Words by Alan Ng & Jenkin Au
Photography by Andy Fang
We had a chance to sit down with Jon at his loft to talk about his project, Local604. At a young age, Jon already had a passion in starting his own brand. At the age of 18, he started his first brand. He was also a skater who’s dream was crushed due to a severe accident. We sat down to talk about his life, his brand, and discusses with him on his philosophy of giving back to the community.
Jon, tell us a bit more about yourself.
I am 25, Local604’s been a long dream of mine. I started when I was 18, I was skating boarding and use to do skateboard competitions throughout community and stared a small little project called illegitimate skate clothing. Sometimes life gets in the way. I got in a skateboarding accident and it put me on the coaches for like a year. The pipe dream kind of got on the side. Then I got back on my feet, literally, got back on my feet and went to BCIT for some business school classes. You know, and did Local604, did it with my own financing, now it’s just improving the brand and coming up with new ideas.
What is the focus and what is this brand about?
Local604 brand focuses on Vancouver and only Vancouver, because when I started, there’s Vancity Originals which is really sweet because it’s all about Vancouver but I want to take it in a different direction. Next year we are going to cut and sew pieces. It’s just about Vancouver and only sold Vancouver, It’s not about the margin or business, it’s about making cool clothes for people in our city and that’s it.
What made you decide to pay tribute to our city, the whole concept on it being all Vancouver?
Local604 you know it’s a union of people dedicated to make fine fabric, fine prints and just cool products that represents the city, Vancouver because there’s not too much out there, you know. That represents just Vancouver.
Speaking of Fashion in general, Canadian society has been influenced a lot by the states, what’s your view upon this?
Helping people out. I have friend’s that want to start labels and didn’t know about how this industry worked. I am all in wit helping him out. I am all about helping people. As long as they are helping me, I’ll be helping the, it’s all about networking.
You also mentioned that Local604 is a group of collective organized individuals.
Basically, it’s just myself. But organized group of individuals are people that help me out to think of ideas, sell products, people that help me with my website, graphic designs, whole bunch of friends that are dedicated to make clothes that fit well and cool designs.
What is your favourite design so far out of all your designs?
The downtown one is my absolute favourite. I started a T-Shirt awhile ago that sort of had the same concept. Had a picture with letters on it, I was like man; it’ll be sweet to take a picture of downtown Vancouver and make it out of street names. Like I said, that’s one of the top sellers as well, there’s only five left and we made sixty. We were really fortunate to have a really good following after I started promoting my brand on Facebook, while it just keeps building and building and this shirt sold out pretty fast. I was pretty stoked.
When was the first time you saw someone wearing your band and can you describe this feeling?
There’s a story on my site about “Eyes on the Brand” which is basically of myself and how I got started, and my dreams. I remembered when I first started illegitimate clothing and I was out skating with my buddies and saw a kid wearing one of my hats. It’s the greatest feeling ever because it’s something that I’ve created and see someone spend their money on it and wearing it, the feeling is unbelievable. I get the same feeling every single time, when I see someone wear a Local604 shirt.
It’s such a good feeling because you work so hard to create something, and then you see people appreciate it.
The Logo, how did you get this design of embedding all the numbers within 604?
Funny story how this came up, because a logo’s everything, you got to have a good logo. I spent hours, days, months, drawing just to get different logos. Originally I just drew an L and a 6 and I am like, this looks kind of cool. Then my wife was like “It’s not an L and a 6, its 6, 0 and 4”, then I was like “Wow, that’s way better!” so that’s basically how the fluke came up. It came out good, no complaints there.
A lot of your designs are text based, even the ones with more graphics, is still text based, and is there a reason on why you stick to this style of designs?
For me, I just like more basic. I am not into the whole flashy all over the T-Shirt print around, you know? I think simplicity is the best way to go. You’ll see next year, on our next line where we are decreasing the amount of prints. The size very minimal, more about the fabric and the fit than the design. It’s going to be completely different.
Do you think you are going to ever go into more of the graphics?
Oh yea, definitely, a couple t-shirts and stuff like that. As far as hoodies and jackets, it’ll just be a little embroidery that says Local604, just keep it minimal. For T-Shirts, we do try to incorporate a little design but scaling back a little bit, making it more about the fabric, the fits and the cuts.
You started off with T-Shirts, and now moving to Cut and Sew, what other areas of fashion items do you want to bring Local604 to? Such as Shoes and Accessories?
Who wouldn’t want to do shoes and accessories? That’ll be awesome but I think we are just going to keep it with T-Shirts, Fleece and headwear. I am thinking of
going in a direction where it’s 100% eco where thing are all organic. Its crazy there’s many things you can do with them, eco-sponge where they take pop bottles and break them down into fibre and they turn that into thread. That alone is a crazy selling feature. No body out there is really doing that out there right now, I definitely there’s a space in the market for that so that I think is a direction we are heading.
From your designs, do you think it’s a very raw you or leads from another brands?
100% me, yea.
Have you ever thought of going anywhere else other than fashion? When was the transition time?
Man, this was about two years ago. November 20th? It’s funny how I know the exact date. I use to work for construction and I did that for 3 years and I absolutely hated it, I did it because it was good money, you know? The whole philosophy where you get a job and work 9-5 just to get a pay check. That wasn’t for me, it was doing for what I love and it’s not about the pay check. That comes later. I quit my construction job and got a job in the skateboarding/snowboarding industry and I don’t see myself ever leaving.
On a personally level, what brands do you like?
I am very particular with my brands. If I see a brand that a love, I’ll be 100% committed to it and that’s all I buy. For examples, shoes, the only shoes I buy are Nike Air Max because they are the most comfortable shoes ever. Have you guys heard of Gourmet? You got to check them out. I’ll show you.
(Jon picks up a pair of Gourmet)
No one is really doing shoes like this now. They are from LA and are doing some really crazy stuff. Nike, Gourmet you can never go wrong.
As far as clothing goes, I think RANSOM, by far is doing some amazing things right now. They are a Canadian brand and are doing great. There’s another brand called Selective Home, in Europe, whom focuses on the fit and the fabric instead of the designs. Jeans, Levis 501 you can never go wrong with. I stick to those till I find any better which is pretty rare to find now.
A lot of people, when they get in really big accidents, but it really take a shot at their soul. When you broke your leg, what kind of affect did it have in the soul?
Oh man, down in the gutter. I am not even going to be ashamed to admit it. When you break your leg and you are so close to your goal that you can reach it, it crashes you. It makes you a stronger person. No experience is a bad experience it’s just a learning process, and that’s how I look at it now. I was down in the gutter and pretty choked at that time but I am 100% better situation now then where I was then.
How do you think you have hustled in that situation and in life?
Just never quitting, you know? Networking even when people say no, you still go do it. For example, when I quit construction to get a job at the action sports industry, I got turned down by some of the biggest names and companies out there and wouldn’t even give me a try. They told me I didn’t have the experience, credibility, etc. But I am not going to take that as a no and I am going to prove these people wrong and sure enough, I did get a job and now I am a manager of a store, so you know, whatever that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That’s a philosophy that I go buy.
Where can people get Local604 gear?
Currently we are doing online sales at the moment; we are going to stick for a little while until we do our next line. We are just fortunate to have a pretty good success on the site’s launch. It’s been pretty successfully for us especially for online sales. It’s pretty hard especially keeping consistent business of your website. We are actually in the process of launching a new website, it will be a lot more content, it’s a lot more user friendly. There’ll be more networking links on there, links to some of my friend’s brand, because that’s a thing with Local604, it’s not just about the brand but also helping local businesses.
How differently do you think you would have done this all over again if there was no internet?
You know, we would just have to go back to my illegitimate line when I was 18. Obviously Facebook didn’t exist back then and My Space wasn’t as big. I would go knocking on people’s door. I would go to skate shops, busted my backpack on filled with my shirts and go like “Hey, this is what I have!” Looking back, it wasn’t the greatest print, it was just doing something that I loved, but I didn’t care because I loved doing it. I would go in skate shops with my backpacks on and ask for the manager. They would come out and I would ask them if they want to buy some clothes. Sometimes I got turned down but 5 out of 10 times it worked, just hustling and grinding. Knocking on people’s door, “Want to buy some T-Shirts? Here’s the price” Some people supported that.
How has music inspired you, and shaped on where Local604 is heading?
As far as music that I listen to, I would say the Kid Cudi genre coming out. Big Sean, another one under Kanye West. I think that’s the new generation hip hop right now. I think the whole big gangster persona, I think that’s kind of done and over with. It’s more chill and good music. It’s about people’s lives. Like Kid Cudi, you know it’s a soundtrack to his life and that’s kind of cool. You know? I think that’s kind of the direction we are going. I think that’s the new nor.
For yourself, if you have a CD album, what would be the title?
Oh man, that’s pressure. What would be the title?
I would honesty say, I don’t know if I would be able to come up with a title. My experienced with life was like down the gutter, you know whatever got me through all that. I would think whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, that’ll probably be the title. That or, “It’s not a mistake if it happens twice”; it happens once, it’s just an experience, it happens twice, it’s a mistake. I would say one of those two.
Each brand always has messages, what is the main message, or if you get sum it up, what is the message behind your brand?
That the brand is trying to give back to the community, give back to Vancouver. Show Vancouver its true colors. You know? For example, the downtown tee, representing our downtown. Yea, I would say just giving back to Vancouver, representing the city that we live in. There’s just so much to do here. I would obviously say, giving back.
Many people say that Vancouver’s scene is still at its infancy stage. With that in mind, where do you think Vancouver should be as a city?
That’s a good question. I think they got to get people to places in terms of their Translink. I would say Vancouver would grow better if people are willing to help other people out. You know? You can sometimes be selfish and business is business but one person helping another person and it creates a good vibe.
Dream project with Local604?
It would be my next line, doing the cut and sew pieces. There are 5 different styles and 7 different styles. We are definitely cutting back. Working on 2 or 3 very good pieces. Low numbers, making them super exclusively and high end at the same time.
Doing shoes would always be a dream, but it’s so expensive. Yea definitely the cut and sew pieces coming up.
Any last words to Vancity?
There are a few people that pushed me because they believed in me and to them I have to give a huge thanks. First I would like to thank my wife Myra, if it wasn’t for her pushing me every single day and believing in me, I would probably still be working construction. I would like to thank my mom who has given me constant support and always told me to follow my dreams. I want to thank my dad for his business advice and for teaching me a strong work ethic from a very young age. Also can’t forget some of my friends who have helped me along the way: Josh Haywood, Anthony Leffelaar, DJ JTraxx, DJ Trizzak, everyone who has bought a Local604 tee, and to everyone at justalilhype.com
What is HYPE?
HYPE is whatever you want it to be. If you are creating something and you want to blow it big, it’s you talking about the brand. You know, getting people excited about it. You don’t even need to have a product, it can be talking about music or a restaurant coming up, it’s talking to people, getting people hyped up for it so when it does come out, people would want to go check it out. It’s talking to people, and getting them stoked on your product or brand or whatever it might be.