Meet Sebastien and Rashad, Owners of The Hideout Clothing Store
The Hideout Clothing Store in my opinion is the best clothing store in all of Trinidad and Tobago. I first started shopping there when I was in form 3 going into form 4 with my friends. We would go there on a Friday afternoon after school and buy one or two items. Some Friday afternoons we would just go there to window shop and look at stuff we wanted to get.
They had clothes that you honestly couldn't find anywhere else in Trinidad like Pink Dolphin, DGK, Diamond Supply Co. and so on. I personally loved shopping at The Hideout and it introduced me to the world of street wear and fashion.
I got the opportunity to sit and interview the owners of the store and I asked questions that I know most of you guys would want to know. This article will give you guys some insight into the guys behind The Hideout clothing store and be of some help to those that one day want to own their own clothing store and brand.
1. Could you guys give insight into your childhood i.e. where were you guys born, how much siblings you have, what schools you went to and so on.
Sebastien- I was born in France and I was raised by the wolves. I grew up in Trinidad from the age of 3, I attended maple leaf and I went to Florida international university where I obtained a degree in marketing. I don’t have any kids
Rashad- I was born in Montreal, Canada and moved to Trinidad when I was 5/6. I lived in Macqueripe then I moved to Point Fortin. I currently live in Maraval
I Went to Don Ross then maple leaf and I studied at Humber College in Toronto.
2. How old were you guys when you decided to open The Hideout clothing store?
We opened the store like 4 years ago so we were 23/24.
3. What made you guys choose to open a clothing store?
Rashad’s parents had the link and we both honestly wanted to make money and we always liked urban clothing. We were always into buying and selling items; I would buy and sell clothing from time to time.
4. How did you guys go about opening a store and what was the hardest part?
The hardest part was the initial investments and the doubts that we had about the store.
There is a lot risk with opening a store because you never know what could happen.
5. Have you guys ever experienced failure with any of your stores?
Yeah, there are plenty down days where you don’t make money. We mainly make profit during carnival, summer and Christmas. The rest of the year we just have to fight it out
We also experienced failure with the Aboutique mall branch and we decided to close down that branch because it wasn’t making sense financially.
6. How difficult is it to maintain your stores.
It isn’t hard once you have everything up and running. Having a good employee really helps, it isn’t too difficult just the long distance between our long circular mall branch and our Gulf city mall branch is a lot.
7. How does the process of importing new clothes, shoes and accessories work?
We have accounts with all the brands we carry. We get the latest collections from all the brands we carry when it drops. Whenever the brands releases new items, for example summer collections or winter collection we will receive new items from the collection to sell at our store.
8. You guys recently introduced your own brand called The Hideout clothing, what made you guys decide on starting your own street wear brand?
It originally started with us just printing clothes for the guys at the store to wear at work and customers started asking to buy the t-shirts so we decided to start producing clothing to sell for our customers and the acronym for our store just fit really well (THC)
Rashad's mom was telling us to start a brand before we even opened the store and we knew about other brands and trends. We had everything in place so we jumped in it. It isn’t easy because we manufacture our clothing in turkey and it’s a pretty dangerous place but we are willing to take the risk.
9. How does the manufacturing process for your own brand work? Do you manufacture locally, regionally or internationally?
We manufacture small amounts in turkey but we do have plans to produce larger quantities and we are working towards going international.
10. Could you guys explain the creative process for designing clothing for your brand?
Whatever pops in our head, sometimes we might sit and discuss certain things but most times things randomly pop in their head that we personally think is dope and we start working on new stuff. It isn’t a really intense process; we just let our ideas flow, going back and forth. We also use inspiration from anything that we like. One day we could be driving and see a sign and get a new idea for a t-shirt.
11. Where do you see your store and your brand in a few years?
The vision for the store is to get the online sales to increase much more and continue growing the stores. We would also like to improve our store’s reputation and we just would like to see customers flowing.
The vision for our clothing line would be to get into retail stores worldwide and get a proper production line. We would also like to attend trade shows away such as Agenda and magic trade, which is where you take your brand to get sold internationally and increase our brand awareness. Finally we would like to start sponsoring more local celebs.
12. Any advice for young entrepreneurs that want to open their own stores?
Rashad-Honestly right now isn’t the time to do it, because the economy is bad and everybody is penny pinching and things are tough. I would wait a year or two when the economy is back to how it was.
Sebastien-You shouldn't do it in Trinidad because you will have to compete with us, but be careful because competition is very serious now. You need to find your niche and target market. We chose to open a store because fashion down here was basic, we couldn’t get our hands on the brands we wanted like Diamond supply, DGK and so on so we decided to make our own store and sell the brands we wanted. It’s tougher now because other stores are starting to compete but mainly just find your own market and be careful with your decisions.
13. Any advice for young entrepreneurs that want to start their own clothing companies?
Roshad- If you want to make a brand you would have to think internationally and to go international is a lot of work, to get things manufactured is a lot of work as well. You will have to fly out to different countries and you would also have to go to one of those trade shows like magic to get your clothes sold internationally. If I could have started over I would have gone into the food business because food is a need and brand name clothing is a want. Never play yourself
Sebastian- It’s difficult because we ourselves are still young and working on our own brand, you’re going to take a lot of losses but you will learn a lot. One of the most difficult things would be expanding to become an actual clothing company. It’s almost like you need a third party to come and show you the way. There is a difference between a clothing line and just printing logos on t shirts and hats. It’s extremely hard to cross the bridge between just printing on t-shirts to becoming a legit clothing company and it requires big investments as well.
Did you enjoy this article? Please leave your feedback and don't forget to check out The Hideout Clothing Store at Long Circular Mall and Gulf City Mall.