Only one year ago four University alumni put on their creative caps and entered an industry known for scathing competition and fleeting fame: fashion.
A writer, an artist, a marketer and a financier, the Portland-raised men each contributed an asset to jump-start a T-shirt line. None of them had fashion experience.
“Fashion was kind of secondary for us,” said Nate Koach, who graduated from the University with a business marketing degree in 2000. “We can kind of consider ourselves stylists by putting together a look without inventing a look. We just wanted to build a brand.”
The men didn’t want their label, called Sub Urban Riot, to resemble the hundreds of look-alike designs marketed to trendy consumers.
“None of us think there’s enough intelligence behind street wear,” Koach said. “It’s not all about skulls and crossbones.”
But outside of a well-known name and a connection, fashion industry professionals either scoff at or embrace originality. Sub Urban Riot specializes in signature tees with obscure, conceptual artwork, promoting a “new attitude toward fashion, an independent spirit.”
“Being a truly original brand is really hard,” Koach confessed. “It’s really hard not to sell out. …It’s a very slow process.”
Though the brand’s T-shirts retail for less than $50, the knit-based clothes still capture the essence of couture with sharply tailored, well-cut clothes, Koach said.
Sub Urban Riot wanted to “develop a brand that was irreverent but mindful of its irreverence,” Nate said.
“None of us want to follow the rules.”
Which explains why Sub Urban Riot materialized: The men needed an escape from corporate ennui. Each colleague, unsatisfied and teeming with ambition, wanted more.
“I’m not an artist,” he said. “I’m not a writer; I’m not a designer. My creative outlet is ideas.”
Sub Urban Riot’s designs have a “heavy Pacific-Northwest influence,” said Koach, who attended Lincoln High School in Portland. “Our inspiration is drawn from the independent nature of the Northwest. There’s really a spirit in that part of the country.”
The brand’s artist still resides in Portland, though three of the in-vogue male Ducks live in Los Angeles, a mecca for up-and-coming designers.
Though the city where Koach resides varies in integrity, Hollywood helps advertise the label. The men created a T-shirt for the cast of the new horror film “Hitcher,” and University alumna Kaitlin Olson, who stars in the FX Network sitcom “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” wears the label’s new line of women’s jersey dresses and hoodies. The male characters also don the clothing on the show, whose third season airs in June.
But the men behind Sub Urban Riot never know when their clothes will go unnoticed.
“It’s a game,” Koach said. “And it’s really hard. Your fate isn’t in your hands.”
The buying power of independent boutiques, however, has bestowed the brand with good fortune. Right now Sub Urban Riot pieces hang on the racks of nearly 50 retailers nationwide. The men hope to foster a flagship Sub Urban Riot store, eventually sprouting one in all major cities.
“We don’t worry about being cool,” Koach said. “The day we stop having fun is the day we quit.”
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