to some customers, but the goal is to deliver value,” he says.
And stitched into it all is Alend’s desire to build something worthwhile in his community. “It comes from having a start in life where you have nothing,” he says.
