Dogfunk.com Newsletter Articles

While the Burtons and Quiksilvers are poised to take over the world, there are a few smaller brands that are bursting onto the scene, ready to give the big dogs a run for their money.

Brixton – Hats
Brixton Ltd. has only been around a couple years, but the So Cal designers have already made a name for themselves as some of the illest hat-makers around. You won’t find the same old flat-brimmed ball caps here, but a meticulous attention to design and detail and an absolute refusal to compromise innovation to the Man. Brixton produces no more than a couple dozen hats each year, and every lid is a work of millinery art.

Enjoi – Men's & Women's Clothing, Hats, Accessories
Here’s the thing about Enjoi—those kids just do whatever the hell they want and make it damn funny. Then people buy their schnadle and then they have more money to make more funny stuff. For example, the tag on my Enjoi T-shirt reads “Made in USA sweatshops,” and on the flip side it says “Dirty laundry keeps women busy.” On their website, there is a form you can fill out to sell your soul, and that form asks you to provide your sister’s phone number and bra size. It’s one joke after another with these guys, bam bam bam—sort of like your Uncle Willie after too many eggnogs at the family Christmas party. But you’d be wrong to write them off as a novelty; they are coming out with some seriously sick stuff. Check out their full line of shirts, jeans, hats, and accessories.

Fourstar Clothing – Men's Clothing
Clothes like Fourstar’s only come around when a group of pro skaters design their own line of shirts, jackets, pants, and shorts. The look is clean and basic, mellow but with a sense of humor. Skaters like Brian Anderson and Eric Koston come up with pieces you can kickflip, railslide, and run from security guards in, without looking like you’re trying too hard.

Gravis Footwear – Men's & Women's Footwear, Bags
Gravis footwear and bags have a laid-back feel geared toward aficionados of surfing, travelling, and general tomfoolery. Gear up for beach and urban shenanigans with their audacious street shoes and sandals, all of which feature a quirky touch of bright colors or bold patterns. Their women’s bags are modern and creatively garnished; their men’s bags aren’t man-purses (although there is nothing wrong with that) so much as they’re sleek urban transporters of he-gear.

Lifetime – Women’s Clothing
If the only thing that stays the same is change, then the up-and-coming Lifetime clothing company is as permanent as Marley. A philosophy of constant evolution keeps Lifetime’s premium line of women’s clothing on the forefront of progressive style—from pea coats to T-shirts . With an eclectic team of artists, musicians, photographers, and well-known skate and snowboarders, Lifetime is like an orphanage full of screw-offs, bohemians, and dyslexics, but instead of getting adopted, they all just decided to live together for the rest of their lives and make premium quality goods for money, marbles, or muskrats.

Nomis – Men's & Women’s Clothing
Steez master Simon Chamberlain took a huge risk when he left DC to start Nomis Outerwear, but his insane vision of style and his innate ability to create have now given us one of the sickest new riders’ clothing companies around. Over the last couple of years Nomis has infiltrated almost every nook and cranny of the snow/skate scene, to the point that if you come across a raucous congregation of riders, you’re almost guaranteed to get a glimpse of Nomis’ newest stuff. Bold colors, slashing diagonals, and totally bizarre designs make Nomis what it is today—freakin’ sweet.

Original Penguin – Sunglasses
Back in the ’50s, Original Penguin made a name for itself in leisurewear that was popular with the golfing set, and high-profile dudes like Bob Hope and Bing Crosby (yeah, no shit.) These days, that little penguin logo (and who doesn’t love penguins?) adorns an increasing variety of premium-quality clothing and accessories. But we have our eyes on Original Penguin’s high-class sunglasses, which channel old school country club style with modern badassery. Original Penguin shades are metro-classy but not too high profile. We're not even sure that ol' Bing could have pulled these off.

Osiris – Footwear
So rather than talk about how Osiris is killing it with fresh skate shoe concepts (which they are), or go on about the Osiris skate, surf, and freestyle motocross teams (James Brockman, Mikala Jones, and Jeff “Ox” Kargola are all tearin’ shit to pieces in their respective sports right now), we wanted to point out the fact that Osiris is the only skate shoe company we know of that sponsors real-life Mixed Martial Arts fighters. That’s right, we’re talking punching, kicking, bleeding UFC combatants—one of their guys’ name is Rampage Jackson. Now that’s tough.

Reef – Women’s Clothing (among other things)
So you already love your Reef sandals. Hell, even my grandma in Pasadena loves hers. But the foot-fetish peeps at Reef have delighted female Reefers everywhere this year by offering a snazzy women’s apparel line. They designed key summer pieces as colorful as … well … a reef. Offering a full variety of dresses, swimwear, jackets, denim, hoodies, and tanks, Reef’s ladies line maintains a daring vibe that leaves you unsure whether to describe them as runway chic or surfer cool. Good thing is, you don’t have to decide—just run with it. Or reef with it. Or something.

Spacecraft – Beanies & Clothing

Spacecraft is hardly new—it officially started airdropping beanies, shirts, and other propaganda to the fashion-hungry and downright strange back in ’02. Re-occurring, iconic, brain-searing imagery—like the Sasquatch bunny and the monster-truck snowcat—define this innovative, graphic-based idea machine. Eco-friendly Spacecraft might make you think of an evil Napoleon Dynamite (yeah, with fangs and everything) punching Godzilla in the face, then turning inward and sensitively asking, “Who am I?” Besides comin’ up with stoner-haze inducing designs, Spacecraft makes all its stuff in family-style workshops in Bali, Indonesia, boosting the local economy and totally hooking up the highly-skilled craftsfolk.

V.I.O. – Video Accessories

Finally! We—along with every other skater, boarder, BMXer, and other freak—have been waiting an eternity for a durable, high-quality, practical, shock-resistant helmet cam to be bestowed upon us by the adrenaline gods. Well, those gods have answered and V.I.O. is their name. Right now V.I.O. really only makes one product—the POV.1 Video System—and it’s clearly the shit. Just check out the reviews. Mount the video camera to your helmet or handlebars, use the wireless remote to start and stop filming, and edit on the go with the CPU/recorder. Excuse the tears, we don’t normally cry, but thank you, V.I.O. Thank you so much.

Volcom – Men's & Women's Footwear (and other stuff)

Okay, so maybe you’ve heard of Volcom. Especially if you don’t live under a pile of rocks on Saturn. But you may not be totally dialed in on the enormous effort and stylistic brilliance put into Volcom’s men’s and women’s footwear line—the Volcom Creedlers. Specializing in slip-ons and flip-flops, Volcom wants us all to just kick it. With limited edition graphics progressive styles, Volcom continues to support artists, athletes, and misunderstood slackers alike through its “Youth Against Establishment” mission. (Note to misunderstood slackers: it wouldn’t hurt to get your asses off mom’s couch and into your pickup truck by the age of 45. We’re just sayin’…)

WeSC – Clothing & Accessories
WeSC—or We Are the Superlative Conspiracy for all the acronym haters out there—has launched a not-so-undercover operation to clothe and accessorize the “intellectual slacker.” This doesn’t mean you have to be reading James Joyce on your way to the skate park, and you don’t even necessarily have to skate. Rather, WeSC gears its headphones, men’s threads, women’s clothing, and accessories toward the values of the skater/boarder culture in general. Fashion-forward, streetwise style pushes skate clothing in the direction of Euro-preppy without getting anywhere near pocket-protector status. Everything from their sleek 'phones to sweaters and polo shirts reflects a passion for movement, whether that’s on the street, on the slopes, or on the forefront of activism.