Catching Up With: Greger Hagelin

mike lewis

• June 24 2009
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Greger Hagelin (right).

WE are the Superlative Conspiracy, or WeSC, or just We if you’d rather, has deftly positioned itself to ride the set of waves that have converged between skate, music, and street culture. Founded in Örebro, Sweden in 1999 by six partners including Greger Hagelin and shred legend Ingemar Backman, the brand has quickly grown across the globe and now boasts stores in such mega-trend setting scenes as München, Berlin, Seoul, Paris, Stockholm, Los Angeles, and New York.

Sales in the U.S. continue to skyrocket since the company first launched here four and a half years ago. Wholesale sales in the States for its last fiscal year were up 102 percent, with total growth of 74 percent. Fall orders were up 39 percent globally and 29 percent in the U.S.

We caught up with WeSC CEO and Co-founder Greger Hagelin on his way to Europe for an eight day, five country whirlwind tour of his once and future home continent.

I understand you’re moving back over to Sweden shortly?

I’m moving back at the end of June. I’ve been here for three years.

Where have you taken the brand that you’re feeling it’s time to move back to Sweden?

My board of directors said if we were going to continue with our efforts in the American markets I should move here. We have a great organization here now, we have a great distribution set up, we work with great people and our brand is doing well and growing day by day in one of the most important markets. Considering the conditions that are out there, we’re doing great. We’re growing in Europe as well, and feel very fortunate.

What have been the biggest differences between growing the brand here in the States and in Europe?

There are so many strong brands that are doing great here. Every door you knock on, every store you try and get in, there are so many brands that want to be in the same position and have the same floor space and all that.

Sweden is kind of complicated because it’s only 9 million people. The biggest town is Stockholm with 1.5 million, less people live in Sweden than in LA or New York.

For distribution, we have 15 skateboard stores there and maybe five streetwear stores, and then we needed to find a niche into fashion stores. It’s kind of a complicated market, but when we came to the United States, there are fashion stores, skateboard stores, streetwear stores, you have chains like Zumiez, PacSun, all of those distribution possibilities. In Sweden you really need to find your niche in terms of talking to the consumer. That was the strongest part of what we were able to do, get our consumer base to go to the stores that sold our product. Here in the United States, it’s more direct, you know what kind of stores you can place your product in, stores have the niches not the brands.

You originally came over to the States for skateboarding, right?

Back in the day it was for skateboarding, and I met a lot of great people. I knew a lot of people around the world from other companies, and I think most of the competition and insiders supported us. I felt very welcomed to this market. We also had a background here already from our distribution of other brands in Sweden. We had a great network of friends in this business; otherwise it would have been very hard to get into this market.

It sounds like there is some healthy collaboration with your competition then?

People from within the industry, people from other brands, they all supported us by talking good about us, which helped us along. I think that’s how the business should be - I like to say we don’t have competition, we have compliments to our brand. You want to be in a store where other good brands are.

How do you view the balance of having your own stores and separate retail accounts?

[Our stores] really help build the brand, show the collection, and tell our story.  Take the store in Robertson, we can bring new accounts there, tell them about the brand - it gives you respect.

We try and place the stores where they create knowledge and our own audience for the brand. It’s very important to have your own stores today to showcase the brand. We have a selection of about 400 items, four times a year, and no shop will ever carry all our T-shirts. They pick a few different things. There are enough products for all the stores.

How would you define the aesthetic of WeSC?

It’s a street fashion brand. We are the bridge between streetwear, fashion, and skate. We want to be a brand that takes things to the next level. It’s really important to have that skate background because that’s the heritage of what we’re doing.

It seems like you’ve done a really good job of not being pigeon holed as a skate, or a snow, or a music, or whatever-centric label.

Coming from Stockholm has helped us. You don’t have regular skateboard brands there. We needed to find our own angle and it felt kind of natural to be a part of all of that, skateboarding, snowboarding. We want to take the next step and I think we found a good path, and a gap in the market that was acceptable. We weren’t really competitive then, we had our own niche.

How much of your business is here in the States?

About 25 percent of turnover is here in the U.S.

What have been your biggest successes here in the States?

Being able to build the distribution networks and all of the great friends. Also to build the Weactivist network of great, decent, and good things together. Being able to work on some great products with them. Being able to build a great organization that people want to work for.

Some companies call it a team. WeSC prefers Weactivists. Here’s just a few of them.

Your ten-year anniversary is coming up?

The seventh of January is our ten-year anniversary.

What do you have planned?

We have a lot of things planned. We’re going to have a major party in Sweden. We have some very sexy collaborations coming out. We’ll also re-release product that was really important for the company in the early years.

What are your goals in heading back to Europe?

When we started the company ten years ago, our mission was to be the best street fashion company in the world. The best is not necessarily the biggest, but we want to be good at what we do.

We want to do interesting products and bring ideas to life that we are proud of. We want to play a great part in the street fashion, action sports business.

That’s pretty lofty.

That’s our mission. Every morning we wake up and think about our mission. Every step that we take is to take it to the next level and you need to have that in the back of your head. Every brand needs to have a mission that they strive very hard to focus on. Push it forward as hard as you can everyday.

What should we expect to see from you guys in coming lines?

We’re having a lot of collaborations coming out. With Japanese companies, companies from Hong Kong, American shoe brands. We want through those collaborations to make sure we make them proud, and make the people wearing them proud.

You got a couple you’re particularly excited about?

The Berrics is the newest thing happening in the skateboard community. We’re doing a collaboration with them. We’re going to be one of the sponsors of Berrics, and work very closely with them. Berrics took skateboarding to the next level themselves and that’s good for everybody that skateboards. There was a need for that.

Tell us a little about your “Life After Skate” line.

I think skateboarding is the most important subculture out there. It has gone up and down, but every generation of skateboarders has the same attitude towards life. If you skate, it doesn’t matter if you’re rich, poor, yellow, black, white, or anything. The most important thing is you’re a skateboarder, you’re a friend. Being a young kid skateboarding in Sweden, really the only place that skateboarding truly existed was California. I came here with a whole bunch of European skateboarders, and became part of the skateboard culture in the United States and we all became like a family. Generation after generation have been part of that. Even today all the skateboarders, even though it’s huge and every where around the world, the same attitude survives. Whatever you do, it’s the influence of skateboarding. Once a skateboarder, always a skateboarder, it will always be a part of your life.  We take things to the next level and that’s what we mean with Life After Skate.  It ‘s the experience of skateboarding, the character of that, and using it in a positive way to keep the idea out there, that’s where we get the designs.

I think that really came from our Weactivists. A lot of them really re-designed skate. Take Jason Lee, one of the best and most interesting skateboarders out there back in the day, doing it to the next level. We have guys like Steve Berra and Eric Koston who always take it to the next level, with TV, art, or whatever. Whether they’re DJ’s or actors, they’re really proud to be a part of that tradition of skate. Once you are a skateboarder you’re one for the rest of your life.

WeSC Timeline

Late Winter 1999 - WeSC founded

September 2004 - WeSC Opens Flagship store in the US

July 2005- WeSC Fashion Flight from Sweden to Barcelona “The Highest Catwalk EVER!”

April 2006 - WeSC opens its doors in NYC

Spring of 2007 - First Headphone collection launches

May 15th, 2008 - WeSC goes public on the Stockholm Exchange