Designer, entrepreneur and business owner Jeff Yokoyama gave some interesting insights into his creative vision and serial entrepreneurial history in a Q & A session with SIMA Executive Director Sean Smith at Surf Summit.
Jeff has created several brands over the course of his career, including Maui & Sons, Pirate Surf, Modern Amusement and Generic Youth, which he started with his daughter.
Passion was always the driver of his career rather than money, and he had no trouble walking away from brands – and potential paydays – once the “warm water” was gone.
Jeff said he doesn’t measure success by volume, or dollars sold. But by the ability to pick oneself back up and go back out there if something doesn’t work out.
He wanted those in the room at Surf Summit to know, “You get another shot at it. We are all creative and entrepreneurial and sometimes we forget that when doing the day-to day” work.
In 1980 when he created Maui & Sons, Jeff realized there was a new crop of surfer kids coming up, kids like Danny Kwock that were looking for fashion. He saw what they were wearing and the hairstyles they wanted because Jeff was cutting hair at the time.
He saw an opportunity in the market, an opening, something that felt right, his “warm water” feeling. He always looks for that warm water when he takes on a project.
Maui & Sons was born, and became a big success and an influential early brand in the market. But things eventually changed, he said, and while he doesn’t consider himself a businessman, he does recognize good business from bad business, so he left.
In 1989, he then started a brand called Pirate Surf, an opposite brand to Maui Surf, because he saw the grunge movement starting.
Pirate Surf’s biggest hit was an acid wash flannel. Jeff told a great story about how when trying to do the acid wash, the flannels accidently ended up with holes.
He didn’t think the shirts could sell but took a bag of them to Huntington Surf & Sport to show Aaron Pai. As he was showing Aaron, kids in the store saw the flannels, and loved them.
He knew he had a hit. Jeff and his partner eventually logged $1 million in sales from that one item alone, and it was just the two of them working out of Jeff’s garage, he said.
Quiksilver eventually bought Pirate Surf, and Jeff worked there for about a year. Jeff said it was a lot of fun and he learned a lot, but after about a year he felt the warm water leaving so he departed.
He then went to work at Stussy with Shawn Stussy, with the idea that Jeff would eventually step into a key design role.
He worked with Shawn for a year, and it became clear to Jeff that he could never fill Shawn’s shoes, Jeff said.
“He’s brilliant,” Jeff said. “He is so creative.”
Jeff told a story about Shawn needing to come up with new T-shirt designs. They’d drive to Taco Bell, and come back, and within two or three hours Shawn would create six more designs that he would sketch and draw and ink.
Working with Shawn, Jeff learned lesson after creative lesson. Even back then, Shawn was talking to people like photographer Mario Testino, the fashion label Comme des Garcons.
“He knew people back then that were moving the market,” Jeff said.
Jeff told the audience at Surf Summit they should educate themselves about Stussy and its history.
See Page 2 for the story of Modern Amusement, Generic Youth
Jeff left Stussy after about a year, and in 1995, he started the Modern Amusement brand, which has the black crow as an icon.
The black crow idea came from Jeff’s childhood. He loved football, and was always the first on the field – just he and the crows.
Modern Amusement was all about modern design – streamlined, crisp collars, detailed buttons.
The brand because a success in boutiques and elsewhere, and Jeff sold it to Mossimo seven years ago.
After the sale, he worked there six months, and the warm water definitely left he said, so he did, too.
By then his wife was asking him why he was walking away from money. “Enough with warm water,” she said, and reminded him they had four kids to feed and put through college.
His next brand came together in an hour, and was the idea of his daughter, Coco, who was 15 at the time.
She told her father she wanted to create a T-shirt line using left over fabrics, and that kids didn’t want to wear logos anymore.
Generic Youth is now housed in an old auto detailing shop in Costa Mesa. Items are handmade using recycled or abandoned fabrics and goods, and it reaches out to the community in many ways, including with Burger Wednesday.
On Wednesdays, neighbors stop by for a barbecue and bring old beach towels, which Generic Youth makes into sweatshirts, shorts and shirts.
Design teams from big companies such as Nike, Abercrombie & Fitch and more often stop by to visit and check out the store.
Jeff has also started Yoki’s Garden, where he is turning old college athletic uniforms into tailgate blankets, aprons, T-shirts, jackets, etc. at different universities.
During the talk at Surf Summit, Jeff gave some advice to the industry. He believes if brands think differently, design differently and sell differently, the industry can start coming back in a new and exciting way.
People in the industry also need to remember why they are doing what they are doing. Yes, everyone needs to make money, but the lifestyle and the passion for that lifestyle is key.
If you capture that lifestyle and passion in products, he said, the industry can make more “runners” like that Pirate Surf acid wash flannel.
