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I recently got in touch with SX Clothing and had a little chat about their brand, I love what they do, and wanted to bring their designs a little well deserved exposure. Hit the jump to see what they said about their brand.
(MN) Now then, firstly can you just tell us a little bit about yourselves?
(SX) Yeah man, we started off in Sunderland and have went on to be stocked in stores in Sunderland, Newcastle and Middlesbrough all in the north-east. We’re now on the hunt to expand further! Our current ranges are all streetwear based and are influenced completely by street culture, drugs and hip-hop which is proving a hit to date!
(MN) Pretty sweet influences there, now explain to me where your name came from?
(SX) We always said this would be the most ridiculous story about our brand.
Believe it or not the film ‘American Gangster’ influenced us most when creating
the brand and the importance of a brand name is one of the most vital aspects
of any company. At first our name was to be “Slix” a plural phrase we created
for slick clothing. When it came to getting our first range created however, we
fell out of love with the name and in a moment of panic, shorted it to SX. SX
was then embroided on the back of our first snaps, and, SX was born!
(MN) Nothing better than a good 'where did your name come from' story. Another good story usually is what was the first item you decided to create?
(SX) Many designs of snapbacks were created at first, all of them based upon
drug and gang culture. The first design however, was the “Escobar” snapback,
having been reading the biography of Pablo written by his brother, Robert, at
the time. The White Widow snapback was also designs and created alongside the
Escobar snapback resulting in our first products being released.
(MN) For anyone who isn’t familiar with the brand how
would you describe it yourself?
(SX) We’re a very unique street-wear brand which is a fusion of underground
drug and hiphop culture blended into our threads. Many brands have used famous
lines from the likes of Yeezy, Weezy and Breezy and have had designs of weed
etc however, we took it one step further with our Crooklyn Dodgers range and
our White Widow, Escobar and Purple Haze lines. We’ve also kept the classic
white and heather grey t’s which will always be evident of street-wear but have
also brought in the likes of Camouflage and snapbacks to keep up-to date with modern
trends.
"We’re a very unique street-wear brand which is a fusion of underground drug and hiphop culture blended into our threads."
(MN) It seems a pretty tight operation How many people are involved in your brand?
(SX) At the moment, myself, Bryce. I set the brand up and continue to run
every aspect of it from conversing with the 3 stockists to sourcing garms,
designing and sewing the labels. Of course I have friends that are constantly
involved and coming up with ideas to bounce off me and they help greatly. Also
Ian from Yakuza, Sunderland has been in the game for years and has stocked some
of the best brands in the UK. He always keeps us on
track and kicks us up the arse when it’s needed! Enough thanks can’t be sent
out to him…
(MN) Has your Ketamine and Kebabs design got you in any
trouble yet, it's a pretty risque design?
(SX) As of yet, no! Hopefully it won’t either. The Ketamine & Kebabs is
evidently influenced by the Cocaine & Caviar range by Crooks & Castles
but was thought up by one of my best mates, producer Sirmond who also rocks
the SX ranges. Having been chilling out and having a laugh he came up with the
concept and at first I laughed. It wasn’t until a month later when I decided to
take it serious and give it a go. The range has since been worn by Example and
has been a huge hit, not only in the UK but with orders from USA, Canada and
Australia as well.
(MN) Huge rep off Example there, serious stuff that. I see you’ve managed to get your products into
Yakuza in Sunderland and Free Fall in Newcastle that must have been a nice
feeling, how did it come about?
(SX) Being a designer from the North-East, they were very intrigued by the
brand and listened to me when I tried to sell it to them. Normally you’d walk in
a store as a startup brand and they wont even listen to you, they’ll nod their
heads, talk to you, give you their e-mail and wont talk again. Having tried Freefall and Yakuza when we first got our 2 snapback designs, we were located
local, so we kept popping in and trying our luck. Freefall took us in
straight away and the White Widow and Escobar designs proved a hit, from there
they continued to support us. Yakuza was a little harder, we gave them 4 free
caps, 2 of each design and asked for nothing in return but feedback from
customers. The caps caught the eye of customers and sold straight off, from
there they decided to give us a go and they haven’t looked back since!
(MN) Very good approach there, any start-up brands out there should take note of that! Where do you hope to get your brand in 5 years
time?
(SX) We set goals for our first year which was to have some online sales, a
decent social media following and one stockist. We achieved this within 2
months. We’re going into our second year and are supplying Yakuza, Middlesbrough
with a huge order this week which is topping it even further. We’re hoping to
expand the brand to have stockists hopefully outside of the north-east and have
a couple of staff members constantly promoting and expanding the range. Who
knows, with a bit of luck, hopefully we’ll have some stores outside of the UK.
Hopefully, in Holland so we can go there for business trips!
(MN) Store in Holland just to top up your research in the drug-culture ey! Just a simple fill in the gaps question to wrap this up.
(SX) SX Clothing is best described as the royal gardens
with maybe a little bit of high grade weed plants thrown in for good measure.
Some sweet responses from Bryce over at SX Clothing there, I feel we're going to be seeing a lot more from this brand in the near future, and myself being from Middlesbrough in the North East, it's nice to see some NE brands getting out there, and stocking shops in my home-town. Get over to the SX Clothing website to check out their full collection, it's pretty sweet I have to say.
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