We wrote the text below in 2008 to celebrate our 10 years, i thought it could be cool to post it here for the people who don’t know the brand yet, and to be sure to give them the right vision of who we are.
“When some people watch the sand run through the hourglass of their life, this is the start of past memories’ sandy inundation. It was better before. Nostalgia, melancholy, mummies taking an eternal rest.
Sixpack, faithful to its epigraph - we’ll sleep when we’re dead - simply turns this hourglass around eager to see the next episodes.
But while they do that, let’s stop.
Pause.
Remembering the madness of the early days, the first raves and the silliness of old.
It was a time without high speed internet, with only one international news dealer where you had to rummage through the magazines to find The Face and especially NME or Melody Maker.
It was a time of treasure hunts in the small town of Avignon in search of the latest albums, unknown by the average Parisian : indie rock, weird pop, rap (obviously) and electronic (inevitably).
From Aphex Twin to Mo’Wax to Grand Royal to the Wu Tang Clan to Tortoise and Sonic-Youth.
Tons of graffiti, indelible brothers, fun and adrenaline, this obsession for graffiti is going to leave a deep impression on the yet to be formed Sixpack.
In 1998, they know they’re avant-garde, that one day everyone will understand ; and in 2008, everyone does.
In 1998, no more fooling around, enough with the games and messing around, the first Sixpack store opens.
First hourglass flipped, welcome to adulthood.
No business strategy, no daddy’s boys socializing.
They grow seeds by plowing hard on a not so fertile field.
This first store, next to old time whores, quickly becomes a well known crossroads to writers and dj’s. From Avignon or Paris, everyone comes by.
Friendships emerge, soon to be famous people join the family.
The store moves, to a great location filled with pretty white stones and beams.
A concept store without a concept, to show all the aspects of the same ethics. A window for brands carrying the same aesthetics.
Recognition and disenchantments, development, twists and turns, the time for learning is over.
Combining business lucidity with personal pleasure, the first Sixpack tee-shirt is made. The Rollerball image printed on it appears as a referent and subliminal message : it’s going to fight, sweat, bleed, and cry.
Highs and lows, that’s how life is, but they will never give up. Stagnation Reversed.
Step by step, tee-shirts made among friends begin to look like real collections.
Co-branding with French, English, German or American artists ; they thought they were all alone in their hole, but actually, there exists a whole community with similar tastes.
With the creation of a logo, seamstress and tags, Sixpack France starts emerging as a brand, but a brand different from the rest. A brand with a new approach and new process for doing things. With mutual interests, everybody wins.
Launching of the shop online.
The Sixpack family opens up to new members such as the Institubes’ record label. They soon appear trendy, but it’s just a peeps’ thing.
Exhibitions and articles in magazines, art and business, success and misunderstandings.
Suckers and haters.
They don’t give a fuck, continue on their merry way, faithful to the cornerstones of the house.
And faithful to their past too : for its 10-year’s anniversary, Sixpack, with the help of Cody Hudson, returns to the black and yellow moods, when everything started to light up for a whole generation.
Acid, visions, revelations.
Everything is connected : Crumb’s comics, Can’s sleeve designs, Ferrara movies, the Twin Peaks series ; amphetamine jazz, psychedelic funk, junky punk, cocaine disco, they understood it all. Nineties ecstasy.
1998-2008 : this art of living awake spread, barriers exploded as well as distinctions, underground is overground, hip hop is hi pop.
The Sixpack decade is one of transition, Usenet became web 2.0.
The old world is dead, but it doesn’t know it yet.
Sub-cultures from the past govern the living world.
Sixpack isn’t tired yet.
Time to flip the hourglass again “.
