Daniel Mu
CREUX CYCLING
CO-FOUNDER, VAN UONG
JULY 06, 2015
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DANIEL
We are extremely excited to bring you the fourth edition of ‘About A Brand’. Today, we interview Van Uong, founding member of stylish velowear label, Creux Cycling.
With a deep influence from street and classic cycling tradition, Creux Cycling’s apparel is beautifully designed to look amazingly fashionable off the bike while providing fully functional features on the bike through the latest in technical and performance fabrication.
As we sit for a quick coffee (well in my case a peppermint tea!) at Van’s favourite local café, I can’t help but feel totally inspired by these talented designers and entrepreneurs that I have been lucky enough to spend time with so far in the ‘About A Brand’ journey.
Let’s get straight to the interview.
Tell us about the brand and how did it all begin?
It was all dreamt up after a friend and I came back from the UK in 2009. Over beers no less. He pitched the idea at the start of the night (beer 1) and I wasn’t so keen. By beer 10, I was all in…
Describe the brand in 5 words.
Street inspired Velo-wear. Or Velo inspired Streetwear… Either works for us.
What inspires each range? Any key influences?
Each range has it’s own life in many ways but a lot of our influences comes from cycling culture itself. We use for example a lot of features from the old wool + acrylic race jerseys from the 60-80’s. Flocking graphics for example. Also things like bringing the rear back pockets, mostly just seen on technical race jerseys to everyday items like our hoodies.
Describe the process in bringing a collection to life.
For our T-shirt collection, we usually have 10-12 ideas for the range which we shortlist to 8-10. The artwork is then collected and a final release of 4-5 is selected.
The final 4-5 has to be balanced, as you don’t want too many pieces being the same or alternatively have no concept behind it. Our Spring Summer 2015 for example, is centered around Exploration.
What are the highlights of the brand so far?
To be honest, nothing stands out as our designs are continually evolving and getting better with each iteration. The best is yet to come.
What are the future aspirations for the brand?
We’ve had a cycling kit in the works so we’ll release a very limited run this summer which will be our first exploration into fully technical gear. This will allow us to be involved in grass roots racing teams as well, which we’re keen to do more of. We already sponsor Supernova, which is a Fixed Team from Italy, but we’d like to supply both the technical and ‘off the bike’ range to future projects as well.
Is there a dream collaboration you would love to do?
Would love to partner with a custom frame builder to work on one off paint job. Lock ourselves up in the studio for a week and paint it ourselves (or stuff up trying). Personally, I prefer riding carbon so a builder like Argonaut, Parlee or Craddock Cycles would be amazing.
Any advice you can give others wanting to start their own label?
Be prepared for some ups and downs and to make mistakes. But the important part is to learn from them.
We thank Van for his time and sharing the Creux Cycling story with us. Please check out the latest Creux Cycling news and range online.