Yout Club - Idea Behind The Brand
Idea behind the brand
Written by Tom Dalloway
A few years ago I owned a bar. It was a great life for 10 years. We only opened from Thursday to Sunday so in the week I had lots of free time. It was spent either doing odd jobs around the bar or cleaning it from top to bottom. After work I’d spend a lot of time watching YouTube videos, sometimes daft stuff but mainly it was videos that inspired me. To some people I guess I lived a very boring life but I loved working hard and then just researching stuff in my own company. Unfortunately it all came to an end in 2016 and it affected me badly mentally. It wasn’t just the fact of losing a business which I had worked for so hard over the years, but there was something else which was messing my head up but I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Until now, I finally realised it was creativity that I was missing and craving so bad. Some people won’t understand the buzz you get from an idea you get in your head while cleaning toilets at 2pm on a wet Tuesday afternoon. I just loved the process of start to finish of executing the perfect party for people to forget about everything. But that buzz died when the bar closed.
Looking back it was the perfect time for it to go, as my daughter Orla was about to be born and this was my new focus.
Fast forward a few years and things were about to change. I’ve always wanted to do something with clothing but never thought of the right name or thought I had the time, when in actual fact it wasn’t the time that was stopping me, it was confidence. When you have a bad experience in business, it puts you off doing anything again. I was so worried what people would think about the name, if it was good or s**t, the website, everything, but I’ve got to a point in life where I concentrate that much on what I’m doing, I actually don’t care about what other people’s opinions are. You either like something or you don’t. If you do like Yout Club, then thanks!
So this brings us to the name. One night after my kids (Albert came along in lockdown, he’s great) had gone to bed I was just scrolling Facebook and I was reading a post from an old friend Phil Gifford, about how a girl who was working at his coffee shop (Pretty&Pip if you are ever in Cirencester) was playing some music whilst they were cleaning down and he said it was good to learn new music from the yout. I never thought anything of it until I went to bed and then Yout Club came into my head. I remember thinking surely someone has got that name, so after a quick google and a trademark search I couldn’t find anything and for once, in such a long time, I felt that fire in my stomach, the urge to pace up and down again, so I went downstairs and went on my iPad and registered the trademark literally about half an hour after the idea.
At the time it was only the name I had, I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, but then slowly the vision of it on clothing and accessories came to mind. So I started doing research again on YouTube. It was a long winded approach from the first idea to the first finished product. But I wasn’t in a rush, I’m not looking for fast cash, I have a day job which I enjoy so for me it’s about having something to concentrate on. The main reason I want the brand to grow is for my kids. I want them to learn about business. I want them to be creative. I let a four year old make some decisions on colour ways, I can see her mind working and I love it. I come from a background of promoting by flyering the streets at night. So many people think that an Instagram page will suffice, but it won’t! I get stickers made and Orla will run up to me and say “daddy, can we go to the skate park and give stickers out?” It’s building her confidence and she loves going up to other children and giving out stickers.
I have thought long and hard about who I wanted to market the brand to. At first, I thought it has got to be kids as yout is just a street/slang word for a youth. But I wanted all ages to wear it. I needed a way of explaining that it was for all ages, so that’s why I came up with the tag line “when are you gonna grow up?” If you are getting on a bit and still enjoy, for arguments sake, riding a bmx, then why shouldn’t you? But you know as well as I do, there’s always going to be that person who says “you still ride a bmx at your age? When are you gonna grow up?”
When I was younger, I used to drive my friends to DJ gigs, and one place we used to go regularly was a club called Sugar in Leamington Spa. My friends Danny and Jem would play records, yes, vinyl, (we’ll have Yout Club slipmats real soon!) and I just enjoyed listening to the music, but subconsciously I would be influenced in later life by the owner, a guy called Steve, I used to think it’d be cool to own a bar like that. One day in lockdown, he came in my head for some reason, and I thought I wonder what he’s up to these days. I googled him and these results came up, ghost house. What the f***s ghost house I thought to myself. You need to check it out if you haven’t already, @trysmack on Instagram. I realised the house was featured on grand designs, so I downloaded the episode and watched it. It was the point when they went into one of the huge sneaker collection rooms that I paused it and thought that’s it. The presenter asked Steve, “what do your friends think of this?” To which Steve replied “my friends love it, I can’t say the same for my parents, my mother took one look and said when are you gonna grow up?” So really I should be saying thanks to Steve’s mom for the tag line!
I hope I have created a quality, honest brand. I care about the details. Originally I was going to do a print on demand business, where an order comes in, but you don’t have control over the finished product. I couldn’t bring myself to let a company print a T-shirt on what is basically a bigger version of an inkjet printer you have at home, shove it in a bag and send it to a customer. Where’s the care? What about the packaging, the labels? I want a customer to be excited about receiving a package and that you can see the product and packaging reflects the price point. I don’t think £30 for a T-shirt is overpriced and this includes free postage too. However, I do understand that some people can’t stretch to £30, but I want everyone to be able to wear Yout Club. Our premium T-shirts are all screen printed on 100% organic ring-spun cotton t-shirts. I’m a firm believer in you get what you pay for in this life, but if I can come up with a method where I can create something that’s still decent, still has the quality packaging and be able to offer it at a more accessible price, for example, students, then I will. I’ve been there, well, I was at school/college most of the time (sorry mom) and just had money from a part time job, but I still wanted nice things. I remember saving my wages all month and then my friends, James and Andy and I would get the bus into Birmingham. We’d go to the usual shops, Diesel, House of Fraser etc but then we came across a little independent shop down a side street, called Atoo. It was run by a chap named Ming, a real cool bloke and the shop was so good. (Ming now owns a Vietnamese restaurant, EatVietnam) I can still picture it now, and I can still remember the atmosphere in there, nothing like the big stores. I think this shaped my way of thinking, as now I love supporting independent brands, restaurants etc.
I’m not trying to re-invent the wheel, it’s not exactly rocket science creating a logo and sticking it on a T-shirt. But I enjoy the whole process. It’s a great feeling when a total stranger messages you and says I love your brand, or can I have some free stickers please. I received a message the other week from a young lad who said I’m going to buy a T-shirt at the end of the month when I get paid and it took me straight back to the Atoo days.
If you’ve got this far down then thankyou for taking the time to read this blog.
When are you gonna grow up?
Tom