A label with balls: Ksubi

LIFE & STYLE

Fashion
Wednesday, 29 July 2009 09:07
Written by Jade Bremner

Getting down and dirty with Ksubi

Meet George Gorrow from the edgy, punky, hard-hittin’ surf bum-rock star-hobo-cool brand that is Ksubi. This humble designer descended from the northern Sydney beaches where kids skate, surf, chill, play music, drink and pass out on a daily basis. It’s not quite the setting you’d expect for a cutting edge international brand, but from this very same community evolved a highly creative bunch of people. We caught up with George in (local distributor) Source to find out more…

So what kind of person wears Ksubi?
Shit, anybody, my grandmother used to wear it before she died; she never took those sunglasses off! Anybody who likes the look, or the philosophy behind it, and the culture behind it.

Walk me through the look…
It’s constantly changing. It’s definitely a little bit rocker you know, but it’s whatever we’re into at that moment and we may chop and change from season to season from a rock to a techno vibe, or whites and blacks, or dressy clothes to really rough beat-up kinda hobo to cowboy; we like to mix things up a lot.

Where do all these mad ideas come from?
We get them from everywhere. Like for our last range Less We Regret – there’s this day in Australia called Anzac Day to remember when Australian soldiers went to fight in Turkey and lost their lives, and there’s a saying called Less We Forget. So our range is based on our generation, we want people to feel free to try things, express yourself and don’t worry too much about the outcome. Some people over-contemplate things and never end up doing them, they should get out there and see how it goes. So Less We Regret is sort of a philosophy of our brand.

Would you say you are a rebel?
I don’t know if I go against the grain. I know I don’t believe in a lot of rules people set, especially in fashion. We never started in fashion; we started through graffiti and graphic design and that emerged into visual art. We were never taught anything regarding the fashion industry so we were never taught the rules. We couldn’t really break them because we didn’t know them. If you don’t ask, you don’t know.

What did you do before you launched a fashion label?
We set up a design agency then started the brand Insight, then I met Dan (his partner with Ksubi) and we started managing bands and putting on events and we built this little hub in Narrabeen, a little town in northern Sydney where nothing ever happens. There are waves so you can surf, but that’s pretty much it. But we were a bunch of creative guys in the late ‘80s, a collection of filmmakers, designers, surfers, drunks or whatever. This fashion event was coming up and we thought why don’t we put something together, a project, and it really took off. All that crowd has now done great things, and created street artists, magazines and really flourished.

Coming from such a chilled backdrop, what do you think of the pretentious types in fashion?
It depends. We worked with Jeremy Scott and he was no different to anyone sitting around that little hub in Narrabean. But over in America he’s so easy to get along with and a good friend. I’m into fashion as an art but I don’t dig the pretentious side of it and all the wankiness of it.

If you had to choose another brand to wear, what would it be?
I reckon John Galliano’s a f***ing legend. He’s amazingly creative and so over-the-top! He has, like, eight collections a year. Unbelievable!

Where’s Ksubi heading?
I want it to reach a little further, but at the same time I want the messages to be correct and not be washed-out down the line. Other than that we want it to get better and have more fun with it.

Where can we get hold of Ksubi gear in Shanghai?