Originally launched in 1998 Alphanumeric launched offering technical gear that defied stereotypes. It was meant to be worn by everyone that participates in all sports, not meant to pigeonholed as just for skaters, snowboarders or whoever. Mixing lifestyle and the sports we love was the goal then. Fast forward to 2008 and their goal is similar. Sure times have changed but if anything the sports Alpha originally reached out to have grown by leaps and bounds. With a lot of current companies forcing kids to choose a style along with a brand Alpha is poised to succeed again. What is amazing is that in 6 months Alpha was re-launch and has already sold through it’s first three orders – WITHOUT ADS. That is testament to the fact these guys know what people want. We sat down with Aly and Mirko in the secret back alleys of Encinitas California in late June of 2008 to see what’s up now.
www.alphanumericbrand.com
“People say it is a bad time to start a new brand and it’s never a bad time to bring something good to the market” – Mirko Mangum
Aly on the left and Mirko on the right
SR: You guys were the brains behind Alphanumeric originally, how many years ago?
M: Roughly ten
A: 1998 was when we first debuted. We first got into our office in April of 1998
SR: Who all was involved back then? Was Sal part owner?
M: No, he was the marketing guy
A: He was the face, the guy shaking hands and kissing babies
SR: You made outerwear and everything back then right?
M: We made everything; denim, T’s, belts, outerwear, headphones
A: Luggage
M: Anything we were into, shit, we made golf bags – Irons was into golf
A: Irons and our team manager at the time, they were super into golf
SR: You guys had a lot of new ideas and designs for back then, right?
A: At the risk of sounding cocky, yea. It just seemed like the premise for starting a company back then was that the whole garment industry was so polarized. It was like “this is just action sports, this is just young men’s or even within action sports; we are just a snowboard brand and we only make outerwear, bag company…” For us, most kids that skate also snowboard and a lot of snowboarders skateboard, ride bmx, or downhill are into cars or surf; a lot of surfers will snowboard and skate. So it just seemed like no one was focusing on an all encompassing youth lifestyle brand. It’s funny because a bunch of us were black and people were like “oh it’s a yo brand”. It was like dude, no we are all into everything. That what the premise of the brand was, kind of encompassing all those sub niches and just saying look it’s all really about one thing, it’s all about the kids who are obviously now more than ever into a ton of different things!
SR: So you had the idea that at the time snowboarding was one dimensional, skateboarding was one dimensional and you to mix it together, like the way people actually live?
A: Completely, and now you have ads with Shaun White on a skateboard and they are Burton ads
SR: It seems like a lot of people have caught on with like Burton buying Channel Islands and Alien Workshop, Quik buying DC and Mervin and so on
M: That is the business that runs 365 days a year instead of being a seasonal business.
A: Yea, that was part of what we wanted to do
M: But for us there were no rules, in the beginning, we did not look at a spreadsheet and go “we got our winter business on lock. What other category can we ad to our business for the summer, we have all these great employees what are we going to have them doing?” It was basically – we went out and surfed and if there was a need to make something that wasn’t available we could just make it to fill our and our friends needs
SR: So your goal wasn’t just…
M: It wasn’t based on the bottom line, it was based on creative need and putting items in the marketplace that we liked that served a purpose
SR: It seems like companies buy companies from other activities so they have everything under their umbrella like Quiksilver buying DC, Mervin and so on but that was not your intention?
M: Right!
A: I think selling the company back then was last thing on our mind. It was just, “hey let’s make a lot of cool stuff”. Prove we can get it done and make a viable business out of it
M: It wasn’t based on strategic growth, like Quik buying a DC is. You look at it and how much is it for Quik to build a footwear from scratch company versus buying and existing company like DC. Obviously it makes sense to just a buy a lifestyle brand that has already been in it for ten years. From action sports culture it’s a steal of deal comparable buying to buying an athletic company outside of the realm of action sports
SR: So you guys lead the charge there in the late 90’s. Can you bring us from there to here?
M: After the first round of Alpha we went on and did some projects on our own over a period of 8 years. We both started retail stores, both did other brands, you know the roads kind of lead everyone back together. Now Alpha today, there are seven of us working and everyone was involved in the original projects, whether they’re an intern, a team rider… everyone’s crossroads kind of came together again and here we are
SR: Full circle?
M: Yea, were all a little older and wiser
SR: What motivated you to do the second, current round?
M: Same thing as round one, we are looking at each other going there is a time and a place and need for something special. On top of that there is a little feel of unfinished business
SR: It seems like there is a lot of people in the snowboard and skate market already but it also seems there is room for new and different things too?
M: People say it is a bad time to start a new brand and it’s never a bad time to bring something good to the market. Someone always wants…if there is a product out there the better people will want it regardless of the economy, the price of gas or food
SR: So full outerwear for 08-09?
M: Were going to do a collabo project for this upcoming year then full blown for the next season
SR: In the meantime? Denim?
M: Yea, denim is launching in like 45 days
A: It’s sold, it’s just on the water so basically it will ship in 45 days
M: There’s a 28 piece cut and sew line for fall
SR: You stoked on the progress?
M: Yea, it’s been 6 months and we are in a couple of hundred doors and in 12 countries, so it’s been fun
A: And it’s only seven us so we can pat ourselves on the back a little bit
SR: You feel like people trust you from your past?
A: I would like to think so. I think we all had a lot of relationships back then and we somewhat proved ourselves immediately but now even more so. There is a bigger trust factor
SR: Like if George Clooney calls an ex girlfriend, they don’t say no
(laughter)
M: I can’t talk for George Clooney
SR: You guys had awesome stuff! Unique! you created something new when everyone else was doing the same. You guys stopped other people took some of the ideas and kept going, look at the headphones right?
M: Action sports are pretty incestuous, people get caught up on the biggest shoe company. The smallest guy will look at the biggest guys ads and say ours need to look like that to get to where they need to be. By the time you get to the end of the magazine you have looked at 15 or 20 of the same ads.
A: Almost the same product within street wear, outerwear and even surf. For the large part you could actually, if they weren’t branded, you could just take the tabs out and switch them around and I am not going to say we are guilty of a little of that right now. It was because our decision to do this was basically a week. So then it was alright let’s get stuff going. We haven’t even released our ad campaign yet. A big part of it is because you hear about the white elephant and when that stuff comes out it better sure as shit be a gleaming white elephant. It’s gotta be like holy shit! So we’ve brought some cool stuff out and it’s created a really positive reaction I think in the industry and there is still going to be a bunch of naysayer’s. When it really hits and gets it’s stride, it’s got a make a change in the industry
SR: Well, it is sick cuz I am out there and I never heard anything about a re-launch until Major Tom told me and here you are, already sold through and you don’t even have ads out yet…like Google (laughter)
M: The cool thing about re-launching a brand…from a consumer standpoint, people that were really into and passionate about the brand..those people are running magazines, blogs, and they are photographers or people in positions to really.. you know there is a bunch of people that were fans in the past. We did not put out a press release, we just contacted people and said hey, we’re coming back. People gave their interpretation of what the brand meant to them and it is much more powerful than seven monkeys conjuring up a contrived press release. So it was cool to have some of the people at leading brands, publications and even our competition, the comments that came back are basically the press release
SR: What about the kids, it’s sick that everyone bought your stuff on a wholesale level but the kids have to buy it from the stores or…
M: Right, ultimately it’s gotta check at retail and it has. We’re basically shipping our third season now so it’s checked through. Like any brand building/re-building the hardest people to get are the tastemakers and if they are already on board then it’s trickle down from there. So we are fortunate to have some of that taste making audience
SR: So even though it has been 10 years you guys feel like you are…hmm how can I put this…
M: Believe it or not, still relevant (laughter)
A: That was the decision. We had seen each other at a few trade shows and oddly enough a few people had come up to us and said “you know Alpha would be perfect right now” and we were saying it to each other just in passing. Then Mirko goes hey! We were both working for other companies and thinking that something was missing
SR: There is definitely room for something different
A: There’s big holes, especially in action sports. There are waves and somebody will go left and everybody will go “you guys are outta your minds” and then it starts to check then the sales guys will go “oh those dudes are doing something” then it will slowly; it will be Veeco, Hurley then someone else, then someone else and it’s a zig zag thing every 5 years.
SR: Everyone is wearing tight pants or hip hop?
A: One or the other, your either 80’s throwback even though you are born in 89 and never heard of Iggy Pop or Devo or you are wearing rope chains and you don’t know who Big Daddy Kane is.
SR: Where do you guys fit in?
A: Kind of all of the above and even going into…because we just launched it was a big question, what’s the look? What we want to do is give the team all the same gear and just be like “look it’s not a uniform”, even though they are wearing the same thing, the kids gonna wear it the way he wants to wear it. So we got like Anthony Williams; a hip hop kid from Atlanta. He might rock his pants with a sag, another kid will wear them super tight. One dudes gonna tuck his shirt in and another dude won’t, another will have it open or tight around his head, you know what I mean? It’s creating good products. We don’t want to make clones. You know you have a lot of brands where “this is just the hesh dude brand and this is the electro guy brand”..
SR: In the end the kids…
M: …Open to interpretation…
A: Exactly! That’s one of our biggest messages, you’re gonna wear it the way you want to wear it
SR: Everything (in the industry) seems to be kind of polarized and you guys can go either way or right down the middle
A: Exactly but that’s too broad to tell someone in the industry because “individuality is not trendy”
SR: How is the quality of the outerwear?
A: It was good then…
M: We are not going to build anything shitty. One of the problems in the beginning was that the quality provided by the factory was way beyond what the consumer needed. The way the seems locked, the taping, we were one of the first brands to use membranes and fabrics in the action sports culture. People were like “It’s $400 it’s not heavy enough” (laughter)
A: The last brands we were looking at were ones in the snowboard industry
SR: So you’re stuff is not going to fall apart and have to be taken to the tailor to be re-sewn like some of the stuff I own now?
A: No (laughter)
M: You got a hold of some bad stuff
A: We both come from households where we were raised by our moms, we didn’t come from wealthy families, if your mom spent that dough or if you saved up your money from working a summer job – your shit had to last. We want the people coming back due to quality.
M: What speaks volumes is that we had a contest called show us your Alpha gear and the winner had 80 pieces and all the ads
A: He had some stuff none of us even had
SR: So unique design, good quality, seems like a no brainer
M: It’s the recipe for success
The following photos are current samples and saome gems from the past. All of the outerwear shown here is from the past lokk for some update outwear garments soon!
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