ENTER ESCOLTA

STORY BY Angela Jed Silvestre

PHOTOS BY Geloy Concepcion

THIS STORY WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN CLAVEL MAGAZINE “THE DESIGN ISSUE” (2016)

JEFF STAPLE:

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

STORY BY Angela Jed Silvestre

Any smart person knows that success comes neither fast nor easy. Any established brand and business in the world can tell you that, and that nothing beats hard work and conscious effort into making your dreams a reality. Luck is out there, but it’s what you do with that luck—with that opportunity that arises—that brings you places. This is what Jeff Ng AKA jeffstaple inspires.

About four years ago, jeffstaple—the man behind the successful streetwear brand, Staple, and the creative mind behind the history-making riot of a sneaker, the Nike SB “Pigeon” Dunks—came to Manila to headline a talk to inspire a new generation of creative minds. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I had lost out on the chance to attend said talk and have since resorted to following him on the ‘Gram and downloading his other talks off of YouTube. Sad, but true.

Four years later, I found myself sitting in front of the man himself, recorder shaking slightly in my hand out of sheer excitement and disbelief, with about a few dozen questions ready to spill over my nervously smiling mouth.

Jeff had flown into Manila for a very special—nay, historic sneaker release: the Nike Air Max Zero “Pigeon” iD that, since its release in August of 2016, has put Manila on the sneaker world map with only 75 pairs made and only 50 released to the public.

The Air Max Zero “Pigeon” drop coincided with the Staple brand finally landing in Manila exclusively at SneakPeek stores and what better way to celebrate the Pigeon landing than with an exclusive sneaker release? 

“I knew we were gonna launch the Staple collection here in Manila with this event,” says Jeff. “And I wanted to give, basically like a gift to the people of Manila. I think that it’s so rare that Manila gets something exclusively for them and the people of Manila and the Philippines have really showed love and support to me, and Staple, over the past five, ten years. So I wanted to something just for them.”

Like many Staple collaborations before it, the Air Max Zero “Pigeon” iD comes in the trademark grey and orange colorway with Staple’s pigeon logo subtly embossed on the outside of the upper’s forefoot and a special embroidered ‘NYC’ on the back, above the heel.

“I think my favorite thing actually is that the back says NYC.” Jeff exclaimed with a laugh. “I think that’s cool—like, the back says NYC but the people in New York can’t get this.”

And if you know the story, you know this means a lot coming from a man whose soul is New York City, whose contributions to the urban culture of New York has helped in building what the city is today. Two decades later, the street culture and design veteran finds himself in Manila, another city the Pigeon is set to conquer.

Two decades, congratulations. How would you say has Staple evolved these last twenty years?

I would say organically is the word. Two decades is a very long, long time, right? And I feel like we’ve grown but we haven’t grown crazy, out-of-proportion—I feel like it’s been a steady growth and I like that, I want it to be steady and slow versus crazy-fast and overnight.

When you started, Staple was a form of expression for you.

Our motto from day one was ‘A Positive Social Contagion’; that motto came out in 1997 and we’ve never changed out motto so I’m still promoting the same thing I guess which is just people moving towards a positive way of thinking and I’m hoping that the products that we make and the lifestyle that we create promote that sort of thinking. And I think there [are] still a lot of people to convert.

What’s been guiding you all these years?

I think my guiding mantra is ‘live every day like it’s your last day.’ Don’t have any regrets. If your doctor told you that you had a week to live, all those things that you’re gonna do in the next week, you should just do that every day. And that’s how I’ve run my business. Obviously there’s responsibility in what I do but in terms of passion and finding something that’s true to my heart, if I really feel it, I’ll figure out a way to get it done.

There are a lot of brands, a lot of designers in one city alone. What gets you interested?

I have a word that I say to myself often when I see something that I really like. And it’s ‘considerate.’ D’you know what considerate means? When somebody does something and they put consideration into it—that means a lot to me. They didn’t just be like, ‘Bleh, bleh!’, like, ‘I’m just making this thing and I’m just putting it out there.’ No, they actually said, ‘Hold on, let me consider everything about this thing.’ And that is like an old-fashioned word, ‘consideration’—it’s like, when someone is considerate it means they’re nice, right? But when you consider your actions as a creative, and it shows, I really respect that. Someone considered this before they put it out.

So there are a lot of things out there that didn’t have a lot of thought put into it.

Yeah. Like, ninety-nine percent of the shit out there has no thought. It’s okay, because it’s like junk food. I love junk food, I eat junk food; but sometimes you need real nutrition and I feel like that goes the same with products and brands and everything. Yeah, there could be a lot of junkie stuff and it’s fun and I have fun with it sometimes too, but I feel like there’s more longevity and more satisfaction when you put in consideration and effort into your thing, you know?

New York is your first love. But is there a city in the world that has inspired you the way New York has?

It would have to be Tokyo. It’s so different than New York but it’s equally awesome and I feel like it’s almost like a yin-yang, the difference between New York and Tokyo. But I need both in my life. And I still go to Tokyo all the time, whenever I feel like I need an inspirational recharge, I go to Tokyo and I always get it, I always get that recharge there. The people, the culture—I spoke about consideration [earlier], Japan is like the considerate capital of the world. (laughs)

What, for you, gives design power?

Actually, it’s the people that give it power. It’s so hard to say that a certain color or typeface or trend or whatever can give power—if it were that easy, people could just be like, ‘Yeah, just use this typeface or use this colorway.’ It’s really fickle [wherein] you can’t always just do consistently the same thing. The people always want something new and different, and the people are always the ones who are gonna decide whether a design works or doesn’t work.

How do you feel about collaborations?

It’s interesting [because] collaborations aren’t all that important to me. We do a lot of them and it’s weird how we’re like, known for being collaborators, but my business doesn’t rely on collaborations. We make our money from other things, so when we’re presented with a collaboration, we’re very considerate about whether we do it or not. Not because we’re being elitist, but because I don’t need to do that many collaborations so when I do do them, I want them to be really meaningful and I want them to add value to not only my brand but also to our fans as well.

Do you have any dream collaborations though?

I wanna do a Pigeon airplane. (laughs) But I don’t want my own airplane, but I want an airline that is down to do a Staple Pigeon airplane. It would be painted like a pigeon, so it would be this massive, flying pigeon and then all the amenities, food, and everything on the plane would be decided by me, curated by me. And then all the clothing that you get, which in business class you get clothing and stuff, would be Staple. That would be pretty cool, right? And then you know when you get slippers in business class? Like, we would collaborate on the slippers with like, a footwear brand. That’s my dream.

With a portfolio like yours, we wonder what else you haven’t done yet that you really, really want to do.

Nothing. I haven’t done everything that I want to do, but there’s nothing that I’m missing in my life. Like, if a doctor told me that I’m gonna die tomorrow, I would be totally fine with it. I would almost feel like I deserve to die. I’m serious, I’m not even joking. I feel like the things that I’ve created and what those creations have meant to people and all the people that I’ve met all over this world and the experiences that I’ve lived, I’ve lived like, seven lifetimes-worth of experiences in my time on Earth. And if God says, ‘It’s time for you to go,’ I would be like, ‘Yeah, I know. I’ve taken way too much already.’ So I feel like I fulfilled a lot already, you know?

Isn’t that considered settling?

No, I actually think that mindset is what allows you to keep doing more. It’s like setting no expectations for yourself, so everything you do is like, ‘Oh, wow okay, that’s cool.’ I’m shocked when people—companies, brands, collaborators—contact me and they’re like, we would love to work with you and I’d be like, ‘Whoa, okay. Crazy.’ This past August I had like, four different high-end headphone companies reach out and wanna do something and I’m like, ‘What is this, this is so weird,’ but it’s an honor for me.

In a past interview, you said that if you could be a teacher, you would. What is one lesson you wish you knew when you first started out?

I wish I knew that when you’re doing a brand, I don’t have to love every single thing that I put out. Like, if you’re gonna make a big brand successful, you can’t love everything. You should love everything at least seventy percent but if you have to love everything a hundred percent, then your brand can’t scale big enough, you know what I mean? So I learned that the hard way on my own after like, fifteen years of doing it.

So you’ve only been doing it right for the last five years?

Yeah. (laughs) And I still haven’t gotten it right, totally. But I think opening up myself to like—let’s say I see somebody [or] I meet somebody and I don’t like his style, that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be a fan of Staple. But that’s how I used to be like, which is so wrong. He should wanna buy Staple and represent it in his own way and that’s cool, I don’t have to like it. Before, I had to like it and that was too limiting. Now, I’m more open about it.

You’ve accomplished a lot. Are you still hungry?

Yes. I’m hungry because the competition is still so great now. Like there’s so many amazing designers and brands and they keep innovating and they keep doing such cool stuff that it makes me—like, I’m very competitive and when I see that I’m like, ‘Wow, I need to come up with something even better,’ and show what I can do as well. And I love that sort of competition that happens. I’m like a veteran in this [street wear] industry and I’ve been around since the beginning and my brand is like, twenty years old now. But I wanna show these young, up-and-comers that we still have the ability to create excitement.

THIS STORY WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN CLAVEL MAGAZINE “THE DESIGN ISSUE” (2016)