I’m Juan Diego.

It’s all good, we’ve had some busy weeks lately, but good.

Sure. It began just as a Facebook page, around 2010. We used to buy stuff online (records and clothing) and then sell them using the Facebook page. After some time, we contacted Liquidator Music and asked them if we could sell their records in Colombia, which they agreed to. After some time, we did the same with Merc Clothing and also started selling their products. Shortly after that, we decided to open a physical store, and contact more record labels, as well as clothing brands, to sell their products.

It was in Chapinero, which is some sort of alternative district in Bogotá. It’s a neighborhood with a lot of young people, bars, restaurants, some nightclubs, libraries, record stores… The store was actually on the second floor of a pizza place in the beginning. My sister owned the pizza place, so I asked her to rent us a space on the second floor to open the shop. That was in 2014.

Exactly, the store opened in 2014, and it did very well. After some time, the pizza place closed, and we decided to take the whole house, so I contacted a couple of friends and we started a pub/restaurant that functioned on the first floor of the house, and moved Joe Hawkins to a bigger space in the second floor, and rented other spaces from the house to other stores. The place was called Das Haus (no idea why, it was a big house and I was learning German at the time, so, I guess that’s pretty much it).

The Harrington jackets. We really made a big effort in order to create a Harrington that had small and beautiful details that would make it stand out. Also, the button-down shirts do pretty well.

Well, in the beginning, I took the name out of Richard Allen’s books, but I hadn’t even read them back then. I thought it was a name that would attract people close to mod, suedehead, and skinhead subcultures, but wouldn’t exclude other people who would like to check what we had in stock, you know? Nowadays, I like that about the name of the brand, even though our products and style are inspired by those subcultures, we want to get to a wider public.

Why? Well, here I’ll answer the second question. We stand for helping build a better world, a world without prejudices, without discrimination, a world in which people care and respect both the environment and the other living beings we share the world with. That’s why we try to get to a wider public, and not just people from subcultures, because we want to spread a message to as many people as possible, through our brand and clothes.

I think it’s pretty big. At least in Bogotá. It’s a city with about 9 million people, so there are a lot of different styles around, the skinhead and rudeboy scene is pretty big, I think in central and south America, maybe Mexico is the only country with a bigger scene, and perhaps Brazil. I’ve grown apart from the scene a little in recent years, but I used to be a lot more involved in it, organizing gigs and events with some friends. We were part of the “collective” that brought Mr. Symarip for the first time to Colombia back in 2009. We still try supporting this kind of events and gigs, with advertising and selling the tickets, but we’re not actively involved right now. Managing the brand is a pretty heavy job.

I think today it’s quite easy to do so, with social media. We follow stores, brands, bands, musicians, and regular people that are part of the subculture, it’s something we’re passionate about, so we try to be updated.

I think what makes us different is the fact that we focus a lot of our efforts on creating a better world, in helping other people, the environment, and animals as well. We’ve donated to organizations that help women who have been victims of violence, or who are teen mothers in a condition of vulnerability. We also participate in environmental campaigns, and social campaigns to help poor communities, we make our products with ecological materials (such as recycled plastic and cotton), we’re vegan, so we don’t exploit animals in order to produce our clothes, and we also aim to produce in an ethical and sustainable way. We’ve grown slowly, but constantly, because we’ve focused on staying true to our values, and not just on selling.

I think it’s difficult to identify specifically with one subculture since we take what we like the most from different subcultures and mix it into our style, but I would say mods and early skinheads are the ones that inspire us the most.

Well, we expect to grow in a way that allows us to have a bigger impact on the world, without losing our focus. Success, for us, would be to know we had an impact on people’s lives.

I’d like people to support us because of what we believe in. So I would like people to think that we’re really passionate about what we do and that we truly want to help create a better world. Of course, it’s important for us that people appreciate the quality and designs of our products because we also put a lot of effort into these aspects. If we want people to buy from us, we need to give them the best we can.

Sure. Support small businesses, support local brands, and be conscious of what you’re buying. And follow Joe Hawkins! 😉