FASHION : Designer Spotlight : Ya Gotta Have Soul, or So Hopes Huntington Beach-Based Designer Chip Rowland
Music and image have always served as an integral part of youth fashion. Clothes can reflect the current attitudes expressed via a musical genre and help create whatever rebellious image is associated with a teen trend.
For Huntington Beach-based street wear designer Chip Rowland, 32, it is soul music--from blues to funk to hip-hop--that plays a driving force in his clothing label’s very existence.
Rowland named his company Soul because he connects so strongly with African-American music. He spent close to two years ensuring the legality of copyrighting Soul before launching operations in September, 1991. “(Soul) implies so many positive things among kids and adults,” he says.
As have so many of the burgeoning youth clothing companies that started up in recent years, Soul has found success by producing the oversized uniform of choice among the hip-hop and rave countercultures. But along with modern beats, Rowland is introducing a younger generation to roots rock through images on his clothes and in their marketing.
Veteran blues musicians such as Bernie Pearl, Mark Hodson and Harmonica Fats are prominently featured in print ads, on T-shirts and performing live at trade show booths. On MTV, members of Boo-yaa Tribe, a Carson-based Samoan group that fuses funk and rap, sport Soul clothes on their video, as do some of the video jocks.
Some retailers and customers familiar with Soul’s advertising campaign are surprised to discover that the company is not operated by an African-American. But Rowland balks at any criticism that he is exploiting another people’s culture to make a buck. “I’m paying homage to the black man and his contribution to American music, to international music,” said Rowland, who plays a six-string Dobro guitar and collects early rock and blues records.
“It’s the clothes that are selling the image. Not the other way around,” he added. “At the same time, it’s turning kids on to music that they never knew existed.”
It’s debatable whether the education of teen hip-hop homies in oversized Soul attire about the roots of their contemporary home-grown music has been successful. They might just dig Soul apparel for the name. Whatever the reason, a look into what the kids are wearing at the local nightclubs spinning house, hip-hop and rap reveals that Soul is among the most visible of labels.
Going forward for fall ‘93, crotches continue to hang low as pant cuts remain larger than life--or at least larger than the actual waist size of its wearer. Hence, the name Gigantor given to the silhouette. Pants and jackets will again appear in brushed cotton twill dyed to match striped patterns used generously in tops and jackets. But, Rowland says, “the new direction will be horizontal stripes.”
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The fall line shares many similarities with the spring line in stores--such as the rich palette of hunter green, eggplant, black, rust and dusty blue. Pieces in this season’s 60-piece collection, which includes beanies, chain wallets and 15 T-shirt graphics, sell for $12 to $140. Soul is available at Hard Times, Orange; CDM Beach Club, Corona del Mar; Electric Chair, Huntington Beach; Beyond the Beach, Costa Mesa; Jalana, Hollywood; Subculture, Whittier; and Rebel Sports, Riverside.
Plaid flannel will remain a collection staple in a brushed version for shorts and in a heavier weight for a shirt-style “Lumber Jack” jacket lined in polar fleece. Rowland also uses other soft, worn fabrics such as a reversed canton fleece for tops and bottoms.
Despite only offering sizes such as medium, large and extra large (no smalls), Rowland resists being pigeonholed as a company that only produces oversize gear. “They’re just great basics, and the kids know that,” he says.
The same goes for any implications that he produces a “surf” line just because he is based in surfwear capital Orange County.
“I get phone calls from confused buyers who want to know what category of clothes we make. They see Soul, but they also see Huntington Beach,” says Rowland who still surfs and until six months ago held an interest in Billabong, a surf wear company that he helped found in 1983.
“I don’t think surfers necessarily want to look like surfers. Surfers have grown and matured. They appreciate and are influenced by other things in the world around them,” he says.
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As Billabong’s international sales representative, Rowland developed a “lust for faraway places,” which he pursued heavily after he left the company in 1988 to pursue his own import business, shipping hats, sandals and apparel from Indonesia and Guatemala to U.S. stores. That business was phased out last year with the success of Soul. Still, Rowland’s affinity for the sport results in items such as a hooded poncho ideal after an early morning session in the ocean. Hoods also appear attached to jackets, vests and jersey tops.
Outside influences directing Rowland’s designs include work wear pieces such as the uniform shirt and the Daytona jacket with a dual race-striped front panel. The stiff “Tough Skin” jeans also have an industrial edge, as does the boxy denim jacket with elbow patches.
A new fabric for the back-to-school collection is striped upholstery material, which will debut in shorts and pants appropriately dubbed the “Couch Walker.”
Soul’s quirkiest and most fashion-forward piece this year is a bell-bottom for men. Daring young males are already demanding the funky, striped pant, says Rowland, calling the company direct for the item, which is featured in magazine ads on a lanky fellow crowned with a giant Afro.
As for store buyers and acquaintances questioning Rowland’s sanity for designing the flared trousers, he refers to the company’s motto: “If I have to explain it, you won’t understand.”
Emblazoned on Tees and print ads, that anonymous quote has no doubt contributed to the label’s appeal, lending a touch of cool to the collection that urbanites in New York, Tokyo, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego have embraced.
Those urban centers are a far cry from the old downtown Huntington Beach in which Rowland recalls growing up, an area peppered with eclectic shops, thrift stores and grungy, hip bars. Memories of those days impelled Rowland to become a limited partner in Java Jungle, a coffeehouse that opened a little more than a year ago on the fringe of downtown and is popular among disenfranchised youths who prefer not to hang out at the mall.
The coffeehouse, which offers a steady diet of blues among the alternative music fare, has become a haven for teens who seek an identity through music.
They are kids striving to be individuals--kids with whom Rowland can identify. “Music is a very important part of our lives,” he said. “The fashion part just comes with it.”
