Indie Spotlight: Sutsu
HUCK meets the brand that neatly packages environment, ethics and boardsports under an illegible logo.
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Richmond Park in south west London is pretty special at 7am; a low mist is just beginning to disperse, deer are rutting and – in spite of its proximity to the capital – the air feels clean. If you wanted to shoot a lookbook for an ethically and environmentally aware boardsports brand with a mild obsession with stags, you’d be hard pushed to find a better location. Hence, we are here shooting Sutsu’s Nature of the Beast Autumn/Winter 2011 collection.
“Each season you try to find something to concentrate your design efforts on and, for some reason, I became obsessed with bear programmes on [The] Discovery [Channel],” explains Jon Wallhouse, the brains behind Sutsu’s instantly recognisable organic graphic tees and cuddly sweatshirts. “I realised that it would be a good opportunity to highlight some of nature’s greats. So I started designing and ended up with five animals that are fairly predatory, but also in decline in the world. I wanted to celebrate their life.”
Sutsu's surf, skate and snow focus comes from the fact that boardsports have long been entwined in Jon’s day-to-day existence. “Ever since I was a kid I wanted to design surf wear. I remember when I was about 15 screenprinting my first t-shirt and calling it something horrific like Scarecrow Surfwear,” he laughs. “Back in the day, when we were all into The Black Crows and Pearl Jam.”
After an initial period of misdirection and turmoil, Sutsu as we know it today leapt into action in late 2008. Conscious of the physical implications that a brand – however big or small – can have on the environment, the ‘naturally inspired’ label has progressed and grown one carefully placed carbon footprint at a time.
Jon Wallhouse, owner of Sutsu
Nature is inspiring and makes an awesome clothes rail
“No matter whether a scientist says that there is global warming or not, by being ethically aware and environmentally conscious you at least are more aware of the damage that you potentially can do to the environment that you want to survive in and that your children want to survive in,” he reasons. “We’re guardians of that world and we need to look after it, rather than just trash it.”
This caring and sharing ethos extends right back to the roots of Sutsu: boardsports. With this, he supports a team of young rippers and creatives - including skater James Threlfall, illustrator Jake Blanchard and the sustainable surf school Kalon - and saw this as a no-brainer when chalking up the business plan. So, what does it take to represent such a brand?
“He’s got to love what he does, care about the environment that he surfs, skates or does whatever it is that he does and he must be true to his beliefs,” Jon enthuses. “Without trying to sound pretentious."
As for the future, the master plan steps outside the basic business model with a keen interest in undertaking more project work. “There are a couple that we’ve come up with, but we’re waiting until there are more funds to be able to do them,” explains the man with the plan, keeping his cards close to his chest. “It’s a bit of a self-perpetuating circle. You need the fund to be able to do them, but they will create funds by the very fact of what they are.”
By 2pm it’s a wrap. Deer have been caught on film, fixies have been cycled and many changes of clothes have occurred. The weather has treated us to another beautiful October day and thermals have proven to be an overzealous decision.
Check out the beautiful video of the whole shoot, filmed by HUCK collaborator Ben Marshall.
What? Us? Rut?
Capturing every detail
Model Craig does his thing
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Indie Spotlight: Sutsu (text) by Liz Seabrook is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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