Catching Up with Ucon's Jochen Smuda
26 March 2014 - Exposed
Introduction
Jochen Smuda has been around for decades, from making his mark in Jan Welch's early production 'Last Call' to the glory days of the Salomon team and testing prototype Xsjados. The latter days of Jochen's blading career saw him start Ucon, a clothing brand immediately defined by it's high quality, innovative designs and construction.
With over a decade of running Ucon while juggling various other projects through the years, including the successful 'Clip' video magazine series, Jochen has maintained a key eye for attention to detail and identifing emerging trends within the fashion industry. With a unique energy which doesn't seem to have let up over the years Jochen and Ucon show no signs of slowing down in their efforts to clothe the world.
We caught up with Jochen on a recent trip to London's Jacket Required trade show...
You were just in London for the ‘Jacket Required’ show, what is that and why were you there?
Jacket Required is a menswear fashion fair, similar to SEEK or Capsule in Berlin. The UK market is a very interesting market for us, so we keep coming to the show and try to get in touch with your retailers. Actually it was a really good trip for us because we found an agency which is taking care of the Ucon sales in the UK from now on.
You are based in Berlin now, why?
When we finished with our studies we just thought where would be the best place to combine a nice living with also some good potential for Ucon as well, so Berlin just popped up. On the one hand it is an amazing city for living, on the other it has lots of creative potential. That’s what we always liked about Berlin.
What’s up with Ucon these days? I see you have just done a rebrand of the logo and new website?
Yep, that’s right. Actually a lot is happening lately. We relaunched the website, also did a rebranding of the logo and changed the overall message of the collection. It just happened in a really natural way over the past 13 years. We are getting older, the brand grows with us and i think this keeps the brand authentic and real. After thirteen years, we just felt that there needs to be a fresh new look of the CI as well, which fits better to the clothing we are doing right now.
What are your future plans for Ucon?
Right now we put a big focus on expanding to more countries with the brand. So what we are doing is going to shows and try to get connections to the best agencies & distributors worldwide. Beside that we are always trying to bring the latest collection on point and get better from season to season. It is a pretty hectic time these days with some major online accounts destroying some really good smaller, independent retailers we've worked with for many seasons, so we have to find our way in this crazy clothing business.
What are your key inspirations for the brand?
You can get inspiration from really everything around you. Friends, nature, music, the city you live in etc. It's difficult to say, but everybody is different there, and so i can’t really tell what is the main inspiration in general. We are for sure checking all the good blogs and other brands as well as improving successful pieces from our last collection. Due to the fact that there are 4 of us, everybody brings something different to the table, and in the end this is what makes Ucon to what it is now.
What are your key inspirations for the brand?
You can get inspiration from really everything around you. Friends, nature, music, the city you live in etc. It's difficult to say, but everybody is different there, and so i can’t really tell what is the main inspiration in general. We are for sure checking all the good blogs and other brands as well as improving successful pieces from our last collection. Due to the fact that there are 4 of us, everybody brings something different to the table, and in the end this is what makes Ucon to what it is now.
How long has Ucon been going now? Any favourite items? What about that ‘Clip’ T shirt collaboration with the lens cloth stitched in?
We just had 13th anniversary. So yeah, it’s been a while. And yeah, of course everybody got it’s all time favorites. The Clip collab tee was really nice, it was done by Lukas, and of course a great highlight at this time. Actually I still like the idea a lot but would choose some other as my very special ones.
Any chance you’ll be strapping on some Salomons and busting another section soon?
I don’t think so. I mean, I still like watching some great skaters a lot. And also like skating around a bit with my friends here in Berlin. But actually this has been too far away already again, and therefore I hope I will put on my skates a bit more often in the summer time.
Catch up with Ucon and their latest collection at ucon-acrobatics.com.
Words and photo by Adam Kola.
