For my senior thesis, I created the clothing company I always wanted.
I care about my clothes and I am always on the lookout for new and interesting designs to express myself as best I can. Unfortunately, street wear clothing often leverages exclusivity to garner popularity for their products.
This either comes in the form of a heightened price to produce a sense of quality or an artificial scarcity that limits the clothing's accessibility.
These two methods are popular but frustrating if you don't have $200 dollars to drop on a t-shirt or if you're not willing to stay up till midnight constantly refreshing a webpage.
With GUM, I decided instead to leverage time as a way of producing an exclusive atmosphere.
By limiting the window where the shirts are available to only a month, there will be a limited amount of people who will be able to get that shirt. If you missed last months collection, there will always be another one available - always a chance to get started.
The shirts are priced at $22 dollars. Wholesale street wear aggregators like Urban Outfitters don't sell shirts for anything south of $30 - not to mention the prices of other more exclusive brands.
Anyone and everyone should be able to buy a GUM shirt, you just have a month to decide.
Here was our first collection: ERA
Each collection is named and dated. Each collection has a unique visual symbol attached to it. This way, you will never be in doubt about what shirt it is you have and when you got it. It is a way to visually mark the history of the brand while also providing a coded language of symbols that can be recognized by anyone who is familiar with the brand.
Our Instagram promotion can be seen below in the days preceding the release of the shirts.
A month after the launch of the first collection, the second one came to be. ERA is gone. COLD is here.
Street wear is too saturated with messages like "I hate my life" and "I don't care." With COLD and with the GUM brand moving forward, we will be embracing a more wholesome message, to cause a small ripple if we can.
GUM will keep moving - look out for our next collection coming January 15th, DIVINE>