Ksubi

By: Jordan Tappis | August 01, 2008 | Fashion

This past March, I was in London. It was bitter cold, and the streets were packed with businessmen wearing black suits and women in peacoats carrying umbrellas. It wasn’t a day for variety. Suddenly something — or rather, someone — caught my eye. In the distance, walking toward me was a tall blond guy with a golden suntan wearing stonewashed denim overalls and draped in a Native-American burlap poncho jacket. The legs of his pants were rolled up; he was wearing black military boots and his head was wrapped in an off-white turban. As the man got closer, his face came into focus and I immediately recognized him. It was my friend George Gorrow, founding partner and creative director of Australian fashion brand Ksubi, a company formed on the beaches near Sydney by a handful of best friends. Gorrow is unlike anyone I have ever met. He is a fantastic surfer, a dedicated friend, a charismatic foreigner, brilliant idea man and a consummate gentleman. Gorrow was in London for fashion week, and I was there shooting a film. It was a rare opportunity for us to get together and we both jumped at the chance. We embraced, he sat down, and after briefly discussing the weather, we decided to scurry off to the Tate Museum for an afternoon of art appreciation and warmth. 

Upon arriving in the lobby of the Tate, Gorrow and I were greeted by Dan Single, co-owner of Ksubi and one of the most positive and hilarious guys I have ever met. Walking around the Tate that afternoon made me realize that I had it all wrong when it came to the fashion world. Sometimes we fall into the trap of loathing something simply because we don’t understand it, and I have been a victim of that narrow-minded way of thinking when it came to fashion. There I was in London’s famed museum with the owners of one of the world’s most avant-garde fashion brands, and I was having a terrific time. And why wouldn’t I? These are the same guys who famously released 300 rats during Australian fashion week, the same dudes who travel all over the world searching for good surf, a creative duo whose fashion sense and entrepreneurial spirit has attracted celebrities like Kanye West (a frequent collaborator), Kate Moss, Madonna and Kate Bosworth among others. If Ksubi was a person he/she would be confident walking into a party stark naked. The brand lacks inhibition and self-awareness, and its head designers, my friends, are deadly serious about perfecting their craft and enjoying their lives. 

Less than an hour after arriving at the museum, I was nearly finished touring the last exhibit. I hadn’t seen Gorrow since we walked into the main lobby, and after backtracking for about 15 minutes I found him camped out half way through the first exhibit, his eyes fixed on the video installation before him. In a weird way, this is the perfect metaphor for Gorrow’s inspired nature. He isn’t merely a fashion designer, but rather a focused artist who currently chooses to express himself creatively through fashion. He approaches Ksubi like a good musician approaches songwriting: free form, open-minded, creatively tuned-in and unafraid to consistently change direction. Those unique sensibilities are what set Ksubi apart from the rest of the pack. And whether they are designing clothing for men or women, sunglasses or jewelry, George Gorrow, Dan Single and the rest of the team over at Ksubi remain dedicated to quality, innovation and a spiritually evolved point of view. 

Weeks later, I asked Gorrow to participate in an idea I had for an article. The concept was simple, but it would require him to take the time to reflect on the origin of Ksubi and a number of other topics relating to the development of his brand. I assured him that his writing, however messy and convoluted, would not be edited or censored in any way.  I wanted it straight from the horse’s mouth. He obliged and here it is.

The origin of Ksubi:

We were living in Narrabeen, a small town on northern beaches of Sydney — a kind of town that isn’t really a destination other than for some good waves. For me, it was more of a place on the way to somewhere else, nothing really to do other than what you created. We had a bunch of buddies all living within three blocks of each other, all either painters, writers, photographers, filmmakers, graphic designers, dope smokers, drunks and, of course, surfers. Together we entertained ourselves, kind of pushing and inspiring each other. It was our little bubble of action.

We looked for projects that would combine the talents of the group constantly. Australian fashion week came around in 2000; we thought maybe we could attack that. Throwing yourself into the deep end is exciting. The thought of playing in a medium we technically knew nothing about was perfect for us. We were never taught the rules, and we figured that if we didn’t know the rules we couldn’t get in trouble for breaking them. So, we locked ourselves in Oscar Wright’s garage studio on Park Street in Narrabeen for three days, stocked it with an endless supply of wine that ended up being not endless enough, and a bunch of other stuff like film, paint, fabric — everything a DIY wannabe fashion designer could want. At the end of three days we came out the other end with a look, a range and a name. We were somehow accepted into fashion week and given our own show.

In trying to work out what to do, Dan was organizing the models and asked who should come out first, etc. I jumped up and said, “I’d prefer if a plague of rats came out!” That was it. It took us three weeks of searching, but we found 300 rats. Then we had to forge documents from so-called “rat specialists,” that stated we knew how to control and contain them using a new oil repellant spray that made walls slippery and unapproachable to rats. Of course, our invention didn’t exist, but the documents passed and we were on.

The night before the show, we hadn’t finished the clothes. We were all out at a party and everyone was saying, “We can’t wait for your show.” It scared us to death. Not only didn’t we know a thing about putting on a fashion show, we hadn’t finished half the clothes, so we raced back to the hotel.

To be honest, I was so freaked out we were going to fail, that we decided to call the show off and do a stunt instead. For a while there, we were going to form the band we had always talked about and do our first show. The idea was to learn a song overnight and smash all the instruments up three-quarters of the way through the first song. It sounded like a good idea at four in the morning. Dan and I called and woke Oscar, told him the show was off and that we need to do the band because it was the only way to escape complete humiliation. He agreed and stayed up all night writing the lyrics. Then we called Johnny Justin, the greatest rock god we knew. We figured if anyone was going to have all the instruments we need and be able to teach four idiots how to play in one morning, it was he. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a hold of him, so as a backup, Dan kept sewing all night — just in case. At 8 a.m. on the morning of the show, I had to see the lighting guy who was a good 30 minutes away. We were planning on having rock show lighting not fashion show lighting unless I was told otherwise. Luckily for us, Dan gave me the call as soon as I got there. “The band’s off,” he said. Oscar arrived tired and relieved. He sung us what he had written and, fuck, it was good, but we still hadn’t gotten a hold of Johnny Justin. We had no instruments and none of us could play a single musical note, not to mention we had forgotten about the 300 rats we had on the way.

Finally, the show started and, wow, what a trip! Management soon found out the rat repellant spray didn’t work; the curtain fell down, one of the models stood on a rat, killing it instantly right in front of the ASPCA official who had been sent to make sure we were nice to the little guys. The rest is kind of a blur. After that, the rat thing got so much attention; it was crazy. No one even saw the clothes, which was great because they were terrible. After that, all the doors kind of opened up for us, and the opportunity to do the clothing label was too great to pass up, so we took it. And here we are, wherever that is.

On driving across America, “Peaced off”:

OK, at the time I was monumentally uninspired by fashion shows, excited by Burning Man, upset about the state of world affairs (not getting too political, my knowledge of politics is little at best, and of U.S. politics even less still), but super excited about a down-and-dirty U.S. road trip like the ones I’d seen in the movies. We built “Peaced Off,” a 9-foot sculpture of a businessman’s hand breaking out of the ground in the iconic two fingered peace formation accompanied by its index and middle fingers severed off at the knuckle lying beside it on the ground in a pool of blood — the perfect combination of politics, pop and B-grade horror. I was feeling so clear-headed at Burning Man, that we had another good idea — we were absolutely bursting with them by this stage — we decided to drive the sculpture across the country to New York and display it in our shop in Soho in time for New York fashion week. It was suppose to take seven days driving, but it took 11. During that time we shot “Wish You Were Here” holiday snapshots of the sculpture in front of a bunch of iconic American backdrops like the Grand Tetons, The Great Salt Lake, the Mall of America and Mount Rushmore. Dodging abuse, fights and the cops, we finally made it to New York only to find that the sculpture was so big, it wouldn’t fit through the door into our space. Amazing! We had to laugh. Fortunately, we turned the whole ordeal into a pictorial book and short film to make ourselves feel better.
On harnessing creative inspiration:

There are a lot of amazing people on the planet who have a lot of great ideas, and from my own experience, due to things like being intimidated or scared of failure, many of those people don’t follow through with any of them. Dan and I have a deal: It doesn’t matter how stupid your idea is, if you get one, you have to say it.

Then, if either of us sees anything good about it, we agree to make it happen regardless. So many of our projects were born out of ridiculous drunk conversations at late hours of the morning (or are those hours early? I don’t know, to me they are always late). And I don’t mean this arrogantly, but if you’re not out to impress anybody, it seriously takes the pressure off and you can move onto things so much more freely. I guess our pact gets us where we want it to be and we avoid pressure and influence from the outside. You know who I’m talking about — the people we are suppose to please, the so-called majority, whoever. Just because they pay the goddamned bills doesn’t mean we have to listen to them. Our creativity comes form our pledge to support each other regardless of the outcome.

On the topic of collaborations:

“Co-labs” for us are extensions of education and personal development. How better to get inspired than working with people you admire and idolize, man! It keeps you on your toes because the skill level needed to impress the people we are collaborating with is so incredibly high. Every time we collaborate with someone like Kanye West or Jeremy Scott or Richard Nichol, I’m like, “Fuck, George! You have to fucking nail this thing or you’re fucked.” That intense pressure makes the experience so exciting. All of the guys we are working with are either idols of ours or friends, and we treat our collaborations with a lot of respect.

On the future:

I’m slightly deficient in the English department, although weirdly enough I have always want to be a great poet. It’s weird because I don’t read and can’t spell. I want to be a poet, Jordan.

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