Dr. Blair Tolar spends his days helping women stay healthy. As an OB-GYN at Baptist Health Paducah, he gives checkups, diagnoses illnesses, and delivers babies.
But in his off-hours, Tolar often indulges in an unusual hobby for a doctor—designing t-shirts and hoodies.
“It’s not so much about the t-shirt as it is the message,” he explains.
Tolar says he began the clothing line G2P4 in April 2019 as a way to spread health awareness through streetwear. The name is a medical designation referring to his wife’s pregnancies and living children, and it pays homage to her and their family. The line itself, however, honors those who live with various diseases and conditions.
“I wanted to take the streetwear feel—of the clothing itself, of the style itself, of the material that we use for the shirts—and then mash it up with real health care messages to improve awareness,” Tolar says.
G2P4’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages show t-shirts and hoodies that feature particular diseases or conditions, their phonetic spellings, and facts about them. The items also come in colors associated with these conditions, which Tolar considers integral to his mission.
“Everybody knows breast cancer [is associated with] pink,” he says. “I want that for all the health care awareness issues. People need to know what those colors are and what they represent.”
As a result, G2P4 includes a rainbow of hues. Purple G2P4 shirts educate people about bladder cancer, light blue pieces list facts about colon cancer, teal designs spread awareness of ovarian cancer, and so on. Tolar also added in a few shirts just for fun—specifically one promoting the city of Paducah and another predicting a baby boom after the COVID-19 lockdown. But, for the most part, his line focuses on improving public health.
This altruistic hobby has grown from Tolar’s passion for health care and his fascination with streetwear. For a long time, the doctor says, he has admired how brands like Supreme Clothing captivate youth not only with fashionable clothing but also with clear messaging. They carry images, like iconic cartoon characters or bold phrases, that resonate with the young.
He has also noticed how important these items become to high schoolers and how much thought they put into coordinating their outfits. Streetwear, Tolar says, is more than apparel – it’s like a way of life.
Now, Tolar wants to use that passion for fashion to do some good.
The doctor works with Troutman Sign Graphics, Inc., in Paducah to design and print G2P4 Clothing. He carefully crafts every aspect of his pieces, right down to the fabrics. He also assigns a name and a story to each item. “The Echo” design honors a friend of his from medical school who passed away from breast cancer, while “The Keiveon” pays homage to a young man whose father died of colon cancer.
“Every t-shirt has a special meaning to me and a background to me, and now I’m telling those stories,” he says. “It gives a little bit of a personal touch.”
Tolar says these shirts have attracted a lot of attention in the year since G2P4 began. People often stop him in public to ask about his clothing, and fans around the country now own G2P4 items. He has sold or given away nearly 300 breast cancer hoodies alone.
The OB-GYN-turned-fashion-designer is happy that people enjoy his work, but he also says that sales aren’t his ultimate goal. He wants to impact youth.
“That teenage group—that high school and early college generation—are the ones who are really expressing themselves when they wear something,” he states. “And, if they’ll wear something…and express awareness of a certain disease – that’s victory on all fronts.”
Currently, G2P4 Clothing is available only through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Any interested customers can contact Tolar through the brand’s social media accounts and arrange for a purchase.
Tolar says he is happy to deliver or ship designs to any location. He just wants to spread health care awareness – in the most fashionable way possible.
