I just skated up to Santa Monica this morning to grab a coffee and take some time to myself to think. I shot a video with my good friend Pedro last night for a project he’s working on with Charity Water (I’ll let you guys know when it comes out). During the shoot he asked me a lot of questions about Vardagen and whenever I get interviewed I start to realize how much information is bottled up inside me. I don’t share very often because I just assume what I know isn’t that interesting to others, and finding time to share is always a problem for me. However, last night was really fun to open up and just give Pedro and his crew a more in-depth look at what I’ve been working on for over a decade.
I’ve been trying to figure out lately how to give our online customers a similar experience to our in-store customers. It’s definitely a huge challenge to be personable online and there’s a lot of little tidbits about Vardagen that you pick up if you visit our Flagship store in Venice. Translating that to your screen is difficult. We want to hear your story and to be able to share ours, to pick up on what you’re into and see how one of our products might connect into your world. Online it feels more like “here’s what we’ve got, want any of it?” and we kind of hate that. We added a chat and we try to be really quick on responding on it so feel free to spark up a conversation!
I’m also going to take some questions and conversations that I have with in-store customers, break them into bite-sized chunks and post them to this blog. Hopefully it can give more insights, encourage other entrepreneurs and just give you some stories behind the shirt you’re wearing. I’ll also respond to questions from you, so feel free to throw anything my way… email here.
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I’m not sure my 2 cents are best fit for the comments section of the blog…but thought I would share my perspective on making the website experience as profound as the in-store experience. I first learned of Vardagen because I was in the art department at Anderson University…Years later, half of what made my visit to the store so awesome was purely the location. Being a midwesterner, I’d dreamed about the essence/vibe/aesthetic of Venice, palm trees, skateboarders, everything authentic to the west coast. But the other half of what made it so cool, was just knowing where everything came from. Knowing, from sitting next to Daniel Jewitt in art history, that this amazingly quiet but brilliant artist sat somewhere and intentionally made every mark that makes up the image that is on the shirts, sweathsirts, hats, stickers, etc. And as a designer myself, knowing that it takes collaboration and mutual respect and hard conversations to really produce all this stuff…to take a kiosk in the Keystone Mall and make it something that can live on a global stage like Abbot Kinney…I wonder if through video (in an authentic sort of documentary style) you could work to showcase the story of how Vardagen came to be what it is today. Capture the heart, uniqueness, nerve and talent that goes into everything the brand puts out…Not sure if any of this makes sense, but open to chatting if it sparks anything for you all!