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Fysh CLothing out of Raleigh has been on the scene since 2006, but with recent appearances on Complex and many other blogs, they are one to watch in 2012. We got some time with co-founder Anh-Tuan Tran to see how the company with an incredibly wide berth of products succeeds in 2012.
Background
Company Name: FYSH Clothing Co.
Date Founded: Fall of 2006
Located out of: Raleigh, NC
Number of Employees: 7
Specialty Products: Fitteds, Snapbacks, T-shirts, V-Necks, Tank Tops, Crewnecks, Hoodies and various accessories
Interviewee: Anh-Tuan Tran
Position with the Company: Co-Founder
Interview Questions
How did Fysh get started?
“We first got our start by getting into the sneaker culture. It was all about having exclusive shoes that other people didn’t have. Once you get your first taste of breaking necks with your footwear, you become hooked. We soon became true sneakerheads, camping out together for the latest SBs or Jordans. The obsession quickly transferred over to clothing, finding apparel that we could rock with our sneakers. That’s when we got into streetwear, because like our sneakers; we didn’t just want to rock clothes anybody can get from the mall. We wanted the exclusive stuff. We became obsess with brands like 10 Deep, The Hundreds, Supreme, UNDFTD, DQM, HUF, etc. You only see people in the know rocking this stuff, so it became something you had to have. The problem for us at the time was that these brands were pretty hard to find locally. Nobody carried them and getting them online became expensive with shipping fees and finding rare pieces in the 2nd hand market. We were paying crazy prices like $40-$80 for a t-shirt, or over $100 for a hoodie, which was pretty ridiculous. That’s when we came up with the idea of making our own stuff. Not only would it be exclusive, but you could also have the satisfaction of wearing something you created yourself. The amount of money we were already spending on clothes, it just made sense to just spend a little bit more and make our own custom stuff.”
What is the significance of the name?
“I love telling people about our name because it’s so simple, yet it has so much meaning behind it. It all started with my dad’s 150 gallons salt water fish tank at home. He built it when I was in college, so whenever I came home to visit, I would sit for hours just staring at it. All the fish, corals, clams and crustaceans jam packed together with their unique colors made the tank so appealing. It would draw you in, you can’t help but stare at it and marvel at how eclectic the creatures of the sea was. That’s when I got the idea of calling the brand “FISH”, because like the sea; our sneaker collection was just as colorful and unique and people reacted to them much the same way they would to a salt water fish tank. They can’t have but stare at it. When I told my boys about it and how I came up with the name, it was a done deal, everybody liked it. Kross Pham, one of the co-founders came up with the idea of calling it “FYSH” instead of “FISH”, making it into an acronym for Four Young Sneaker Heads. It was a perfect representation of the four of us because we were young and we were sneakerheads. So we just started building our brand based off the name, its meaning and the ideas behind it.”
When the company was initially conceived, what did you hope to achieve with the brand?
“Honestly, when we made our first run of t-shirts, we didn’t have any real goals or expectations. We just wanted to make something we thought
was dope and we could rock it with our sneakers. We didn’t know how people would respond to it, but we knew that if we liked it, there had to be other people that felt the same. Lucky for us, people really took to it when they saw it so it motivated us to continue designing and building up the brand.”
What inspires the designs?
“Two themes that you will commonly see from our designs would be the sea/nautical theme and the sneaker culture. We always try to blend the two themes together and it’s just so easy to take inspirations from those themes because there’s never a lack of ideas that can come from them. With it, we try to create a story behind every design, which makes it more meaningful for the people wearing it.”
What makes Fysh stand out as a company?
“I really want to say it’s our designs, but honestly, I think the one aspect that makes our company stand out from so many other brands is our name. When you hear it and learn about what it stands for, it becomes hard to forget. People have told me that it’s really catchy and the logo always bring people to comment about it. That’s why any of designs with the logo on it usually ends up selling really well.”
Where do you do your manufacturing?
“Our graphic tees are done locally and in-house. When we have designs with over 4 colors or we need them in large quantities, we go to our local printer, otherwise; we can screen them in-house. As for our cut&sew stuff like our fitteds or shark packs, we outsource those overseas. Our snap-backs and various other accessories are made state-side though. We have also outsourced a few random items overseas as well, such as the Fysh toy or die-cut stickers.”
How many stores are your products in, other than your own?
“In the past, we have had our products in as many as 10 boutiques and online stores nation-wide. Currently, we are mainly only selling from our online-stores as we prepare our inventory for 2012.”
Do you feel your brand is a part of the sneakerhead movement?
“Our brand was built from the sneakerhead movement, so I definitely think we are very relevant to the culture. Our designs stay true to our roots as sneakerheads and we will continue to build our brand from the sneaker culture.”
Anyone famous rocking your products?
“We are very locally involved, so we prefer to support our local artists first such as Kooley High and Halo, who’s gaining popularity in the hip hop scene and constantly showing us love by rocking our stuff in their music videos and concerts. We’ve worked with some famous groups such as our collabo with Poreotics, the winners from MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew show. We also did a collabo with Static Noyze, another crew from that show. Chuck Inglish from the Cool Kids was seen rocking one of our beanies in his concert. Branching away from the hip hop scene, Pierce the Veil was a band that repped our brand heavily during their Warp Tour. I am forgetting other people, but those are some of the ones I can remember off the top of my head.”
Do you have any of your own stores for the brand? If not, is that something you would be interested in?
“We currently do not have our own flagship store, but that is definitely something we want in the future. I have thought about it so often that I can draw out every single detail for the store. For now, that is our main goal for the future of the brand.”
Any advice for someone starting their own brand?
“People ask me this all the time and probably the best advice I can give them is to just believe in what they are doing. I know it’s a pretty generic answer, but I’ve seen so many people trying to start a brand and the first thing they do is join a forum like hypebeast or solecollector and they post up their designs and asks people if they would rock it or not. I mean honestly, if you had to ask people if they would rock your designs or not, it just means you don’t believe in it enough. If you make a design that you feel is dope and you’re excited about it, you gotta believe that there are other people out there that feels the same way as you do.”
What are some of your hottest designs?
“Anything with our logo on it are usually hot items, but some of our best selling designs were the Great Wave (inspired by the Great Wave of Kanagawa painting), Fysh rocking a Bape shark hoodie, pocket Fysh (the shirt has a fake pocket with a dead Fysh in the pocket), and First in Flight (an hommage to our local roots).”
Where do you go from here? What are your plans for the future?
“We want to be able to create more items in-house and expand to more unique cut&sew pieces. This will help us become more self sustaining and grow as a brand. For the future, we definitely want to open up our own store and eventually get to the point where we can design our own sneakers.
I want to give a shout-out to all of our supporters out there and especially to Soletron & their readers for taking the time to learn more about us.”
