Style Wars Part 2

 

Posted by admin on 06.12.2010 in Stacy Gueraseva

Continuing from Part 1, Stacy interviews the folks from Karmaloop.com and IM KING to see how these companies are pushing the creative envelope and generating profits at the same time. Includes commentary from Crooks & Castles, 10.Deep, and LRG.

Check below to read Part 2!

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Coninued from Style Wars: Part 1

Aspiring streetwear designers can now produce, sell and market their product with greater ease—thanks to advances in technology. Some designers are also visual artists who see clothing as just another canvas for their art. “If you can’t buy a $2,000 art piece I have, then you can buy a $25 t-shirt,” says artist M. Tony Peralta of The Peralta Project. But breaking in comes with a new set of challenges: Anyone can make a t-shirt, but cut-and-sew pieces that are popular now are out of the budget for some. Those that do break in must contend with

incredible competition. Karmaloop.com, for example, sells over 200 different brands. There are well-known ones like Crooks & Castles and smaller ones like IM King, and those that don’t necessary fit into the streetwear category per se (like Betsey Johnson), but that can easily be rocked as part of a streetwear look. In addition, every week, the website receives submissions from 20 to 30 different designers for a section of the site called Kazbah, devoted entirely to up-and-comers. Only one percent actually make it on the site (even with the $40 application fee and the 35 percent cut Karmaloop takes from each sale). The rest of the submissions are “crap,” says Selkoe—obvious rip-offs of another popular brand.

“The game has changed; it’s just flooded,” says Harris. In fact, back in 2008, XLarge was already declaring streetwear “dead,” creating a kind of tongue-in-cheek collection titled “Streetwear Is Dead.” One of the t-shirts had an image of a tombstone engraved with the words: “”R.I.P. Streetwear;” another—the Grim Reaper.

“A lot of competition has been created, a lot of shaking of the tree has been done,” says Emeka Obi, marketing director of 10.Deep, one of the original streetwear brands. “A lot of people shake the tree, and a lot of things will fall off, and some will stay on.” Staying on, however, takes more than just a killer design, but a whole system of tools and values. As Selkoe points out: “Not necessarily the best designers become the most popular.” Those who really put thought and time into building their brand, who create a catchy logo, use clever marketing to gain visibility (from getting celebrity endorsements to having contest on websites and doing unique collaborations with other brands) will most likely survive. And most important, they must have a genuine passion for their product.

One of the best at all of the above is LRG, who have been around since 1999. Their clothes have been seen on everyone from “Entourage” characters to Kanye West and even Robin Williams. They’re one of the few streetwear brands that has managed to crossover to department stores without sacrificing its street credibility. “LRG can [crossover], because they continue to innovate and have really cutting edge style and do really good collabs, constantly just pushing the envelope,” says Selkoe. “They have a really good looking product so that makes a huge difference.”

What also makes a difference is that “we’re not just putting logos on shirts,” says founder Jonas Bevacqua. “Everything is very well thought-out, and everything has a message behind it.” LRG stands for Lifted Research Group, and the logo is a tree with visible roots, which is representative of the company’s slogan: “underground inventive, overground effective.” “The roots symbolized the underground, and when it grows and becomes strong, it’s an overground effective,” Bevacqua explains. Having a well-thought out concept behind the brand makes the consumer feel like they are part of something special, and ultimately encourages brand loyalty.

The kind of loyalty that New York-based label 10.Deep is familiar with. In business since 1997—when they started as a tee shirt company—10.Deep has remained fiercely independent, which owner Scott Sasso owes to his brand-building strategy. “The way that I’ve been able to get as big as I have and be totally independent is because I saved a lot of money over a long period of time and kind of grew the brand really slowly,” he says.

“Soon, brands are gonna filter out,” says Harris. “Crooks & Castles could be around for a minute.” From its catchy name down to its black-and-white label and the typography of the logo—Crooks & Castles spells the ultimate in streetwear cool. L.A. native Dennis Calvero started it with his childhood friend Emil Soriano in 2002 as a “back-up plan, a side project, a hobby.” Collaborations with other brands, as well as a women’s line, have all been part of the brand’s think-big strategy, but what’s really at the heart of the label is its approachability mixed with the aspirational. “With the name Crooks & Castles, people relate to it a lot easier, because it’s kind of the good and the bad. It’s coming from a negative lifestyle and turning it into a positive,” says Soriano. Of course, Jay-Z getting photographed rocking their shirt didn’t hurt.

“Whether we like it or not, celebrities have a huge impact on what the rest of the world and endorsements equal buying power,” says IM King’s Alex Kuang. “[Brands that] pick up-and-coming artists or movers-and-shakers of the music industry, get them rocking their stuff—that definitely has a big influence on people wanting their product,” says Selkoe.

One of the best examples of making it out on top is Karmaloop’s own. You’d never know it today, with its millions of daily visitors, but the website was at one point $1 million in the red. Selkoe—a hip hop-loving Boston native, whose first hip hop album purchase was Kurtis Blow’s “The Breaks”—remembers “borrowing from one person to pay another person, times where I couldn’t pay my employees, had to really beg them to stick with us. We used to have the phone shut off all the time, the internet shut off. I got bad credit from it.”

Giving up, however, was “never even a consideration,” he says, because he knew that his concept was strong. Despite naysayers telling him that clothing won’t sell well online, Selkoe believed in his idea, because people have been shopping via catalogs for generations. Karmaloop was going to be “like a catalog—just much more dynamic, much better and much easier to use,” he says. “I just always felt like, there’s no question, it’s gonna work.”

The last two years have been the most profitable for Karmaloop.com, with annual sales in excess of $20 million. Selkoe chalks up the success in large part to their innovative approach to selling clothes online. “We’ve always stuck to the model of making the site a destination for content as well as clothing, that’s why we have blogs, karmaloop.tv, content intermingled with shopping by video. We’ve always wanted to have an entertainment aspect, just a combinatoin of things.” And most of all, Karmaloop has fostered a familial relationship with the brands it carries, which is mutually beneficial. “Bridging the gap between designer and retailer is a huge part of the game,” says Alex of IM King.  “Once you get to that level of comfort with the accounts you’re working with, they start to look out for you more as a colleague and business partner. It’s all about love.”

Selkoe has big plans for his brand. He’s looking forward to launching a networking site that’s been in the works for some time, Junglelife.com, as well as a high-definition cable channel, an iPhone app, and a store on Facebook. “In terms of our particular world that we’ve carved out, I don’t feel like there’s anyone close to us in terms of competition,” he says. “But we’re not sitting back, being like, ‘We got this on lock down.’ Because that’s how people wind up getting overtaken before they know what happened. When you hold still, you’re fucked, basically.”

Written by Stacy Gueraseva

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Written by Stacy Gueraseva

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