Professional snowboarder and brand builder Nima Jalali has co-founded two brands to go global in just the last few years. With teams built more like crews than anything and a solid connection to the riders who back them, both Ashbury Eyewear and Videograss Films have had a loyal following since the day they dropped. Nima and fellow Videograss co-founder Darrell Mathes have teamed up once more to launch an all-new glove company for the 12/13 season. Ashbury and Videograss fans are already jumping to get involved. I had a chance to talk with Nima about his approach to brand building and his newest project, HOWL.
Bird’s Eye: So, tell me about HOWL.
Nima: HOWL is Darrell Mathes, our good friend Austin Sherbanenko and myself. Basically the company started because Darrell has been trying to launch his own accessories line for a long time now and he’s just always been super into gloves. I think we all have been and we saw a place for a company similar to Ashbury in gloves. Austin, a lot of people probably aren’t familiar with him, but he has a super high-end fashion label. We used to share an office space with him when Ashbury was located downtown. We just split the place. It was really cool to get his opinion because he comes from the straight up fashion world and I’m a huge fan of his design. I think it’s gonna be really cool to have that be a part of HOWL. He also grew up snowboarding with us, so it works out perfectly since he knows the snowboard industry as well.
Bird’s Eye: I remember reading somewhere a few years back that when you started Ashbury it was partly because you felt like something was missing in snow goggles, that a lot of goggles at the time were over styled and looked like they were made for astronauts or something like that.
Nima: [Laughing] Yeah, I mean obviously there’s always gonna be ugly or weird goggles that our kind of snowboarders can’t relate to, but I think the main goal was to just… We didn’t see a team that had brought together the kind of snowboarders that we like and put them all on one team. It seemed like all the snowboarders we liked at the time were just kind of getting nothing in snowboarding with the exception of a few. Guys like Jonas Michilot and Joe Sexton and those dudes. We saw them are were like, these guys are just as sick as anybody that’s pro and getting taken care of, and they have so much more style and nobody sees it. So we were like, let’s just start a brand, whatever it is. I mean it could be anything. It could be a shoelace brand, you know? Let’s just start something that brings all these guys together. You know, more like a crew than anything else.
Bird’s Eye: So, was team the driving factor with starting up HOWL too?
Nima: Yeah, I think everything we do is team driven and we just think there’s a lot of really good dudes that don’t have glove sponsors, so that’s one of the reasons we went the glove route. Also, there’s a lot of really cool ideas in gloves that we haven’t seen executed, so we definitely see a place for us in the industry.
Bird’s Eye: Who’s handling the design end of HOWL?
Nima: Austin will be handling all the product design. It’s all looking really, really good.
Bird’s Eye: What can we expect to see drop in the first line from HOWL?
Nima: We’re gonna keep it really basic at first, start small and then grow from there, really similar to Ashbury. So we’re dropping with six gloves. All the gloves come in a few colors. We’re also starting with seven pieces of headwear, so six beanies and a hat as well. Everything comes in a few colors. Then a couple t-shirts and hoodies and that’ll pretty much be it to start. We’ve already started designing the next year’s stuff too, which would drop in the fall of 2013. We’re going to expand the glove line to about ten or eleven pieces. We’re also gonna start getting into bags and luggage, so we’ll have backpacks and travel bags and stuff like that. That way we can be more than just a seasonal brand. We’ll hopefully have a skate team by then, so they’ll be able to have a backpack sponsor as well.
Bird’s Eye: Yeah, it seems like there would be a lot of potential for HOWL on the skate side.
Nima: Yeah, it just depends on how you look at it because a lot of people are thinking of HOWL as just gloves right now and we want it to be so much more than that. We definitely want to focus on making really good snowboard gloves, but we also want to have headwear and bags be a really big part of it. I think bags is where we can put together a really good skate team. There’s a lot of really good skaters that have backpack sponsors too. Theotis is on Dakine. But there’s definitely a lot that don’t and I think we could put together a good team and have a place in that industry as well.
Bird’s Eye: I hear talk about how the snowboarding industry is getting smaller and how some snowboarding brands are under pressure because of the economic pullback we’ve seen over the last few years. But you’ve been building brands in this environment and you seem to be doing pretty damn well at it. What do you think about that?
Nima: Well I don’t really know, but I would say I’ve never seen a brand fold that was doing the right things. You know, if you see a brand that you’re really hyped on and you feel like it’s really sick and they’re doing all the right things and they have a good team… You don’t really see brands like that fold. I don’t really know how it’s affecting the big companies, because I just kinda don’t pay attention to them as much.
As far as the snowboard market getting smaller and losing some steam or whatever, I mean I personally don’t see that. For us, we’ve been growing from year to year. I feel like I’m hearing about all these smaller companies like all of C3, so Capita, Coal and Union and then Holden Outerwear. Those guys are all independent and they’re fucking killing it. I feel like that’s all I hear about. I don’t hear any negatives about any of the smaller brands, so maybe it’s just a good time right now for the small brands.
I did hear about a super big brand that just let go of thirty people and their snow team manager. I mean, I guess those big brands that have hundreds and hundreds of employees and their overhead is super high, if the economy crashes they’re for sure gonna get hit harder than us. Whereas we have three dudes running the show here [at Ashbury]. We do everything. We pack boxes, design the lines, run the team and everything else, so our overhead is super low. I think that’s just how it is with most small companies. I know Holden is like that too. It gets tricky when snowboarding comes around though because we all want to snowboard every day. [Laughing]
Bird’s Eye: When I look at brands like Ashbury and Videograss, I feel like the everyday rider has a really good understanding of the people behind the brand, their lifestyle and what they’re all about. It seems like you guys are really connected with the riders who back you.
Nima: Right, I think that part just comes naturally for us because we are those people. We are the same as the kids that are out there buying our stuff, we’re still just snowboard rats. Everyone in here is a snowboard nerd, you know? We all love it. Skate nerds too, same thing. So all that stuff just comes natural to us. I think with any company that’s run by such a small amount of people who absolutely love and live for snowboarding it’ll definitely show.
I think that’s where Videograss has so much success too, because everybody associated with it lives for snowboarding. Justin Meyer, the main dude making all the films and stuff, he’s the biggest snowboard nerd ever and I think it just shows. Kids are smart. They can see through shit and they know which companies actually know what’s up.
Bird’s Eye: “Kids know.”
Nima: [Laughing] Yeah, “kids know.”
Bird’s Eye: So, what’s the drop date for HOWL’s first line of gloves, mitts and beanies and when will everyone be able to view the full line?
Nima: They’re all dropping September 2012, so we’ll be at SIA in Denver and we’ll be at ISPO in Germany. I’m really hyped, because it seems like a lot of people are hyped on the brand for how early it is. It’s really cool. It’s definitely refreshing to see people getting behind it when they haven’t even seen the product. It’s pretty similar to Ashbury though. We’re trying to get the people that we like on the team and just make the shit that we want to wear.
You’ll be able to get a sneak peek of all that stuff in this year’s Videograss movies, on vgsnow.com and through the HOWL website at www.howlsupply.com
Bird’s Eye: Nima, thanks a lot man. We’re looking forward to the drop.
By: Steve Reaves
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Bird’s Eye will be carrying the full line of HOWL gloves and accessories starting September of 2012.
