thread's not dead - doITlab

definitely diluted the talent pool because of the sheer number of them that
were out there. Fortunately, by the time that happened we had already built up
a dedicated following, which is probably one of the reasons why we survived
that washout as a lot of those brands died off after a little while. When that
happened it really hit home that we needed to stand out more, so we thought
about what we could do to not get lost among this sea of splatters, diamonds
and knuckledusters.
We figured that if we put more emphasis on custom garments and pushing the
boundaries of the production process then it would give us an edge and would
make us harder to imitate. We also put in place an ‘all killer no filler rule’, we
wanted to make sure that all of our ideas were well thought out and that we
weren’t just throwing loads of shit at the fan and hoping some of it stuck. We’ve
got a big folder of unused/cut designs and we’d rather take the hit on paying
for those than put them in a line that they don’t fit in.
Self Promotion
We’ve done a lot of good and bad promotion, but it’s something that we feel is
important and if you get it right can have a good impact on your sales and your
profile. One of the things we do when we’re going to see bands that we like is
take a bunch of custom shaped stickers or drink mats – cool little knick-knacks
that people could keep - with our website and discount codes on them and just
hand them out to people.
“It’s a bit like a band signing to a major label. The
record labels are always going to say, ‘Hey, remember
that hit single you wrote? Well I want a 12 track album
full of songs exactly like that.’” —dave pearson
Giveaways are another great way to promote your business, and having customers
post photos of themselves in your clothing is a great way to make people
feel closer to the brand and more involved, and it’s something they’ll tell their
friends about and can create a domino effect. We did try the avenue of band
THREAD’S NOT DEAD • Jeff Finley
sponsorship, but it’s tough to put in place. Glamour Kills do a great job of that,
but they’re quite notorious for sponsoring everyone! It does wonders for their
brand though, so good for them.
What Would We Do Differently?
There’s a bunch of things we’d probably do differently if we could do it all over
again, but I think it’s important to make mistakes so that you can learn from
them. The majority of our bad decisions have been creative ones. We’ve put
out some bad designs that I’m not proud of in retrospect, but that’s growing
up I guess. I remember reading an interview by Jesse Lacey of the band Brand
New who are one of my favourite bands, and he said he found it really hard to
listen to his old albums without feeling embarrassed because he can’t relate to
the person he was when he wrote those songs anymore because he’d grown
up. And that’s why you have to look forward instead of regretting things you’ve
done. Business-wise we’ve made some good and bad decisions. We signed to
a major distributor a couple of years ago, Europe’s biggest music merchandise
distributor in fact. It was a big deal. While it opened up a lot of doors for us, we
did feel like we were working for “the man” and we did find ourselves questioning
the ethics quite often because we didn’t share the same goals.
It’s a bit like a band signing to a major label. The record labels are always going
to say, “Hey, remember that hit single you wrote? Well I want a 12 track
album full of songs exactly like that.” It’s all good if you can look at yourself in
the mirror and say, “I haven’t sold out,” but there was definitely a point when I
couldn’t do that.. probably around the time we did the Dark Knight collab, that
was ridiculous, a great opportunity, but completely ridiculous.
Case Studies & Interviews 92