Former in Motion
We sat down with Gillette to discuss the brand's background, inspirations, and future.
Tell us a bit about the idea behind Former and why you started it.
The founders are Dane Reynolds, Craig Anderson, Dylan Rieder (RIP) and myself. About seven years ago, The Australian magazine Monster Children hit us all up to do a trip together to see how skaters and surfers would get along. Something that had yet to be explored at the time. After the trip, it clearly showed that we were going to remain friends and that the two worlds could be merged in a tasteful way. This was something that our friend Campbell noticed and acted on. He later emailed us all and said that we needed to start a clothing company together. Four years later, here we are! The idea behind Former is to create and produce what we like to wear and be a part of. Whether it be the films we make or the clothes we design, we all have our own unique interests and it's been exciting for us to have a place to focus our creative energy to hopefully inspire the next generation of kids that skate or surf.
What’s this collection about? What inspired it?
The materials used in this collection are the real story. I was in Bali last year working on our fall 20 design and while shopping off the back of a moped for materials, we came across this lady who was the last vendor in town that sold wool. She invited us into her backyard and took us to her pool house that was filled with a hundred or so rolls of rare wools. Looking back, we really should have bought everything in there, but we ended up buying a modest amount of wool that we thought would work for a small capsule collection. ‘Elusive’ ended up being the name for the collection and I think it works well with the story behind the search for fabrics in Bali.
Do you have a favorite piece from the collection?
That’s always a difficult question when we make stuff that we actually like to wear. I’ve worn all of it, skated in some of it and have become attached to the collection. If I were given one choice, it would be the 'Swire Trench Coat'. This could be because of the limited supply and knowing that this particular wool doesn’t exist anywhere else. The windowpane pattern was flipped inside out to make the blue pop a bit more. I'm glad we made that decision right before final production.
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned along the way navigating your own clothing brand?
There have been many mistakes along the way for us and I think those were necessary. We went into this thinking that we could change our industry overnight and quickly learned that wasn’t possible. None of us had studied business, let alone run one that has a scalable and sustainable future. Luckily we now have two general managers that handle the business side of the company and leave us to the creative. Biggest lesson is knowing that every person from sales, design, etc., is integral to the company and there has to be clear communication to maintain the health and integrity of the brand. Without that communication, the message of the brand can be miscommunicated and confuse people.
What does 2021 have in store for Former?
We are very excited to finally have distribution in Australia and Japan—two markets that have shown interest in us over the years, but had yet to happen. I think working with them to build Former in their territory will be a fun project for the year. We have a couple films coming out, a couple collaborations with friends and other brands... Plenty of stuff to tune in to and look out for!
