Take something as basic as clothing, add the type of community and interactivity of the internet to the design process and what do you get? Open source clothing of course.

Full story after the jump.

Threadless.com, founded in 2000 by web designers Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart, allows would-be clothing designers to submit designs for t-shirts which are reviewed and voted on by members of the site. The most popular designs are put into limited production runs and made available for purchase on the site. The creators of the chosen designs receive $500 in cash/site credit for their efforts.

The company behind Threadless.com, skinnyCorp, has also created other sites that follow the same concept such as NakedAndAngry.com which offers ties and polo shirts in community submitted designs and 15MegsOfFame which allows independent music artists to submit their work for public review.

With 2004 revenues of $1.6 million, skinnyCorp has found an innovative way to capitalize on open source creativity with their growing network of “community-driven” sites.

I think there are many other industries that this form of public, interactive creativity could be applied to. Get those business ideas flowing…