Eugene: While the modern dialogue of fashion inevitably involves streetwear, there was a point in time when streetwear had yet to intersect with an element of luxury. The high-fashion houses weren’t knocking on the door and looking to swoop in on the authenticity of street culture and hip-hop. Alex’s interest in the development of culture all began in his younger days. San Francisco’s passionate skate community set a foundation for his path towards community and fashion.

Alex: Guess I could take it a bit back, even before HomeRoom. I grew up in San Francisco and I grew up kind of in this neighborhood that wasn’t necessarily anything but middle class—like middle class in an American sense, not the UK sense. And it was just, I don’t know, it was just a bunch of immigrants and kids and that neighborhood just happened to have really good skate spots and so that’s what I got into. I think through skating you kind of start at an early age building this community that was super opinionated or really critical about what’s acceptable and what’s not.

You started walking this really thin line within a culture. And I think naturally that kind of grew into, “You got to have a board that’s seven and a quarter, you can’t really ride boards that are eights.” This is, like, early mid-90s. But then something iconic kind of happened which was you had this scene that kind of came back. Becasue skating was dead in the early 90s and in the mid-90s it really kind of flourished.

To see it go from this thing that didn’t exist to this thing that existed and had been heavily influenced globally by your little community, it just showed you, fuck man, people with passion have the power to do something impactful that benefits people. This was way better than hanging out playing video games. This is you cracking jokes with people, going through your adolescence, and building real relationships through experience.

Eugene: Which I think is the one thing that is a little bit challenging currently. You’re in a space now where entry into a community is predicated on consumption versus experience and some sort of actionable thing. You can’t really enter the world of skating without skating. You can wear the right clothes or the right brands or you could carry a board around, but I don’t think that’s indicative. People see right through it, right. So I think that’s what is kind of interesting, because we’ve seen such a massive shift in subcultures and how people interact with them. To the point where the lack of friction means it almost doesn’t mean anything. It’s so easy for me to jump into something just because I have the necessary funds to acquire it.

Alex: Yeah and that’s really sad.

Eugene: The very first taste of entrepreneurship began with HomeRoom clothing, a small brand focused on custom hoodies in unique and often deadstock fabrics.

Alex: As my first project, that failed miserably, but I had a lot of fun and learned a lot.

Eugene: Do your really think it was a failure though?

Alex: No, I mean at the time when I had to close it down, because the economy slumped, man. it was the greatest lesson that I ever learned about how to start a company.

It was a great lesson in branding; it was a great lesson in design; it was a great lesson in relationships and management; funding. It set me up, so no, it wasn’t a failure, but it did feel like it when I had to shut it down or risk just exposing myself completely to the uncertainty of a failing economy.

Eugene: This is more for me to contextualize sort of where I was at the time. I guess for me the thing that defined HomeRoom was high-quality hoodies that had unique fabrics, unique sort of aesthetics. There was actually a deeper design element. I wouldn’t say you were necessarily pushing the boundaries of what a hoodie was, it was just a little more thoughtful approach to fabric selection, for example.

Alex: Yeah, it was very early years as a designer. We were just doing things that were expressive and things that create tribalism where you can connect with people. If you see someone else wearing it you kind of give them a nod and, you know, right. The thing that made it really interesting was how many rappers started…

Eugene: Yeah, I was going to dip into this. I was going to push it that way just so people can understand. What do you think is the one moment where you can look back on as, “Hey, you remember that?”.

Alex: Yeah. It was three weeks into starting the brand, Kanye had it on. And it was, like, this brand’s been around for three weeks and Kanye’s wearing it.

Eugene: What would have happened if that had occurred in 2017? I mean, I think that would have changed its trajectory, right.

Alex: Yeah, you’d be like Anti Social.

Eugene: Anti Social on… was it Kim?

Alex: Yeah.

Eugene: Something similar.

Alex: Yeah. Something like that. But it wasn’t about that, right. It wasn’t about, “He’s wearing something with a logo on it.” It was more like no one knew what it was. It was like, “Where do I get it?” It was super nondescript. My stuff never had any kind of branding overtly on the exterior. The people that were in the know were, like, “Oh, that’s cool, because it’s like no one knows what it is, but maybe I know.” That’s really kind of pithy in a way. It’s not important at all. But as a 23-year-old, it was just cool. I literally admired the music so much. I probably played it every day in my car in the form of a CD and I had so much love for his music. It opened up loads of doors, you know. It opened up relationships; it opened up boutiques; it opened up learning experiences. It showed me I have a very long way to go to achieve my goals. And it’s still been, I don’t know, 12 years, 13 years of nothing but 60 to 80 hour weeks doing what I’m passionate about. I think Homes set me on the right path and the people that I did it with were super supportive of it. I think if the economy didn’t explode and our accounts didn’t stop paying us it’d still be going.

Eugene: Right place, wrong time is a way to look at the ultimate demise of HomeRoom. But there’s often a respect for those that have gone out and tried to do it themselves. The failure can be bitter, but you can believe that there’s value that reveals itself down the line through new opportunities. From here our conversation starts to go down a deeper route and it begins with some of the philosophical underpinnings that have enabled Alex along the way.