Abe Burmeister

Abe Burmeister used to be an information designer where he made interfaces for real-time stock networks. Now he is the fashion designer & co-founder of Outlier. He was born in Manhattan but has since defected to Brooklyn.

Posted October 23, 2017 by Om Malik

Introduction

Abe Burmeister is the co-founder and co-creator of cult favorite clothing brand, Outlier. To call their products technical clothing is really under-appreciating what the Brooklyn, New York-based company does. Every time I see their products, I see the future of clothing in a world limited by resources due to our changing climate. I see a path to a future wardrobe, where clothes are not just known for their style, but for their ease of use, longevity, and ingenuity. He has been at it for nearly a decade, and now you can see larger brands jumping on the bandwagon.

According to their website, “Outlier was born in the Spring of 2008 when a barista named Jenni Bryant realized two of her regular customers needed to meet. Abe had been experimenting with making a better pair of pants for his bike commute while Tyler Clemens had been doing the same thing with shirts.” The rest is history.

My first encounter with Outlier was through Foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai, who sent me one of Outlier’s backpacks as a birthday gift. He had been wearing their clothes and was a huge fan of the company. I started googling the brand, ended up watching a few videos of Abe tell his story, and often thought that he would be a great interview. To be honest, none of Outlier’s clothes fit me — something I grouse about with Naveen. But that hasn’t stopped me from admiring what they do as a company. The company’s philosophy is what really got me: “We think the traditional fashion system is flawed and that it is possible to create higher quality garments at better prices by rethinking traditional cycles of development, production, and distribution.”

Coincidently, Abe was at Naveen’s wedding and it was a perfect opportunity to twist his arm to do an interview with me. I wanted to know more about him, Outlier, what he thought of the boom in venture-backed clothing startups — and most importantly, the future of technical materials and fashion.

This is an edited version of our conversation. I will soon release an unedited version as a podcast as well, so you can hear him tell the story.

Julie Zerbo

Julie Zerbo is the twentysomething founder and editor in chief of The Fashion Law, a website dedicated to the field of fashion law and business. She is a vocal critic of fast fashion and dubious industry practices, especially when it relates to fashion media.

Posted August 24, 2016 by Om Malik

Introduction

The rise of social media has turbocharged global materialism and consumer culture, and nothing reflects this more than the incessant and unending chatter from the fashion industry. Fast fashion in particular is not only a challenge to our society but also a detriment to our ecology. As my awareness has grown around the challenges of fast fashion, I've found myself engrossed in a blog called The Fashion Law. One fine day, I saw the blog stand up for a small designer in Scotland who had her design stolen by Chanel. A few weeks later Chanel apologized, and I became a fan of this fair-minded blog. I wrote an email to the editor of the blog — Julie Zerbo — and mentioned that I was going to be in New York and would like to get together to talk about the fashion industry. We met at Happy Bones in the Little Italy/Soho area and talked for hours. This is an edited version of our conversation.

Brunello Cucinelli

Dubbed the “king of cashmere” by *The New Yorker*, Brunello Cucinelli is the founder of the eponymously named fashion house that is well-known for making luxury cashmere sweaters (and more than $450 million a year in revenues). He started his company in 1978, and, now 61, he lives in Solemeo, Italy, with his wife and two children.

Posted April 27, 2015 by Om Malik

Introduction

In all candidness, I shouldn’t have been in Solomeo. I don’t write for a big fashion magazine. I have no credibility in Brunello Cucinelli's world. But after a friend heard me wax eloquent about well-made cashmere sweaters for nearly an hour, he suggested that I should perhaps meet this guy in Italy. An email introduction led to an open invitation to come visit his hamlet whenever I was in Italy. Last April, I found myself in Perugia for the Journalism Festival and chanced on a visit. Brunello’s response? Come right over.

The self-made billionaire greeted me at the door as if I was his long-lost friend. I felt as if I had known him all of my life, just hadn’t met him. I had bought two of his sweaters almost seven years ago, when I had lost a lot of weight (which I have since regained), but his clothes aren't really part of my wardrobe. And yet I have admired them, as well as his stores and his ethics.

For example, he gives 20 percent of his company's profits to his charitable foundation in the name of “human dignity” and pays his workers wages that are 20 percent higher than the industry standard, mostly because it allows his company to encourage and continue the Italian craftsman traditions. Cucinelli also pays for an artisan’s school in Solemeo: Young people are free to work either at his company or for another Italian company. The on-campus cafe is way more beautiful than Google Cafe or Facebook’s facilities. And the pasta is really heavenly.

The company, which trades on the Milan Stock Exchange, is doing well: about 356 million euros in revenues in 2014. Brunello is part businessman, part philosopher and part monk. He is not Jeff Bezos or Larry Page. He certainly isn’t chief executive of an oil company. He is the anti-LVMH, and that is what makes him interesting.

We were supposed to meet for 30 minutes but ended up spending a few hours talking about everything from Marcus Aurelius to Barack Obama to Steve Jobs to his father, a farmer. Here is a snapshot of our rambling two-hour conversation, facilitated by an Italian translator. There are so many lessons here for founders, especially the importance of giving back.