The Taste Issue |
HUF
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HUF
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HUF—
Real Recognize Real HUF’s journey from oversized tees to skate culture royalty.
text by Erin Dennison
As befits his former pro skater status, HUF founder Keith Hufnagel moves between the worlds of lifestyle branding, manufacturing, and skateboarding with impressive agility. In terms of branding, he occupies a unique space with a streetwear line that is as influential as it is distinctive. When Hufnagel started skating in the 1980’s, the culture was far from thriving in his hometown of NYC. In those days, the notion that skate trends would permeate high fashion was ridiculous. But that’s not what fueled him. Today, the company that started as a humble boutique on San Francisco’s Sutter Street is currently home to numerous collaborations, a full line of apparel and footwear, a skate team, a wholesale distribution arm, a host of celebrity cosigns, and a cult-like following that positions HUF next to industry heavyweights like Nike and Vans. If it seems as though @hufworldwide is planning on global dominance—well, it’s because that’s sort of the deal. Upon entering HUF’s LA headquarters, I’m greeted by a kid who looks all of eight years old. Skateboard in hand, he leads me through a meandering corridor in search of HUF’s creative team. After a few narrow turns, the office explodes into a massive, open floor plan. Clothing racks haphazardly punctuate the rows of desks, which are stacked with shoeboxes, lined with mood boards, and invariably occupied by coollooking people. Between snippets of intersecting conversation about everything from moving offices to the logistics of a creative campaign, it quickly becomes apparent that these guys are pretty fucking busy. Finally, we make our way into the glass conference room, where Keith and Scott Tepper (HUF’s Creative Director and a long-time friend of Hufnagel’s) greet us with a degree of attention and politeness which, given their roles at the helm of an internationally distributed, multimillion dollar company, come as a refreshing surprise. There weren’t always this many moving parts in the HUF arena. Keith grew up a skate kid in Manhattan during the 1980’s—a time and place where the alt sport was
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• Photographer Josie Simonet | Styling Marissa Peden | Stylist Assistant Sini Mattila | Grooming Barbara Yniguez | Model Gabriel @ Photogenics
known more for slackers than for burgeoning trends. After obliging his folks and
As hype for HUF apparel grew, the wholesale arm of the company was struggling.
enrolling in a four-year college in San Francisco, Keith quickly opted out of a liberal
Without the infrastructure necessary to evolve on par with demand, and with zero
arts education in favor of a professional skating contract with Real in 1992. Once
credit available at the time, Keith found himself caught in an impossible game of
he went pro, he started to observe a change in the climate: a merging of the skate
catch-up. “We hired a showroom to sell [the line], and right when we did that, it
and streetwear industries that promised to evolve into something even bigger. “I
just blew up, and we had all these orders to fill. At that point, it was kind of when
saw all these stores opening,” he explains. “I watched Supreme happen, I watched
[the] recession hit. 2008, 2009, 2010…it was during that three-year period we started
Union happen, I watched all these things starting to happen in streetwear. The
seeing a decrease of sales inside retail. And all we’re doing is putting money into the
culture was brewing.”
wholesale business and trying to do that and maintain that. Eventually, we started seeing bills coming in from our vendors and we were just like, this fucking sucks. So
Eventually, in 2002, Keith decided to open up a retail shop to marry the streetwear
we started closing some of the retail doors to kind of offset [the cost]. And it worked
and sneaker scenes with which he had become so familiar. “We had all these special
for a while. But then, the manufacturing bills got bigger and bigger… and then, I
Nikes, and we bought a bunch of NY brands like Supreme and Annex. There were
had the bright idea of doing footwear.”
a lot of brands we had access to in NY. I don’t know how kids found out, but they did, and we had the demand before [the store] even opened. The day we opened, we
The guys were already intimately familiar with the entire scope of footwear. From
pretty much sold out of everything.” Dubbed HUF after Hufnagel’s tag and nickname,
street trends and skate function to manufacturing and retail, shoes had been a passion
the shop became a go-to for hats and tees; and before they knew it, Keith and his
of Keith’s even before he launched HUF’s original Sutter Street spot. Their initial
team had an entire clothing line on their hands.
foray into sneakers consisted of collaborations with footwear titans like Nike. “We were partners in the retail store, so Nike was allowing us to do collaborations to
“We had such demand and we were in a small store, so we just kind of started opening
hype up their brand, and sort of using us as an outlet, which was very good for the
up a door a year.” Soon, Keith had opened four stores in SF and one in LA. Each
brand—I mean, it helped us a lot. At that point, though, we were a Nike-pusher.
carried the HUF brand, as well as a solid selection of other streetwear lines and
They were helping us and we were helping them.”
big-brand collaborations. But once they started producing their own footwear, HUF suddenly became the “We had no background in manufacturing, so we basically just found places in San
competition. The team found themselves at a crossroads; and in the end, they chose
Francisco and Jersey—we were doing everything inside the US. None of us went to
to go all in. “In the long run, we actually wanted to be our own manufacturer. And
business school or anything,” he explains. “Let’s say we bought something for $50,
have control over how much we buy, what we put on it,” Keith says. “When you
we were just turning around and selling it for $100. So there was actually no wholesale
have those big companies, they tell you how much you get. They dictate it all under
margin. So we kinda knew that we were just putting ourselves in this hole.”
their reign, which is their business—they’re good at it.”
The Taste Issue |
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STORE
“...and then, I had the bright idea of doing footwear.” As it turns out, redirecting its efforts into footwear manufacturing was the ideal restructuring step for Hufnagel’s lifestyle company. Having gained considerable momentum in the wake of their successful launch of the sneaker line, HUF is currently preparing to re-open a retail location in the Fairfax district of LA this summer. Coming full circle, the newest HUF store will be a space where people can experience the full brand story—while also serving as an opportunity for HUF to reconnect with their retailers. According to Forbes, skateboarding is now a multibillion-dollar industry, with nearly half of the top ten action sports stars being skaters. Despite the culture’s growth, Hufnagel stays true to his roots. He actively invests back into his first love by supporting a team of professionals that includes Dylan Rieder, Craig Anderson, Austyn Gillette, and over a half dozen more. He also still rides professionally himself. And although there is a considerable big-brand presence in the business—Nike and Adidas own most of the industry these days—no massive corporation can contend with the authenticity of a skateboarder-owned brand. Through the ebbs and flows of the retail climate, Keith’s never lost sight of the bigger picture. Trends, by definition, come and go. But having taken the time—and made the sacrifices—to invest in HUF’s foundation by pursuing independent manufacturing, Hufnagel is actively securing a spot for the sport. The brand’s goal is to protect the culture for those who make it, even when the footwear and apparel giants leave and take their programs and sponsorship deals with them. Whether he’s ollieing over park benches, designing footwear, or directing his multi-million dollar business, Keith Hufnagel has more than earned his rep as a skate and streetwear legend. •
• Photo By Natalie O’Moore