“Smart consumers ultimately create strong economies…”

Well it was a few months in the making, but good things come to those who wait, right? Well, we’re definitely happy the wait was worthwhile. Dave Gensler was kind enough to let us rack his brains on the current state of streetwear, the future of hip-hop, and his future plans to make the world a better place. We had a great time getting this interview ready, and we hope you enjoy it. Without further ado…

mashKULTURE: First of all, who is David Gensler? How long have you been doing what you are doing and how did you get started?

Dave Gensler: I am a 32 year old designer and strategist living in Brooklyn, New York. I am the President and Co-Founder (along with Jason Bass) of the KDU and the Creative Director of SVSV and Savant, as well as the Editor and Publisher of Royal Journal.

mashKULTURE: What is The KDU?

Dave Gensler: The KDU or Keystone Design Union is two things. First it is the worlds largest fraternal creative collective, consisting of a diverse group of professionals mostly focused around creative professions. Secondly, it is a consulting firm that helps build and manage brands. We pull from energy and creativity from almost 500 KDU members worldwide and filter everything through our NYC headquarters. The effect is a highly effective and deadly fast team that can out pace and out reach any traditional agency model. Our goal is to build strong and dynamically competitive brands. So far so good.

mashKULTURE: How would you explain “Mash Culture”?

Dave Gensler: Unlike all the press surrounding it or other buzz terms… Mash Culture is not exactly a culture, it is a social and economic trend which has taken root over the past 5 years and will continue to grow for at least another 8 to 10 years. It is simply another term for combined behaviors and effects of transparent cultures and economies. It is hinged on speed which is fueled by technology. It has nothing to do with a particular style or image. It has nothing to do with rappers that skateboard or skateboarders that rap… at least not directly:) In terms of its importance to modern marketing, it is literally the most important factor driving brands. It paradoxically causes hyper connectivity and independence, which is something that brands have yet been able to wrap their heads around. If you understand how and why things are moving they way they are, it is easy to make intelligent, strategic predictions on what will happen next.

Photo: Sidney Lo

mashKULTURE: What is your opinion on fashion nowadays? What do you think about the direction it’s taking? What designs/brands are you feeling and what are you hating on?

Dave Gensler: I am hating on EVERY copy cat fake street brand that revolves around kids from the suburbs pretending to be thugs and drug dealers. Seriously.. half these kids have to be home on Sundays for brunch with their mothers. half these street thugs have nice trust funds and soft pink underbellies. I am also hating on all over prints that basically ripped off Leroy Jenkins… who by the way, should win a few awards for being the only brand in street culture (in America) to do anything original in the last year. I think overall (focusing on street culture, not high fashion) the entire industry is so boring they are putting themselves to sleep. I have seen a few brands that are doing some fresh things revolving around design… Goldspun from NYC is a cool new denim company. Very technical and clean. Puma Mihara is my favorite design driven brand. Puma deserves respect for taking such chances and putting so much weight on pure design. I truly hate almost everything Nike is doing. They walked away from innovation and replaced it with repetition. I will give them credit on SB, they keep that fresh. But everything else is a quick strike payoff. Adidas messed up their skate shoes big time. I RBK should be fined every time they release a new shoe. In terms of footwear, there is a shift away from fake exclusivity and meaningless collaborations towards high quality and simplicity. It is a predictable reaction to everything clogging the pipes right now. Youth culture, inside any niche segment is growing more sophisticated, if brands don’t follow this trend they will suffer and fade.

mashKULTURE: Tell us a bit about what else you’re involved in? The Royal, SVSV, etc…

Dave Gensler: Royal is the new internal version of The Royal. The old partners wanted to move on and focus on their educations, I decided to continue in their footsteps but with a new vision. I wanted to internalize the publication, focusing it on the KDU, it’s members, brands, affiliates and friends. the new book is entitled just Royal and has no ties with the old publication. We have drastically grown and recently released issues 8 and 9 which together exceeded 420 pages. We accomplished this in one month by using the entire force of the KDU from around the world. I am proud of how the entire group functioned as one cohesive unit. The main hub and production for Royal takes place in NYC, the core team is myself and my partner Lex, we work very closely with our printing partner Proof 7; a relationship that allows us to print directly in NYC, while still pushing the quality.

SVSV is again a joint collaborative effort. The core is myself and my partner Jenna Rivers. We handle the main product design. I have a team of KDU members that handle press and operations and communications. We have great people and with that comes great products. I am lucky to have an amazing team… recently we have been doing collaborations with Messie from False in Singapore. He has been a big inspiration to me personally – their designs are my favorite in the industry right now. We recently assembled a new team of web developers and technology experts to help us expand even more… ASD labs and Boom Design Group in NYC. It is part of a new plan to balance out the skill sets that help us internally grow. There are too many people that contribute… The core team is still doing their thing, Kareem Black, Chuck Anderson, Nigel Dennis… most recently Corey Smyth from Blacksmith Entertainment and Talib Kweli. We jointly produced Royal issue 9. I am excited to see how the core hip hop market reacts to how we positioned the whole project. I think it is showing hip hop in a whole new way.

Photo: Sidney Lo

mashKULTURE: How familiar are you with Central-Eastern Europe, more specifically, with Hungary? (If you don’t know much, don’t worry about it; very few people do.)

Dave Gensler: I know a little. I hear the girls are hot and the beer is cold. Damn that just sounded like a really bad advertising slogan. I honestly think that the entire region is producing some of the best new designers. I look forward to penetrating and interacting with more and more new markets.

mashKULTURE: Through the internet and other mediums, kids in Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, etc.. can stay on top with what’s dope, but they don’t have as much money as their American counterparts. For example, with a monthly salary, someone working retail part-time in Hungary makes about enough to buy a pair of Jordans. What do you think about this situation?

Dave Gensler: I think EVERYONE should stop worshipping brands and basing their lives around them. It is all based around youth trying to find their identity. They should focus on the WHY behind the want… be smarter then the machine that is marketing to you. I think the youth culture needs to shift more towards a value system based on creation versus the current system based on consumption. I think we (brands and marketers) also need to be responsible and understand that contributing to over consumption is a good way to decay your brands chances of sustaining loyalty and sales over the long term. Smart consumers ultimately create strong economies.

mashKULTURE: What possibilities are there for a less-developed market like ours to open up to mash culture or other opportunities?

Dave Gensler: Again. I think it is about creation. you can consume information for free… so that is obvious. You can contribute content that is relevant and unique to your own market, that is free. you don’t need to actually consume to be part of the culture. Consumption is not actually contribution.

mashKULTURE: Besides mash culture, what else is happening right now either online or offline that you think is important?

Dave Gensler: I think rebellion is important. Youth need to rebel, it is a natural part of social evolution. It creates diversity and ultimately leads to progression. I think the collision of cultures happening right now is interesting… I have so many friends from various cultures that I have never interacted with before.

mashKULTURE: Would you agree that high-end fashion only marginalizes the lower-class and further increases their inferiority complex? Do you feel it’s right to charge several hundred dollars for a t-shirt?

Dave Gensler: If the tee shirt is actually worth a couple hundred sure. If it is made from something rare or constructed using a special process… then sure. but if it is mass produced and marketed as a limited edition due to the controlled manufacturing… then no. But you cant blame the brands, you have to blame the consumers for buying them. I think luxury has its place and is there to serve a purpose, but fake luxury or inflated value will always be short lived. It is a shame to think how there is such an ugly side to making something as simple as a tee shirt. Our job as designers and marketers is to ultimately make money… but we have to make sure no one is hurt in the process.

mashKULTURE: What kind of music have you been listening to lately?

Dave Gensler: I like Rap. I am a big Dip Set fan. I like a diverse range of stuff. I am loving the new Talib Kweli album and Jean Grae.. Strong Arm Steady. Everything Blacksmith. I am not really good at keeping active on the ipod updates. I rely on my friends and clients. Luckily they have good taste.

Photo: Sidney Lo

mashKULTURE: Looking back at your time spent at Rocafella, what do you think is the future of hip-hop, and music as a whole? Can an artist make money regardless whether they sell albums or not? If so, how?

Dave Gensler: You are going to have to wait for the book to hear the full answer to this… Seriously though, I developed Human Brands about 7 years ago, which was just a system of managing people based brands such as entertainers or athletes in the same manner you would manage say a packaged good brand or technology brand. Employing sound principles of brand management allowed us to develop sustainable paths of revenue outside of the normal channels. So if say an artist like Talib Kweli treats himself as a full brand, he can leverage multiple channels of revenue through sponsorships or product extensions or investments to make up for the decrease in core album sales due to digital piracy. I think hip hop is the perfect place to look for new models of innovation. I think companies like Blacksmith are aimed at recreating what is to be a hip hop company in the near future. I think as the WEB 2.0 makes its surge you will see Hip Hop 3.0 close behind.

mashKULTURE: What inspires you?

Dave Gensler: Truly new things and very simple things. I love photography again. I started there and I am beginning to get more and more interested again. I love reading great books and poetry. I am inspired by love. I know it sounds corny, but I am fascinated at how I personally shut down creatively when I am not in love and how I can see a hundred years into the future and everything seems possible when you are in love. It is an amazing thing. I am also now more than ever interested in innovation, design or systems that are not consumer driven. I am becoming more interested in the design of economics and how grand the effects are versus something more acute like a singular product.

mashKULTURE: How do you see the future of larger brands like Nike or Coca Cola? How can a large company like these be appealing to youth culture?

Dave Gensler: I think many of thee brands are becoming lost as they react to smaller market trends and attempt to capitalize every movement. Coke for instance – they are under the illusion that they need to spend a billion on advertising and communications. If they spent a fraction of their global communication budget on other ventures like wholly owned media or other owned assets they would achieve their exposure goals while strengthening share value. I think large brands need to reexamine how they spend marketing dollars… loyalty is no longer attached to exposure of even image. I have a some sound strategies on how they could reinvent how they view marketing – the problem is no marketing manager is going to bet their job on anything less than safe. They are imprisoned by corporate protocols and tradition.

mashKULTURE: It seems that more and more it’s getting trendy for large corporations, politicians, businessman, etc… to take part in charitable areas, whether it be offering monetary relief, conserving the environment, and so on… (Like Bill Gates, Al Gore, etc…) How genuine do you feel these actions are? Or is it the press they get that really counts? Do you feel it’s possible for a profit-hungry corporation and society as whole to have contact with each other on a level that is not consumer driven?

Dave Gensler: I think for the most part they are extremely honest. Clinton. Gates, Gore… they are making a real difference. Sure, they profit, but as Gore states, if you can profit from actually doing good… that is the point. There is no law that says you have to be a monk to save the world. if ALL corporations looked at it this way our world would be a clean and peaceful place. For instance, recently Jay Z came out in support of bringing water to nations suffering without. He is not doing this to profit. the guy has more money then he can ever spend in 4 lifetimes… success sometimes leads to new perspectives that lead to a wide awareness.

Photo: Sidney Lo

mashKULTURE: I read in a previous interview that you want to get into other things besides fashion. (social issues, etc..) Exactly what areas do you want to get into, and have you figured out how you will impact these areas? What are your goals?

Dave Gensler: My goal is to use my brain and influence for something other than selling shoes or shirts. I went through a divorce this year and it changed my life. I realized that I focused my entire life on basically consumerism… and I began to feel a bit hollow. I am not becoming an anti-capitalistic activist or anything… I just now see the value of balance. I want to continue to develop both side of my career, the professional side focusing on consulting and my brands, and another side focusing on making the world a better place to exist. There has to be more than just selling, selling, selling. It is hard to be a human being with a conscious, consuming everything in sight while half the world cant feed or drink or even live without being in poverty. I think We should AL donate 10% of our professional energy to social activities. Imagine that…

mashKULTURE: Do you have any plans to visit Hungary or the surrounding countries in the near future?

Dave Gensler: I am traveling to London this winter and plan on hitting Paris, Spain, Dubai and Istanbul, so hopefully I can make a stop.

mashKULTURE: Thanks for your time!

Links: www.thekdu.com, www.svsv.net, www.theroyalmagazine.com, www.kareemblack.com, www.nopattern.com, www.wearefalse.com, www.electricheat.org, www.blacksmithnyc.com, www.nontype.com