Rebecca Maxwell’s Cleveland Fashion Brand Has a New Look, and She’s Feeling More Creative Than Ever

It was one of the few occasions when Rebecca Maxwell swore off social media. On a normal Monday in September, she locked her apps and took some time to reset — clean her apartment and plan for the week ahead. The internet is integral to Maxwell’s career as both a local influencer and the owner of two small businesses, but she values any opportunity to decrease her screen time.

While she was offline, someone was attempting to hack her Instagram accounts.

Later that night, back on her phone to batch some upcoming content, Maxwell received a fraudulent but convincing email about a copyright infringement on a post from She’s Company, her women-centered networking organization.

“Immediately, my stomach sank. I didn’t even take the time to think,” Maxwell says. “I clicked on the email; it signed me in with my face, and I just watched as I got locked out of everything.”

The anonymous hacker accessed not just the She’s Company account, but all her pages — the largest, @rebecca.maxwell, with more than 36,000 followers.

READ MORE: Clevelander Turns Downtown Parties into She's Company, a Cleveland Networking Group For Women

The setback came weeks after relaunching her fashion brand, Two One Thrift, following a cease-and-desist letter the Coalition to Advance the Protection of Sports Logos sent her in February. She had spent nearly seven years focusing the brand on upcycled Cleveland sportswear before having to change what she sold.

“I got this email that basically said, ‘You need to take down everything on your site,’” Maxwell says, adding that the Coalition also requested a financial record of the profits made from her products. “Even if I had a post on my Instagram or TikTok that said, ‘Link in my bio to shop,’ or anything like that, (the Coalition) would come back and say, ‘You have not taken everything down.’ So I complied and just deleted everything.”

Members of the Coalition and their protected trademarks span the NBA, MLB, NFL, Collegiate Licensing Company and NHL; professional sports logos are owned by the leagues themselves, not the individual teams. The Coalition seeks anonymous tips regarding the production of counterfeit merchandise.

“The essence of trademark law is confusion,” says Betsy Rosenblatt, a law professor for intellectual property courses at Case Western Reserve University. “‘Counterfeit’ is something that is, essentially, exactly the same trademark on exactly the same good or service … something where a consumer couldn't reasonably tell the difference between a genuine product and a counterfeit product.”

“On Etsy, for example,” she adds, “people are making their own things to express that they're fans of something. And they're not designed to deceive — consumers on Etsy are probably savvy enough to know that this is not official merchandise. But somebody who sees it at a game and thinks, I want to buy this thing, and then they go on the team's website and can't find it, that's a tougher trademark question, because that is more potentially competing with what the team does.”

Rosenblatt clarifies it’s always a case-by-case situation. If a professional organization believes there is merch that is infringing upon their trademark or competing with their product or their profitability, they have the authority to ask that seller to terminate their sales. But oftentimes, organizations don’t feel threatened enough to need to intervene.

“Unless the maker is making a lot of money at it, at which point the team will probably tell them to stop, and the team will probably be right (to do so),” she says. “But it's also true that most trademark holders want fans to be active in fan spaces. So they're walking a bit of a line, because they don't want to discourage their fans from expressing love and excitement.”

Items by Two One Thrift were, by definition, not counterfeit, but were bleached, cut, painted on and updated with different decals. Maxwell says she has never been contacted directly by any professional league or any of the Cleveland sports teams.

But rather than test the limits of loopholes, she took the opportunity to move her business in a different direction.

“The reason I started all of this is that sports gear for women is awful,” Maxwell says. “I remember being a little girl — we had season tickets to the then-Indians — and I remember seeing pink, bedazzled sports gear. Today, it’s come a long way, but it’s still boxy T-shirts and sweatshirts. I want a practical outfit piece that I would style in my daily world. I don’t need another T-shirt that everyone is gonna have. That was what made (Two One Thrift) fun. But, it's kind of one of those things where, if I didn't start something else, I wouldn't have ever started again.”

Maxwell unveiled Two One Thrift’s new inventory at Lakewood’s Her Market in August. She’s exploring her creative eye for fashion design in the realm of home decor by thrifting skirts, fabrics and bed sheets in fun prints that she sews into lampshades — the favorite of her new endeavors. She also offers mirrors and antique portraits that she paints over with witty and motivating phrases.

“There’s so many things that can be repurposed,” Maxwell says. “It doesn’t have to be clothes.”

But she’ll still sell clothes, tapping into the broader secondhand market with vintage shoes, jackets, shirts and skirts. She’ll still be making jeans and shirts similar to her original brand with the added details, but no items will have affiliation with a specific team — just Cleveland in general. Any sportswear she thrifts will be sold as is, at thrift-store prices.

“I don’t believe in buying something for $3 and selling it for $50,” Maxwell says. “I want everybody to shop secondhand; we have enough stuff. If I can help that, then I absolutely will.”

Maxwell eventually regained access to her accounts, following a few weeks of disputes that got Meta and the Ohio attorney general's office involved. Before knowing if she’d get those pages back, she started mapping out ways to keep her brand alive beyond Instagram: a podcast, long-form content on YouTube, in-person events, fashion consultation services and possibly a storefront for Two One Thrift. When Instagram reentered the mix, some of these plans were already in motion. 

“I come up with a new idea every day,” Maxwell says. “I feel more creative than I’ve ever felt. Everything I’m making is a reflection of me.”

For now, you can find Two One Thrift online and at pop-up vendor markets across the city.

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