SLAMXHYPE was opened in 2003. Before that day as they were the days of Adam Bryce?
When I was younger I spent a short time as a professional footballer in England, playing for Middlesborough. I was quite badly injured and ended up having to come home to New Zealand, where after returning to school, I went to Law School, but while I was there I worked in Retail to make ends meet, where I eventually was approached to start styling for magazines, this was when I dropped out of Law school.. moved back to England again and studied fashion.. and then continued work as a stylist.
How you kept information on the streetwear before the blogs?
Growing up, myself and my brother grew up with our mum, we were reading Vogue by the time we were 10, I have always been obsessed with Magazines, from Thrasher to The Face and on from there.. I remember buying Purple when I was about 15, subscribing to The Face when I was about 12..
Do you remember your first post?
Haha.. Not at all.. I barely remember what I posted 20 minutes ago. I do know that early on I would update the site just 3-5 times a day, the writing was much more indepth and opinionated.
How many time you usally spend on your site?
Its hard to know now, the back end is open on my computer 24/7, there are more emails than is possible to answer everyday. Basically between The New Order and Slamxhype I spend atleast 18 hours a day.
Your top 5 sites you visit just turn on your computer?
To be honest, I don’t have much fun on the internet these days, sometimes at the end of the day or over lunch I’ll have a read through some sites I like for ‘myself’, I like The New York Times, The Daily Beast, and others, but day in day out – the internet is a place for work.
But when you realized that SLAMXHYPE was one of the most prominent streetwear blog in the world?
I think when the site started it was prominent by default as there was no one else really. I didn’t know anything about the internet at that time and so it took me a while to realise what was really going on. It would have been a few years till I realised the bigger picture as it is today.
Over the years you’ve got to make a more mature kind of information on streetwear. Why did you decide to change the style?
It was really more a case of being more honest with ourselves. It got to a point where it was really hard for u sto be passionate about what we were doing as we weren’t personally into what we were talking about or blogging. Myself, I was into fashion before I was into streetwear, In the 90’s I became really interested in Uhu-Harajuku Street Fashion and Culture, I started to see how this culture had a closer fit to what I believed in and I felt more at ease and enthused about the likes of Goodenough than I was with say, Helmut Lang. I think somewhere along the line we got lost thug, the streetwear market started to change and we got caught up in it.. all it is now is a case of showing what we really under stand. I appreciate the likes of Neighborhood and Supreme, but also Margiela and Bless, and just as interested and passionate about art, again on both levels, Fine Art and Street Art and the culture that brings it al together, thats what really slamxhype is about.
It has almost become a trend now online or within streetwear to be into art now, or into fashion, or authentic menswear, for us it was the modern streetwear angle that had us fooled, what you see from slamxhype now is what we are really about, and this is even more evident in The New Order.
Have you ever been envious of other blogs?
Definately. I think that throughout our time we have carried alot of influence, but this has not always meant we have been the most popular and certainly not the most business minded. We made decisions on a number of occassions to stay true to what we believe in in spite of the obvious potential earnings and following resources that may have come from those decisions. Our decisions of late to change our content to what we believe in more, has meant we would have lost alot of our earlier readers, but we have gained a new audience. What I’m envious of mostly is the ability to turn a site into a mainstream success and reach people. We influence but we don’t neccesarily see the reward of this like others may.
Last April, the news had been launched a collaboration between Slam and Etnies.
There is someone else in which to work forever and for what type of product?
I’m in the mood for rankings. Your 5 favorite brand?
This really changes for me almost daily, depending on the mood I’m in and what I see as value on that given day, whether it be authenticity, innovation or whatever else.. . but at the moment
Levis
Visvim
Uniqlo
Adam Kimmel
W)Taps
I read that you’re a sneaker collector. What are the models which go most proud?
Haha.. i used to collect sneakers, but I also used to collect Margiela. I had a massive collection of both. Things have changed though.. We have always kept our operation 100% independant which has meant all the investment in the magazine, the website, the gallery has come through me completely, of course this means alot of selling prized posessions. Its also given me a new wa of thinking as I have got older.. I don’t get attached to things so easily, I buy clothes and shoes, wear them, then replace them.. I’m almost the opposite of what the majority of people are within our modern culture.
That said, I still have OG Jordan IV’s, and I’s stored away and a few other special shoes that mean more to me than just shoe itself, gifts etc.
What, instead, you think about all these blogs that have arisen in recent times?
Its good and bad… I mean a blogs a blog and the nature of the internet is that its open to everyone to share their views and opinions.. What I don’t like though are the amount of blogs who have started with the intention of making a quick buck, building search engine beasts, promoting products with advertising or the market in mind, blogs should be about sharing information, and if you make some money out of it then thats great. But the real message of the culture is being lost through commercial activity of the new media.
It sounds like I’m very negative, but I am speaking of a small group of sites, the majority and the fact that there are now so many new blogs I think is great overall. For me its all about getting my hands on as much information and figuring out what I like from there, the more information the better, and if some of the messages are lost along the way, thats fine by me, as I can decipher that.. what does concern me though is that there is a whole new era of fans and enthusiasts being sent the wrong message.
It’s changed the way you work on Slam?
Its made us think about it alot more… and in our case probably overthink things. But at the end of the day we don’t think too much about what the others are doing, we are, in a way, pretty stubborn and just stick to our guns.
We talked about how many new blogs are born. But instead what you think of all these new collaborations that are born every day?
Not think we have come almost to a breaking point?
I think the biggest problem is the way collaborations are used or thought of now. Originally it was a case of friends getting a chance to work together or better still a way to combine talents to create a perfect product. Ie. When Junya Watanabe wanted to make jeans, he thought he couldn’t have done it any better than Levis – and the collaboration was born. Using collaboration as a marketing tool gives the process a bad name, and given that this is the case on 99% of occassions, the entire phenomenom has been given a bad name.
We speak now of The New Order your new project.
It is very strange that when all the newspapers are shifting their attention even more on the web, you have preferred to launch the New Order.
Why?
It was always the goal since we started slamxhype all those years ago, but we needed to wait for the right moment. Of course this is the worst possible moment financially given the economic climate, but what we consider the best time in times of what the culture needs. The web is great for quick news and easy access, but magazines allow products and messages to be displayed the way they should. As the culture becomes more and more confused as to what the actuall message and living philosophy is, I felt is was time to offer a new platform which would give people a deeper look inside and try to explain that street culture is more than sneakers and tee-shirts. Basically the decsion was made based on a feeling of timliness rather than taking the economy of even media trend into account… meaning that its even harder than it has ever been to run a magazine, but the message is honest and so is the content and we hope that support will come with that over time.
Can you tell us something about the new number?
The 3rd issue is out in the next few weeks, and we’re already working on issue 4. Issue 3 is a continuation of our overall message of highlighting what we consider the ‘real’ street culture and the mix of art, and fashion. We have a very interesting cover feature, I can’t reveal just yet, and even more cotent than ever. People always ask u show we can keep this up, with the amount of content in each issue, but Issue 3 steps it up yet again! The focus of the issue is based around how fashion is intepreted within our culture, sending a message that street fashion isn’t streetwear, its fashion that has street cred, alongside which we highlight movements which have played a big role in the foundations of the culture.
