Jeff, Paris

We talked to Jeff Van Der Kush- founder of leading Parisian streetwear brand, Tealer - about hype, working with local heroes and how better adidas can connect as a brand. Jeff Van Der Kush is co-founder of Paris-based streetwear brand Tealer, music label Tealer Records, and skate-brand Day Off. He also runs an after-sale store called After Drop, selling in-demand pieces from brands such as Supreme, Nike, and Palace, as well as running the CBD brand Tealer Vibes. As Jeff says himself, “I like to wear many hats.”

So, you do a lot within the culture… Wanna start by telling us about that? 

Well, my main focus is Tealer, which takes up 80% of my time. The rest are side projects! At Tealer, I'm the art director, and I drive the people; my team. For me, everything I do is part of a common culture. Streetwear is a general term. We can talk about ‘street culture’ and it covers what you wear, what you listen to, what you eat, where you go out. When people say to me "aren't you afraid that you’re getting a bit lost, starting to make burgers?" and I say, “well, no, because I’m bringing my DNA to it.” I think 99% of the people who dress in Tealer clothes have already had a Tealer burger. With the record label, I don't just do Hip-Hop; I do a lot of electronic music too. I do lots of things that you can't really put in a box, and to me that's a good reflection of today’s youth.

We couldn’t agree more. This generation is very fluid. And what about your after-sale store, After Drop?

It's like a warehouse. People bring us new products and we resell them for more money, which increases the hype around them. I wasn't really into it at all, but we got given an opportunity, which we took. It's been three years and I'm in the process of getting rid of it, because I don't really like the reselling mentality. 

What is the ‘reselling mentality’?

Let’s take the hype around Supreme and Supreme resales, for example. There are people who come in and buy a Box Logo item for 400 Euros, go in front of the shop in the street, take a picture for Instagram, then come back and drop it off. Sometimes I sell the same item 4 or 5 times in the same day, adding my 30% commission. It's very profitable, but very sad.

What drove you to start Tealer, in the very beginning?

At the very beginning when I started Tealer, I was after recognition. It was a bit of a narcissistic ego trip, I guess. There was this hype side of Paris - the social club, the ‘great era’ – and I wasn’t being accepted into that community. So, I said to myself, “I'm going to do my own thing, this T-shirt dealer thing,” and it took off immediately. We pretty quickly got 10,000 followers on our Facebook page. It was a real springboard. The concept spoke to a lot of people directly, and one thing led to another and I found myself on my own with my bike, delivering t-shirts and running a workshop in a rented basement. Gradually, things got bigger and I also wanted to do something for the culture too… 

And how would you describe the streetwear scene in Paris, on a wider scale?

I don't have a predefined definition of what streetwear is in Paris, but for me it's a mindset. Streetwear is quite a rich culture; you can be classy in streetwear, but you can also be seen as a hooligan. It's a state of mind that marks a generation. In the last 10 years, a lot of walls have come down, and hip hop has been a huge contributor. In terms of street culture here , it is true that we don't have this culture like the Dutch have with brands like Patta , which are really streetwear brands. In France, brands are more driven by a sport, or by the culture that they represent. Wasted and Tealer are prime examples of this. 

And then there’s your brand, Day Off, which is very much part of the skate culture there…

When we opened the Tealer store, we made a skateboard ramp there so all the skaters in Paris came to skate, and so we became affiliated with skateboarding. Alex [who?] and I don't skate at all - we just thought it was cool, and when we had after parties, people would come and dance. Then one day, Citadium [Parisian department store chain] contacted us and asked us to join them, and we accepted, and started to become a more mainstream brand. The skaters didn't like this at all and blamed us for selling our asses. That really hurt me, and from this Day Off, was born. I wanted to make a brand for skaters and so we opened a shop next to République.

And did the skater community accept this new brand?

When we first started Day Off, we were told by Allas, “Day Off doesn't work the way it should because people know that it's you behind it” - and it is true that skateboarding is the kind of environment that protects itself, that remains authentic. Often our message was misinterpreted as "they do this to make money,” as something commercial and not for the culture. We didn't want to be seen as upstarts, so we teamed up with a guy called Reda - a guy who has been riding on the Place de République since 1998. He's the adoptive father of all skaters in Paris. He spends whole weekends riding and laughing with 16-year-old kids. He left for 20 days recently with a group of young people to skate in Spain. 

He sounds amazing – a true cultural gatekeeper! How did Rada help Day Off?

We wanted to give Reda the possibility to have his own skate-shop. He didn’t have all that hype – he was a passionate guy. Unfortunately the current COVID context made it impossible to open a store, so we decided to become an agency for skateboarding. We’ve done stuff with adidas, Volcom, Dazed … 

So, what are your plans for Day Off as a skate agency in Paris?

We're going to continue the collections but on event collaborations. For example, we are preparing for an event next month with Red Bull. We'll find all their riders, we'll set up the skate ramps, we'll do the merch. When we had the shop, it was good because everyone came to the shop, but there was a barrier to working with other brands because we were a brand ourselves. Now that we're not a skate label anymore, brands come to us. We do consulting for luxury brands whereby we find them ‘muses.’ Allas is important because, while we have experience in organising events, he has the experience of finding the gems - the new young guys who are killing it in skateboarding. But we work hand in hand. This generation of guys - Allas, Sauvageon - quickly understood that the skate culture was not to be neglected. So, they're going into the business through the front door, and working with all the brands.

What are some other brands in Paris that are at the edge of culture when it comes to streetwear and skate?

I think Yard [Paris-based creative agency] give a lot of people a chance in street culture. They want to show a side-view of what street culture is, through the people who make it, I admire that.  They’re important because it means there are no there are no self-righteous people saying, "this is hype, and this is not". I saw something from the Yard agency where they invited their followers to come and debate on a subject in their offices. It’s things like that that make the culture evolve.

Yes – that is so true. So it’s vital for a brand in the culture to not behave too top-down? 

Yes. The consumer is no longer fooled. He knows what product placement is. I thought about it at Rock en Seine, for example, where they had the SFR [French telecoms company] company name written all around the stage. Do you really think there are people in the audience who will say "ah fuck it, I'm going to get an SFR subscription when I leave here?". I know it's not calculated like that - it's visibility to be everywhere in people's minds - but in my opinion the consumer is being taken for a fool, and he knows it. He won't change his phone subscription because he saw a concert paid for by SFR. That's bullshit. 

What are the golden rules of collaborations, then?

It's important not to give your clothes away to just anyone, but to instead build relationships. I get DMs every day "hi, partnership?", “well no fuck you”. You see the number of followers of the people in your requests and there I see a guy with 700 000 followers, I open the message and I see "partnership? I get them every day. "Collab?"  For them, it means, “you send me clothes.” I have to stay strong with my ethics, but it's not easy. 

Have Tealer adopted this mentality?

Tealer decided never to pay anyone to wear our brand. We've had Wiz Khalifa, Rihanna, A$AP Rocky, and Fergie wear our stuff, and those were big things, but that was by the sweat of my brow and not my wallet. I was in the hotel with Wiz Khalifa. A contact got me in and I was in a room next door. I lit up some booze so Wiz would come to where I was, and I could give him some shirts. For me, that makes it real; there's a real connection between me and him. Flatbush Zombies were the same - I harassed them with DMs. They were in Paris, and I knew which studio. I sent them pictures of weed and I told them it would blow them away. They told me to come to the studio, so I arrived there and I didn't even speak English but I showed them pictures on Instagram of Tealer t-shirts. I didn't lie to people. I wore my balls and I went there. I didn't sign a contract.

Those are some amazing stories! How do you think that adidas could learn from this kind of approach?

I can understand that for a brand like adidas it would be more complicated. I see it sometimes with Tealer; artists love the brand, but they tell me "your brand is too big now. You have to write me a contract, and give me money". I tell them "no, let's do something. I'll make a video for you, I'll participate in your art project as a director, we'll do a product placement and from there I'll put money in to pay for the video". It's different from paying a muse. I want to create a real relationship. adidas need to do something real. If there's no story behind the product placements, it's lame. 

Is there anything specific you’d like to see from adidas in Paris, or further afield?

adidas should open a local collaboration program, like Nike does in England. Do you know the Basement blog? Nike did a collaboration with them, giving importance to people who give importance to culture. I know if adidas had a local collaboration programme, Tealer could potentially be in it. One thing adidas have never done too is the customisation side of things that Nike does. There are a lot of models I like, but where I don't like the colourways. They only did it on the Superstars. Customised products have a real DNA. Why not go for that?

We talked earlier about hype, and this culture of buying into it. Do you think that hype can ever work sustainably?

Hype can become responsible if opinion leaders like Nike, Vans, adidas are transparent about the production chain of their products. We should aim to go back to something simpler and locally produced. I had heard about a pair of shoes with colourways available only according to country, but when I asked around, I found out that they were all made in the same factory! Come on; let’s make adidas products sold in France made in France by French people. This would lead to hype in the US because you can't get it there, and vice versa. 

Before we finish, is there anything else you want to say to adidas?

To get noticed, adidas should communicate the history of the brand. There are a lot of street codes that Nike has been able to use, but not so much adidas. When I saw that adidas sponsored 13 Blocks, for example, it was cool, but it felt alien compared to everything else. It felt like, "we're going to take the band from the movement", and then you see them in a documentary in their neighbourhood, and they’re not wearing adidas. Street culture comes from the neighbourhoods, but adidas doesn't make enough products dedicated to the neighbourhoods. Farhat who works at Nike used to go to all the poorest neighbourhoods with his truck to give out clothes and organise football tournaments. It's cooler and it costs less than a year-long campaign with 13 Blocks.

And any other parting words?

The fact that you're not from adidas allowed us to talk without taboos – that’s to their credit. Otherwise, I’d say, adidas, you can't give up!