Dane Reynolds And Craig Anderson's Former Is Alive
In a marriage of devastating cool, the Former online store is open for business. The brand is the work of the culturally-ravenous group of Dane Reynolds, Craig Anderson, Warren Smith, Austyn Gillette and Monster Children magazine’s founder, Campbell Milligan. Finding a collective agreement with creative minds is never easy but surprisingly, the group have gotten the collection together, and site live posthaste.
Craig and Austyn, muted in palette and expression.
To describe their first collection through existing brands in the market, we’d say something like this: Former is a fusion of Brain Dead-inspired prints, with cuts and silhouettes influenced by Chapter that melds into the fabrication and aesthetic not dissimilar to a Bianca Chandon. It’s a mostly-muted colour palette but for us, the pink hoodie is a standout of the collection. However, it’s yet to be released in the online store.
Calmly anticipating the bright rotation in a carousel of mostly black and white.
The pricing is reasonable, a middle-of-the-road $USD35 for a tee before a further $6ish for shipping and $3 for tax, the final price $44 for a tee (to California). The good news is the boys ship internationally and the sales experience is pretty straight forward, being powered by the out-of-the-box software, Shopify. We were expecting some cute and clever email follow-ups from Former but it’s the dry Shopify template that greeted us: “Hi Morgan, we’re getting your order ready to be shipped.”
After all the work on names and trademarks and designs and cuts and meetings, you gotta swing over behind the lens and play model. The boys are certainly getting their hands dirty and learning a lot.
Former's a nod to the surf industry’s lost but not forgotten counter-culture, a rider owned company without the slightest whiff of “performance”. The cornerstone of big money in the surf industry is boardshorts and Former’s single contribution to the category is a straight-up, simple trunk with a blend of 70 percent cotton and 30 percent nylon. Somewhere along the line we were made to believe that a pair of boardshorts that stretch to your toes are better to surf in.
All Former product is modelled by its founders. Here's Craig Anderson in the 16in Swan board shorts.
Finally, to drive their opening day they’ve dropped an exclusive, near eight-minute clip of part owner Craig Anderson featuring the best surfing we’ve seen on him since Kai Neville’s, Welcome Elsewhere. If we could embed, we’d certainly give it a Stab Loves badge of honour but click on through right here.
Former has taken to the streets today. And, right now, these heroes and villains live in black and white.
