The Baby G's Story - How it all started

 

Baby G’s - It’s beginnings and the future direction

Our beginnings

BOOM!

It was the later part of the Eighties, women’s hair was loaded with product, rigid and outrageously big, jeans we’re acid washed and worn extremely tight, fluorescent coloured garments were all the rage, mixed tapes we’re filled with Madonna, Janet Jackson and a Flock of Seagulls and any guy who remotely thought he was athletic was sporting an adapted mullet known as “the Boz”.

Ahh, the Eighties

I had just graduated College and my amateur football career was just wrapping up, but I was still working out daily and decent clothing for a guy my size was hard to find. I had toyed with the idea of creating my our line of clothing for sometime, primarily because I had been doing team apparel for the past six years and had relationships with a lot of manufactures in Winnipeg (the Wholesale City where no one pays retail for anything).

“The only clothing available at the time in plus sizes were more oriented for my grandfather or dad, not me and not my friends and we set out to change that” - Terry Andryo 

Finally in 1988, Bill Klyzub, Joey & Pete Isfjord, Fin Paterson and I founded Baby G’s Gorilla Garmentz, along with our families & a thousand friends who saw an opportunity to bring a youthful brand of clothing to the plus size market focussed on those who were committed - community, gym and those on the playing field. 

So you’re asking why Baby G’s… 

While I was going to College I was also working at a night club, paying for my tuition, and I worked with another Door Man who happened to be just a bit larger than me, so he became known as “the Gorilla” and me as “the Baby Gorilla” or “Baby G”, which collectively we thought made for a marketable line of gym clothing. 

The brand’s character was based on my personality & characteristics; big, bold, confident and committed, and our garments were big, baggy and comfortable. The graphics were cool, big, bright hand rendered type that were screened on tie-dye, acid washed & neon garments, after all it was the Eighties. All five of us were still very connected to our communities in so many ways, that Baby G’s grew purely organic, no advertising, just being  a big part of the communities we lived and played in. We designed, manufacturing and marketed Baby G’s with a grassroots strategy, a lot of sweat equity and time devoted into fostering relationships and being where our audience was.

 All of us that were involved were doing this all on the side, the grid, for two years we ground it out, leveraging our community connections, hustling and building the company without any additional economic injections, built entirely on revenue created from the sale of our inventory. We understood cash flow and profitability. 

There were no shareholder meetings, when something needed to get done, someone did it, there was no structure, no entitlement, no limits on the hours of operation, especially as it got closer to Christmas, we were a 24 hour showroom, you just needed to know a guy to get in. And if you didn’t know a guy, all you had to do is wait for the next Beer Bash. A great friend of ours was our Wizard of Wearables, this guy created the original Pop-up, backing up his 1986 Cutlass Supreme by the doors at the Beer Bash Hall, popping open the trunk and commenced with his now famous monthly “trunk sales” of recently unveiled garments in our collection. Cash was King and everyone benefited. 

BUST

By 1990 the growth of the brand was getting beyond start-up and needed full time attention, which attracted a suitor, ultimately selling the brand of Baby G’s in late 1990.  Two years later that version of Baby G’s went bankrupt, primarily because the new owners did not understand what the brand was, what it stood for and how entrenched it was in our communities. It lost its heart & soul. 

ECHO, BUT A BIT OF A BUMPY LANDING...

For the past few years our kids, particularly Zac, insisted that we resurrect the brand that I started 35 years ago, as we still had several original garments that are now vintage & once more vogue.  

Over the past five months and with a "little help from his friends" Zac officially resurrected the original name, reincarnating Baby G’s in a manner that truly reflected the values and ethos that we created 35 years ago. In December he sent out 36 packages that contained a Limited Edition sweatshirt of an original print from 1989 that was hand drawn to 18 individuals who were instrumental back in the day, and 18 to people who had helped him along thus far. These 36 influencers are advisories that have clout in moving Baby G’s forward, collectively they play a huge role for the brand; quality, look, voice, tone, attitude, customer engagement, fit & feel with their target audience.

 I shared an article from “brandingmag.com" with Zac that focused on nostalgic brands that he adopted into his strategy “Nostalgia branding is a powerful tool to build emotional connections quickly. It’s a great way to highlight some of the things that made the brand a success in the first place. But, it must be a path treaded lightly. And, without a bridge to the future, it’s really just a move in the wrong direction that will ultimately leave audiences feeling like their best days are behind them”. 

Life in the Eighties was a lot simpler than what I see my kids going through today. Over the past seven months that have been great learnings, some sh*t that they don’t teach you in business school, like duty and tariffs and how they fluctuated from Country to Country. Why do all our packages get opened, and why have things gone missing, or what do you do when a country goes into a Federal Election and there’s unrest and no communications for weeks?

Why is this damn e-com site not up or talking to our bank, where are those photos as asked you for a week ago, who wrote these descriptions, oh the joys of being an entrepreneur.

 

Finally a break through..