I listened to the interview over and over and this is what I got back from my creative report. Enjoy.
Bloodbrother interview
Daniel Carter: How did Bloodbrother come
about?
BloodBrother: Bloodbrother is in existence
because James and I (Nic Biela) were lucky enough to go college together and
with myself doing design and James doing Fashion management as a background we
decided to come together to create a brand eventually when we left the
industry. So it’s good.
Daniel Carter: What is your moto behind
Bloodbrother
Bloodbrother: The strapline is never alone. A statement
which means as a collective moving forward and doing things together to achieve
your goal and doing it as a team. I think this came from playing football
together at university.
Daniel Carter: So it’s about teamwork?
Bloodbrother: Togetherness and teamwork.
It’s exactly what it stands for and I think that’s something that we are proud
to state as a brand that others don’t necessarily tap on about. We would’nt be
able to do it without each other.
Daniel Carter: You both went to the
University of Arts together, is that you met? Is that how your started your
foundation?
Bloodbrother: We met through playing sport
through university. The course is not
intergrated so its either you’re a creative or a business, so its through
playing sport a more personal, social and gatherings that we became friends but
yeah it definitely helped balance the business and the creativity come
together. That’s what the fashion business is now, its not just creativity or
business it’s a combination of both.
It’s 360 of a host of different things and well actually find each other
through a team sport and it was really good to meet each other through a
cultured interest aside of business or fashion that was tangible towards money
and have a shared interested and passion, the bond came from there and and has
served us very well and likewise to a lot of friends that we have to today
hence why we have this meeting and a catch up.
Daniel Carter: Has Bloodbrother evolved?
Bloodbrother: Definitely evolved.
Massively, we stocked t-shirts onto jerseys onto collection onto footwear onto
candles, lifestyle. In terms of business we definetely have evolved.
Daniel Carter: Did you think you would get
this far, was this a goal you had at the start?
I think you need to aim up and high and
sometimes you can’t see quite clearly the destination but you know your decretory.
You understand that you’re pushing and really want to achieve something, but it
would be quite difficult to find a sensible goal which will justify your
ambition. We are just very ambitious people. We set a big goal and then you
have mini goals which are tick boxes but we always wanted to be global brand
and that where we are going. The good thing is that you set small goals to
achieve the big goals and that’s the key for another. Once you realise your
ambition and find your space you can reset your targets and that’s really
important to keep pushing, developing, learning and the best way to succeed is
to learn a hell of a lot of mistakes because then you learn how to get to the
right places.
Daniel Carter: How would you describe your
fashion.
Bloodbrother: It’s a mix pot Bloodbrother,
its very much contemporary, slick, minimalist and up to date menswear but it
also has a lot of communication through its graphics and wants to reach people
and talk to people in a different way whether its through colour palette,
graphic print or whether its texture that we try to play with alongside fitting
in with the menswear contemporary wardrobe that we feel we do execute very
well. Were very utilitarian so inspirations often lie in military and masculine
British subject art.
Daniel Carter: What sparked your interest
in fashion.
Bloodbrother: (James Waller) Mum was a
Saturday job worker and I got into clothes already and my cousin always dressed
really well so I always had an interest in clothes even before I went to
college.
Coming from a smaller town its easy to get
pushed into dressing very much the same like other guys and I always felt
interested in standing out and being different. It’s always nice to have
something more exclusive and less general so for me it was about standing out
to a certain extent from normal guys who want to do normal things. I personally
prefer difference and extraordinary as apposed to ordinary. We are both very
similar is terms of that.
Daniel Carter: Do you have any long term goals in 5, 10
years or even further than that?
Bloodbrother: Constantly under construction
but there are definitely personal issues as well as personal rewards from the
business and the things we want to achieve. I think make some more shots,
fragrances, underwear, bigger offices and enforcing the brand so we are doing
the right thing to reach the right target audience. Bloodbrother is something
to us but it should be more about the people who don’t know about it. So its
clear to us there’s a lot of work to be done with marketing and reaching the
right target demographic. Its quite interesting now that we have this product
and we have something that we are very proud of so now its time to talk about
it. Not to say that we were never proud but we are now much more complete with
shoes, jackets, leathers, nice shirts, trousers, wallets and bags and we feel
much more appropriate to go and discuss a whole entity of ideas to people
because we feel very set in where we are so now its about talking about and
multiplying as a business.
Daniel Carter: What did you learn whilst
being in the university of arts that has benefitted you the most.
Bloodbrother: Being in the university of
arts has benefited the most by socialing and relationships and we will leave it
there.
Daniel Carter: How do you/did you handle
stress
Bloodbrother: (Nic Beila) You can really find out who you
are with that with that kind of pressure. We find out who you are and what you
want to do and how you respond to it and its an important factor of anything
without stress you wouldn’t achieve anything.
I’m driven by stress. Stress and worry
drives my hunger. Everyone is different some people can break. It’s a fight for
me. Its either fight or don’t. Its not healthy and I wouldn’t recommend it but
I’ve balanced that. When it was initially just us 2 I’m not favouring this and
its either you have that character or don’t. Sometimes business failed through extenuating
circumstances but generally not through guts and determination.
Daniel Carter: What is your most memorable
challenge.
Bloodbrother: Finding the factories and
things. We both had our jobs and we had to go to factories to make the stuff
that we promised to show them at the next show. The things that we couldn’t do
like the logistics, the things that were out of our control. So if everyone had
control we could rely on each other for because that was the agreement that we
had. I guaranteed that I could get some
sells to service him and he guaranteed that he could get some products out to
show the buyers. But getting the products
out from the factory was pretty daunting but a good achievement. Certainly
memorable, a fond memory to look back on a fear / excitement its what you get
out of bed for. It was definitely a period of time that I look back on.
Daniel Carter: What have you learnt the
most since starting Bloodbrother.
Bloodbrother: Patience. Nothing is in
everybody’s control regardless of how well you think it is. You kind of have to
have the ambience that a lot of things are out of control but you can manage as
much as you can but sometimes for good or bad its impossible to control. You
have to have that thing when you go to bed and appreciate that things just are.
It’s a combination of skills. You cant
build a brand on one set of skills, you cant
just be the best sales person or the best designer it’s a combination of
each skills.
Daniel Carter: What advice would you give
to young designers.
Bloodbrother: Its what they are putting out
there. Consider a harsh reality and don’t sacrifice personal goals if they want
to do stuff. Shoot to the stars but appreciate who built the product. You can
do whatever you like as long as you have some sort of consistency with what you
are producing and that you have a customer at the end of the day and to have
that that’s the most important thing in design.
Daniel Carter: In 10 years I hope to start a label like
Bloodbrother, is there any advice that you could give to me or to anyone else.
Bloodbrother: Come see me when you want to
do it. It’s a lot about relationships and opportunity is massive and putting
yourself out there at certain times. Everyone in this office has worked for
free at some point but the advice would be to get experience and stick at it.
Have that focus to see someone through and say your going to do it, do it, tell
us your going to do it and do it. Once your there you go now I’ve done it what’s
the next thing as I’ve said mini goals to big goals.
Daniel Carter: Thank you very much
