This Is Not a T-Shirt

by Bobby Hundreds

  Should I quit my day job/school?

  No. Ben and I stayed in law school for the first two years of our brand. Unless you’re a rich kid, you should expect to go for broke, and you’ll need to survive by making money elsewhere. It took us three years before we paid ourselves a dime. Everything we made until that point just got dumped right back into the company. Pace yourself. It’s a marathon.

  Is wholesale dead? Should I sell directly to my customers through my online shop?

  This is very topical as more retailers slough off and the next crop of brands pledges allegiance to DTC (direct to consumer). And I totally get it. Why sell your brand to someone else’s store, where you reap half the profits and lose control of your image? I’m gonna play devil’s advocate here. The reason why wholesale is just as (if not more) important than selling DTC is that the store acts as your ambassador in its community. Sure, you can access every neighborhood in the world through the internet, but we all know that relationships are much deeper when established IRL. The stores have already built a rapport with the locals. They’ve been designated as tastemakers and curators to narrow down a thoughtful range of brands for their customers. So, by stocking your product, they are not only acting as a human face of your brand; they are cosigning you in front of their audience.

  Plus—and there’s no way to objectively quantify this—some of the biggest and most profitable internet brands tend to remain exactly that, obscured from the main-stage conversation. You may even prefer to stay underground and niche, but as your dreams get loftier, it helps to have a familiar name aboveground to broaden your opportunities.

  I’m from a small town in the middle of nowhere. Can my brand make it?

  Yes! In many ways, the internet has equalized the playing field for smaller markets, giving a voice to the little guys. We are also living in a global economy where culture doesn’t just ripple out from L.A., New York, Tokyo, and London anymore. For example, over the last decade, South Korea has become a major player in world music and fashion. Even here in the United States, Seattle has become a tech capital, Houston is a rap hub, and Austin and Las Vegas are ushering in a new wave of talent and industry. Reframe every weakness as a strength. Being from a small town grants you the opportunity to be the big fish in a small pond. You can get an entire city behind you, whereas here in Los Angeles it’s dog-eat-dog. And with so many new brands and designers popping up every day, it’s difficult to stand apart in a big city.

  Somebody stole my idea. What do I do?

  I hate to break it to you (and your ego), but no idea is original. Occasionally, I’ll get a small brand attacking me on the internet for stealing its T-shirt graphic idea, when in reality we designed it two years before and were also parodying the same cultural inspiration (a popular eighties movie or a vintage skate logo). As special as your mom tells you that you are, we are all ripping off the same references, drawing from the same pool of inspiration. There are only so many Tumblrs, T-shirt books, and album covers.

  And let’s say someone did blatantly rip you off. They maliciously jacked your logo, or they saw a sweater you were working on and copied it, right down to the blind seams. Let me remind you that you are bigger than one idea. You are larger than ten ideas. Let them chase you and steal, because that means they’re forever one step behind. You can always sue if you believe there are damages. You can handle it on a street level or shame the thieves over social media. But did you know that fashion designs are very difficult to protect legally? Shockingly, the reasoning behind it is to encourage the creative process. That’s why fashion houses are always referencing past seasons and shopping for vintage treasures. They are constantly “being inspired by” or “paying homage to.” This remixing, reinterpreting, and updating of existing ideas is what fashion is based on. Have enough confidence in yourself and creativity to keep moving forward and let the biters eat off your scraps.

  What do you think about “XYZ” brand?

  I don’t.

  It’s only unfair when you compare. This is about you and your brand only. If someone is doing better than you, that’s your fault. If a competitor is stealing the spotlight, take back the attention. Be better and smarter, and design something new. The longer you do this, you’ll realize that 99.9 percent of competitors defeat themselves. Put your head down and keep on going.

  How do you deal with the hate?

  I just don’t take myself too seriously. So, someone doesn’t like me and I should be surprised? What—is everyone supposed to love me? Am I a toddler? A wise woman named Dita Von Teese once said, “You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there’s still going to be somebody who hates peaches.”

  I am comfortable with my value as a person and can separate it from my work. And to be honest, the critics can be right. Most of the time, they’re bored or jealous or have some personal vendetta that I don’t know about (I call these “invisible wars”). Once in a while, however, I can stand to be corrected or at least taught something new by a hateful stranger. Be humbled. Remember that it’s just clothing and there are much more important things happening on this beautiful planet; then nothing can deter you. Same goes for all the praise and sycophancy. Take it with a grain of salt as well. You didn’t do this for anyone’s validation; you did it for yourself.

  What do you think about the state of streetwear?

  I think the media likes to cast streetwear in a singular light (high fashion, Supreme, resellers), but the truth is that streetwear is complex and nuanced. There are so many kinds now, so many degrees, and it’s exciting to see how far it’s come from a few T-shirt designers bucking mainstream fashion. Unfortunately, I don’t think the media and industry limelight will stay on streetwear for much longer, but personally I believe that’s good for its health. It’ll be nice to scale back, collect ourselves, and watch the cream rise to the top. There’s just so much fat out there that I think we’ve lost our way. Once the money’s lessened, I hope we can place our emphasis back on the culture.

  I’ve been doing this for a few years and haven’t seen much progress. Should I quit?

  It’s fundamental to dream. Don’t let anybody tell you that you’re chasing the impossible. You don’t have to listen to anyone, but you must be in tune with yourself. Be realistic: head in the clouds, feet on the ground. If you’ve invested years of your life into a brand and you aren’t achieving the success you’d hoped for, there’s no shame in letting it go. And take the lessons with you! I believe everyone should do a brand whether they think they can build a fashion empire or not. Because it’s not about the destination. It’s about starting the car and seeing where it takes you. I’ve met famous chefs, weed farmers, and wet-suit manufacturers who began their entrepreneurial journey by reading my blog and building a streetwear brand. They never became the next Virgil Abloh, but they did drive their car to the destination that was right for them. But you gotta get the car started. You can’t steer it unless it’s moving.

  Can I collaborate with you?

  No(t yet), but don’t stop trying. If you really mean it, you’ll get your work to a point where you’ll be impossible to ignore. Create such a remarkable brand that I’d be an idiot to say no to you. But of course by then you won’t need to work with my brand. The irony.

  What’s the best part of your job?

  Meeting people. I’m endlessly fascinated by people, I think they are each their own book, and I want to read them all. I’d say traveling also, but really I just like traveling so I can meet new people with different vantage points. I prioritize my life according to the definition of a noun: a person, place, or thing. People first, places second, things last.

  What’s the worst part of your job?

  I don’t like being a boss. I’m not a good manager. I wish I could be friends with everyone on my staff, but I’ve been reminded time and time again that there is a distinct line there, and with good reason! I hate being double-crossed by staff that I trusted, stolen from, and shit-talked by disgruntle
d former employees. I’ve lost a lot of valuable friendships because things got weird with a work arrangement. I’ve seen the ugliest sides of good people because money and power confused the relationship. I’ve seen a lot of careers explode after working with The Hundreds, without an acknowledgment or return. But it comes with the territory. The employees’ duty is to complain about the boss. They literally make entire TV shows around this premise (there’s enough resentment to make two Horrible Bosses movies!). So, although it stings sometimes, I’ll fill the role proudly. Because most staffers, present and former, are none of these things, my proudest accomplishments with The Hundreds aren’t collaborations or clothing. They’re lives changed and careers built.

  What’s it like seeing a random person in public wearing your brand?

  It never gets old. It’s funny because there are no bigger fans of The Hundreds than Ben and I. So, when I see someone wearing our clothes, I get excited for the brand, not for me personally. And I feel an immediate kinship with that person, because we have something in common. I hope everyone who supports The Hundreds knows what I mean. That’s why we do this—to make the world feel a little bit smaller and more relatable.

  In this political climate, how important is it to vocalize your personal beliefs?

  The Hundreds started as a political statement, so it’s impossible to divorce the two. The fact that Ben and I founded this brand is a display of activism. Over the last fifteen years, I’ve done everything in my power to clothe you while also informing you about important issues. If you just want neutral fashion by a neutral fashion designer, I can point you in a million directions. But if you’re here, you probably came for an opinion. Whether you agree or not, I appreciate you taking the time to listen to a brand that stands for something. Now it’s up to you to make your own choices. Let’s keep the dialogue going.

  How do you know whom to hire?

  Hundreds of people have caught a check from The Hundreds, and Ben and I are pretty proud of that. So, when it comes to deciding who gets to hop on board, we can identify within the first five minutes of a job interview if the candidate is gonna work out. It’s all about fit. We’ve had employees who did terribly with us but thrived with another brand or career path. Their personalities didn’t jibe with their teams, their skills were subpar, but one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and those traits were exactly what someone else was looking for. Therefore, it comes down to personality and cultural complement, even more than talents and assets. The staff that does best with The Hundreds are not unlike Ben and me in temperament and worldview. And if you’re an asshole, you won’t last long with us, but there’s another company full of assholes that’s waiting for you to come home.

  What is your biggest regret with The Hundreds?

  I don’t have one. I believe success and failure are two sides of the same coin. They are relative, and context and time change how I perceive them. At first, selling to the malls was a big regret, but looking back on that choice now, I see that it provided us with the capital and brand awareness to get where we are today. Working with Back to the Future for its twenty-fifth anniversary was a win on paper, being that it’s my favorite film franchise. But the negotiations with Michael J. Fox’s team were so off-putting that the collaboration left me with a bad taste toward the movie and my favorite actor. So, I don’t know what qualifies as a “regret.” I made choices, I stuck with them, and for better or worse they made me who I am (and the brand what it is) today. I refuse to apologize for any of that.

  I love my brand, but I have all these other ideas and opportunities coming my way. Should I take them?

  Absolutely. But! Not yet. Young people today are multi-hyphenates, spreading themselves thin through an evolving and rotating set of impassioned pursuits. Our attention spans run low; we are more distracted than ever. Especially for creative personalities, it’s a challenge to hunker down and focus on one project at a time. I think the true test of success will be in endurance and commitment. It’s natural to entertain competing passions, but they will also divide your attention from the task at hand. Make sure you can delegate your duties to a staff member before you tackle another subject. It’s possible to do two things at once (or three, or four), but it takes organization and management. Ben and I don’t have just The Hundreds. We are partners in other prominent streetwear brands, a fish restaurant chain, commercial properties, a bar, and even this book. But we only dove into these extracurricular concepts once The Hundreds had built a solid and deep foundation and didn’t require our personal attention around the clock.

  How do you balance work and life?

  I can’t. Work is life, and vice versa. I don’t clock out at 5:00 p.m.; I’m on call every waking moment. I’m lucky in that I’m surrounded by loved ones who have agreed to this contract and encourage me to devote myself to my work. I don’t think it’s possible to tend to career and home equally, so the only way to pilot through this ambitious lifestyle is by having understanding, supportive, and empathetic partners on both sides.

  When did you know you had made it?

  I don’t know, because it’s never happened. And I hope I never make it. Because that means it’s over.

  NOTES

  1. Welcome to Hell

  1.  It’s like how rap music went from rebellious counterculture in the eighties to national radio channel fodder in the nineties to mainstream pop culture today. Rap has become so dominant that there’s now something for everyone—a hip-hop buffet—with rappers featuring everywhere from SoundCloud streams to Coachella flyers.

  3. Rivercide

  1.  Of course, as the communities diversified over the decades, whites fled again, to the sylvan Northeast and the racially achromatic Midwest, triggering a devastating real estate fallout by the mid-2000s.

  2.  The twentieth century was a plentiful farmland for American animation. Studios like Walt Disney, Hanna-Barbera, and Warner Bros. dominated 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s prime-time television. They erected national treasures out of characters like Mickey Mouse, Fred Flintstone, and Bugs Bunny. But in the 1980s, a syndicated symphony was conducted using these scrambled notes. Networks excavated prime-time cartoons from the past, chopped them into four-hour blocks, and beamed them into suburban households on weekends. An all-American ritual for boys and girls was born: the Saturday morning cartoon. From The Smurfs to The Transformers, Looney Tunes to Muppet Babies, Saturday morning cartoons were the iPad and YouTube of my generation. In our foundational years, they acted as an unsanctioned nanny: instructing our social language, teaching us morals, and showing us how (not) to catch a roadrunner.

  4. Step Out

  1.  We actually did eventually implement this idea. The Hundreds hosts EAT MEETs, restaurant takeovers with our community. The goal is to partake of good food, while also breaking bread with the people behind the clothes. There is no wall between us and our fans.

  2.  For example, one of my favorite live bands, Avail, was from Virginia and by all means its members could be mistaken for southern rednecks. But they’d set up an ARA (Anti-Racist Action, a precursor to Antifa) table next to the stage, distribute activist literature to the kids, and pass out flyers for Black Panther rallies.

  3.  In an interview, Ian blamed much of his disenchantment with straight edge on its militant turn: “The problem with movements is that [they] start to lose sight of humanity … In straight edge, people who really pushed the idea of a movement, especially a militant movement, really lost sight of human beings … I don’t want people to ever use my words ever to injure anybody. Ever. That is the antithesis of my desire in life … It’s unfortunate that this minority of people, who’ve engaged in fundamental and violent behaviors, have gotten so much attention and have put such a stigma on [straight edge] … I find it so disturbing when I hear about serious ugliness and it somehow evokes straight edge. It really bothers me … Can you imagine how many motherfuckers have asked me if I’m still straight edge?… It just drives me crazy
.”

  5. Outside the Box

  1.  I was personally responsible for distributing hundreds of thousands of dollars of the school’s money for student-run media and handed the majority of it over to the Latino/Chicano publication Voz Fronteriza. I believed in the paper’s cultural value and was pissed off that UCSD’s brown student population was underrepresented. The campus newspaper, UCSD Guardian, wrote scathing editorials about my misuse of funds, to which I responded with an open letter eviscerating the editors for their lack of coverage of larger issues.

  2.  In my opinion, like it or not, Nike and skateboarding were destined for each other. But first, Nike had to learn to appreciate skate through a lifestyle lens. And skaters had to feel like it was their idea to go to Nike, like they held the power in that exchange.

  6. Streetwear: A Brief History

  1.  Exceptions: Vision Street Wear and Tribal Streetwear.

  2.  Alife’s transparency influenced how I spoke and shared with The Hundreds’ customers down the line.

  8. Rising Son

  1.  In fact, it never has. Even in the years when we’ve hosted advertising from the Complex network across our website, we’ve never generated a dollar in profit from having a blog.

  2.  I always thought it’d be cool and subversive to name a brand like a big law firm. Kim & Shenassafar LLP?

  10. Kill ’Em Mall

  1.  This kid, Graham, became a prolific streetwear designer and entrepreneur. Not long after we met, he left Active and opened the Us Versus Them boutique in Temecula. His brand went on to sell worldwide, at one point locking in a partnership with Stüssy.