Earth\Studies Has Seen The Future
A chat with partner Brandon Scott Herrell reveals the previously untold story that animates menswear's coolest, quirkiest outdoor brand.
I don’t remember how I was first introduced to Earth\Studies but I do remember wondering what the hell I was looking at. In lieu of collections they dropped a numbered “Experiment.” Their version of in-studio photography was intricately assembled tableaus that seemed to place models inside terrariums. And their brand voice—a standout to me for obvious reasons—was a mix of eco hippie philosophizing and sci-fi tinged science textbook speak. Kooky stuff.
Then there was the product itself, which seemed to blend the relaxed, outdoorsy vibe of Gramicci with the exaggerated military and workwear references of Engineered Garments (a signature design element of the brand’s bottoms is a capacious side pocket that appears to comfortably hold a cantaloupe). Earth\Studies wasn’t exactly a secret but it wasn’t ubiquitous either, and their site and social didn’t tout any “founder story,” adding to the mystery. So I was pleasantly surprised to pull back the veil by running into Brandon Scott Herrell, a partner in the brand, on this website. Brandon is a self-described “photographer, brand director, CD, AD, retail grunt, and ecomm dork” whose frequent and entertaining Notes tackle brand culture, the creative process, and observations on the digital age with sardonic humor and a veteran’s perspective.
From his home in Seattle, Brandon let me in on Earth\Studies soon-to-be-revealed wider world and why the clothes themselves are just the beginning.
So how did Earth\Studies come about?
“It was a really fun and organic meeting with me and Rob [Darmour], who's my partner in Earth\Studies. Rob is a sportswear industry veteran, he was at Nike Sportswear for a while and Adidas as well. He actually launched the company as a hike club, so Earth\Studies had a separate incarnation just shortly before I came along. It was a hike club for people who don't hike.
We met at Snow Peak Way, and Graham [Hiemstra] from Field Mag told me, ‘Hey, there's this guy here who just started this outdoor brand that seems like your style, you should meet him.’ At Snow Peak Way, there's Toki Highballs flowing all day long because there’s a partnership with Suntory. I had taken some mushrooms and had like a million highballs, and me and Rob ended up meeting and just bullshitting about the business—but also music and design and concepts around being outside. I mentioned to him, ‘Hey, I'm a photographer. If you want help with this thing, it seems really cool.’ Maybe less than a month later we did the first proper lookbook, and then I did a couple more. I wanted to get more involved so I did it basically contract for a while, and then I had this job in New York that ended up just being a life ruining, awful, explosive scenario. That was the point at which Rob said, ‘This is actually great because I can't do Earth\Studies without you anymore.”
Earth\Studies always struck me as having a really strong vision, high-concept even. How do you define it?
”Well, this is something that we really haven't talked about yet, but it is the next initiative for the future of the brand. It has to work really slowly because there is a fairly fleshed out internal universe that we operate the brand from and it has rules and standards. It exists inside of an environment and doing marketing around clothing is just a manifestation of that environment. So there will be other manifestations of that, which will be events and art pieces and whatever.
There's basically a fiction from which everything we do as the brand emerges, this concept of humanity having recovered from all these poison ideologies that we live with today and returning to earth after a period of absence, which turns out has somewhat mirrored the goals of these technocratic billionaires. They want to leave earth, they don't like it here; I think they're very wrong. So I imagine a future where humanity has left earth and forgotten all about what's cool about being here. But then some people break off and they form this organization and they say, ‘We would like to find our home and settle in there again.’ And so what clothes do those people wear?
We know who these people are, the structure of their society, the spaceship that they live on, where it has landed… this is the internal universe from which the brand is emanating.”
That’s way beyond what I thought you were gonna say. So if there’s this whole Earth\Studies universe, at some point will we be let in?
Absolutely. It needs to work and be effective and be impactful. And it needs to continue to enable us to be a brand, which is to say, it needs to help us sell enough pants to continue operating. It's difficult for us to execute all of the stuff that we want to, to continue to communicate this story and develop this ideology because a lot of it has no ROI. Which is really not important to us, except that material reality of having to sell enough pants to survive is always present and somewhat a limiting factor. We are excited about having that story come forward in the brand more.
How do you sell those ideas to a retailer, and how have they been received so far?
We mostly don't talk about it or it is really case by case. Many of our retailers are friends now or we were even friends before and that's why they work with us. If they come through a trade show, for example, we're talking about like building domes on a future goat farm. And then at the end of the appointment we're like, by the way, here's the new fabrics we're working with. Here's what the goats are wearing. [laughs]
Then there's maybe someone who has a men's shop and they're really busy and they have 10 appointments that day, but they like the brand because they've seen the product and they think it's cool. Then we're not talking conceptually with those people. I do find that a lot of people need to warm up. If we just started being fully about this story that we have I don't know that it would necessarily be engaging off rip or that people would be very receptive to it because so far what we are is essentially an outdoor adjacent apparel brand. And I like that about us, and I think people like that about us.
Can you talk to me about your new brand consultancy? When introducing it you wrote that you strive to create “something weirder, more fun, and incidentally more successful.”
”My whole career is doing what I'm now codifying into this consultancy and small agency project. It really was a process of reflection over the last couple years of being like, oh I have been doing this thing and it has been successful. It has also been things related to staffing, things related to developing company culture, and things related to counseling CEOs, CMOs, and founders about, hey, so why did you do this? Do you feel like that's being communicated? Are you enjoying it? If you don't know why you did it, you're in trouble. If you are not having fun doing it, why are you doing it?”
I love your idea about “currencies” as a framing device to help brands. Tell me more.
Well, the clarity around that concept really emerged from working on Earth\Studies. We do actually spend kind of a lot of money on creative, but we also spend a lot of humanity [laughs] and a lot of time on it. But in the more positive sense it's me and Rob who are sometimes suffering and sometimes losing time on other stuff that's important to us in order to do this. For example, traveling for pop-ups has been really successful and really integral to growing the brand, and it has been really tough on our personal lives sometimes. Or with the floral styling on the photo shoot, we can just hire a floral stylist or we can spend more time and learn how to do it ourselves. So many of the companies that I've been at, especially the more moneyed companies, they really just try to spend money on things. And my role has been to reengage people around spending more creativity or sometimes spending humanity in positive ways.
I just find that many people are working with those factors in a balance that is harder on people and is not effective for the company. I really hate to see warehouse staff angry and burnt out, and marketing staff angry and burnt out. Because really it just takes like 15% more cleverness and positivity and creativity to just create the better processes that get everybody more involved, but in ways that are satisfying.
Ok, to wrap this up, when will we get more of that Earth\Studies origin story you mentioned?
Almost immediately. There's a couple of projects… we’re gonna release a piece of music on the website. I don't care if it gets downloaded a lot or if people listen to it, but it's a piece of music that we really have enjoyed the process of creation on and it's connected to the concepts that we're working with. Then we're at the next phase of this season, the spring/summer season lookbook is essentially a kind of manifesto. In a matter of days the second phase of the spring/summer lookbook comes out, and then probably in a matter of weeks, or less, we're working on this musical project. Then there's another, product-focused project that is in the final stages now that is not apparel and not accessories. It's a new category for us that is three quarters finished and it's pretty weird and we have no idea what the reception will be. It's just something that we were excited about doing.
Thank you for having me. Surprised I came across somewhat coherent, as I’d gotten lit off like four cups of tea in preparation
Excellent interview! Been hoping to get a chance to talk to Brandon more since we met last year but this covered a lot of what made me so curious about Earth\Studies. Him and Rob are very kind fellas