STUDIO VISIT / INTERVIEW | Goodfight's Past, Present and Future

2020 has been a weird year — everybody, especially small businesses, has been impacted by the pandemic, forcing many to shift their creative efforts and business practices in order to cope with the new normal. In the midst of it all, Los Angeles-based fashion label and creative studio Goodfight has double-downed on their straightforward yet impactful vision: communicating personal narratives through the physical medium of good-looking, great-feeling garments, all while supporting those near and dear to them.

Goodfight was founded in 2017 by Caleb Lin, Christina Chou, Julia Chu, and Calvin Nguyen. In just a few years, the small and tight-knit team has quickly established themselves in the fashion scene for their bold takes on traditional menswear silhouettes by challenging the cultural norms of who wears what. Each collection is a unique manifestation of various influences such as their Asian-American upbringings, everyday past times, years of combined experience in retail and design for both menswear and womenswear, and their close friendships. As a result, no one garment is ever like another, both figuratively and literally, as the team specifically seeks after deadstock fabrics and unconventional patterns that others neglect. Goodfight has especially matured as a brand over the years by utilizing their platform for raising awareness to social issues, supporting local fair manufacturing, and moving towards a more sustainable future. Most importantly, the team never forgets to have fun in the midst of it all, regularly investing time into playful projects and ideas.

We paid the Goodfight studio in Los Angeles, CA a visit and spoke with the team about their past, present, and future.

CC: Christina Chou
CL: Caleb Lin
CN: Calvin Nguyen
JC: Julia Chu

To start things off, can you introduce yourselves and describe how the brand started in 2017?

CN: We all met a long time ago working on the sales floor of a retail shop; years went by and so did other jobs. One day we were all at a point where we just wanted to do something for ourselves instead of working for other people who didn’t have the same vision. We wanted to create something honest and great.

Thanks again for inviting me to your beautiful studio in Los Angeles. Can you describe the studio setup?

CL: We really miss having new people in the studio since COVID shut down our private appointments! It's very "modular" haha! We've been very fortunate to work out of our loft in the Arts District since we started. Space is limited, but locationally it puts us in the perfect central point for everything we do, especially now since we run 100% of our production domestically. Over the years we've figured out the best setup for work efficiency (and sanity) — the main room once you've enter is where we do most of our work, whether it's reviewing patterns, shipping orders, or sending emails. The office is flanked by a stock room and sample room that each feature double-stacked racks on wheels so units can be moved according to need. Lastly, we're super fortunate to have a balcony with an amazing city view — Calvin and I designed nearly all of the A/W ‘18 collection sitting out there with cigars and whisky every day (not anymore haha).

With the global pandemic still in effect, how are you all doing mentally?

CN: Its been tough, but still doing okay! As a small company, we have been extremely blessed with all the support from our family, friends, customers and stockists.

Has this forced Goodfight to adapt as a brand or business, and have there been any silver linings despite all the hardships?

CC: 2020 has been a year where we are challenged to remind ourselves WHAT are we thankful for and WHY we are doing this — it's been very challenging but centering. We’re all being forced to be adaptive in our processes, but I know we at Goodfight are up to the challenge. We are re-focused on our direct-to-consumer and e-commerce experience, but have also started to implement sustainability initiatives like our Salvage Program to our collection and PPE (camo and manga masks). The uncertainty in the fashion/retail industry as a whole hinges on what’s happening outside in the world, and it’s important that we let whatever is happening in the world affect the way we work.

I’m a huge fan of your collection’s themes, which often find inspiration from niche subcultures such as music (FW18 – "Undertones"), ivy league (SS19 – "King Cake Baby & the Ivy League Dream"), racing (SS20 – "My Other Car Is A Singer"), and the outdoors (FW20 – "Harvest Train to Christmas Mountain, I Know We'll Be There Soon"). Do these concepts arise from personal experiences?

CN: Yes, the stories are always inspired by real life experiences and interests. This is the only way we can justify our creations in a true and honest product. If the root of the story is real, so is our product.

How do you go about fleshing out these ideas into concrete narratives?

JC: Calvin pulls ideas and references from so many worlds, experiences and interests. As a group, we all have spent so much time in fashion and retail, but also love so many things outside of fashion. We are each into vastly different hobbies, so those varied perspectives also inform the designs and narratives. Maybe the central character or theme starts one way at the beginning of a season, but as we’re listening to music and living our lives, our personal stories also start to fold into the collection. It’s been fun to work alongside Calvin and help interpret those ideas into cohesive fabric, color and silhouettes. As each collection develops, we are constantly thinking about the details and going back to inspirations, and the over-arching narratives start to become more and more clear.

Goodfight prides itself on their fabric selection and regularly uses deadstock fabrics. For example, the Roden Gray Full Service Sunday set was crafted from a cotton twill sourced from a defunct North Carolina workwear mill factory. Where did this fascination with materials originate from and how do you go about finding these unique fabrics?

CL: For better or worse, we are fashion nerds. We've always said that we shop with our hands as much as our eyes, and fashion is a lot like cooking — everything starts from the right ingredients. A good design is often the balance of a thoughtful silhouette and incredible fabric, and without the latter it's really hard to make a piece someone actually wants to wear. We come from the school of thought that says that a garment should FEEL as good as it looks, and we make our clothes with the goal that people will enjoy them for a very long time. At the same time, we also love WEIRD things, and when we're sourcing fabric we often are asking vendors to show us stuff other people are usually scared of. And when we can't find what we're looking for, we'll try to make it — typically each season features at least one fabric we developed and made ourselves.

Most of Calvin's designs start with music, find inspiration in fabric, and then take shape from there, so it's really important for us to make sure we're working with the best base ingredients.

What is your favorite Goodfight piece to date?

JC: The Campus jacket. I have it in both colors and have been wearing them nonstop since we sampled them. I love the fabric we chose because there is a really subtle texture and it wears in beautifully. The double collar design was inspired by an old picture of Elvis on tour. He had this exaggerated collar of his shirt stacked on top of his jacket collar, and the way it layered was just so interesting and distinct. We ended up mimicking the style with the entire collar of the jacket instead of just styling it with a separate garment.

The Mark I Mask PPE program, Greenwood Tee, and your latest partnership with DSM on the “When We All Vote” campaign are amazing examples of how Goodfight utilized its platform to bring light to historical events and social issues. How important is it to raise awareness to the customers on these topics?

CC: Our social justice initiatives have always been a part of our story-telling and ethos. Having these evolve into specific products is a new muscle we are trying to tone as we don't want to come off as self-serving or opportunistic, especially during COVID or during racial and systemic justice reform. Safety, civic duty, and reform are not tantamount to selling a shirt, but we recognize wearing a shirt that has your voting rights or reps Greenwood IS an important part of awareness, advocacy, and expression. We were thrilled to have an opportunity to work with organizations like WWAV with Dover Street Market this year, and the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce. And we've been blown away by the amount of Mark I masks we have been able to donate to local and various health care institutions, schools, and first responders. Actually the entire initiative was really launched as a way to continue giving our local contractors work and in response to many of our friends in the healthcare industry who were desperately asking for us to provide an alternative since N95's were in such short supply.

Collaboration is integrated in Goodfight’s DNA, yet Goodfight is quite selective with its circle. What makes a successful collaboration and how do you choose who to work with?

CN: Collaborations are the best, when two companies who share different aesthetics or views, can come together and create a cool product that feels natural, in each of the brands own regard.

CL: You're correct in noticing that we've been extremely selective with who we work with, but the qualifications have very little to do with "cool" factor and more to do with how much we love the people behind the organization and what they stand for. We decided early on that we wanted to approach collaborations holistically from a more longterm standpoint, so you'll see that we tend to collaborate with people we have a very deep preexisting relationship with whose work we admire as well, or brands and organizations that we've approached professionally and developed a close bond with. Organizations like Roden Gray and Dover Street Market have thrown insane amounts of support behind us since day-one and love to innovate, so working with them on projects is always fun. On the other end of the spectrum, we also have a passion for collaborating with more unknown entities that we believe deserve attention, like Ray Lin, who we've leaned on for photography, videography, etc. Julia always talks about how what makes Ray special is that he understands the "emotional" aspect of what we're trying to accomplish with each project. Connecting on these kinds of wavelengths are so important when there are elements that are difficult to express with words.

How did you get in touch with ongoing collaborators and graphic designers such as Lingie Park, Justine Lin, Makoto Tachibana, Jun Fukushima, and Julia Chu?

JC: We feel really fortunate that we’ve known some of our collaborators forever and that they’ve come into our lives before the brand even started and supported us since day 1. I think the absolute baseline for us when it comes to collaborators is that everyone is an incredibly talented artist and also a really nice human being. Working with Julia Chu is a really fun story — she actually started following me on Instagram because she was bored and just decided to randomly search for other Julia Chu's (also my name) on the app. I definitely noticed her profile and quickly realized that she was a really talented artist. I asked if she wanted to collaborate and then it all happened organically from there.

Good Art Hlywd has also been a close partner in co-developing the jewelry line, crafting the coolest Sterling Silver piece - the Turin Ring has a built-in track with moveable cars that can race! How did you two get in touch and why has this been such a successful synergy?

CL: We first discovered Josh & Rachel at Inspiration — later on Christina and I bumped into them at our friend Johan's birthday party at the 3sixteen store in Los Angeles. Funny story — it actually took me a month to get Josh on the phone, where he spent twenty minutes telling me why we shouldn't work together and how guys downtown would charge half the price he does because he pays his workers a living wage. I stopped him there and told him that was EXACTLY why we needed to work with him, because he shared the same ethos as us on a human value level. Another 3-4 months passed until Calvin and I got to visit the foundry for the first time. Their dog Charlie took a liking to Calvin's energy (he's the dog whisperer) and two and half hours later we realized how much we loved each other and the rest is history.

We are now coming on six (working on the seventh) seasons of collaboration, and we've cherished every moment of it. Calvin and Josh share a lot of interests and have the same unique way to looking at things. Each season we usually brief Josh on the new seasonal theme, come to him with a few ideas, sketches, and references, riff off each other and then go from there. He'll come back with initial samples which also incorporate his own ideas and twists and we'll refine the pieces until they are saying what we want. What's great about Josh is that he isn't afraid of trying anything, and in fact, like us, he loves making things that are unexpected, extremely fun, and incredibly beautiful. Huge shout out to Rachel, Jie, Oso, Adam, Zack, Eryssa, and the rest of the Good Art Hlywd team who run one of the most incredible foundries in the world, literally in the heart of Los Angeles behind the Staples Center.

Goodfight regularly releases playful pieces like the latest Push It Real Good 3D printed finger keychain. Do these designs come sporadically? How do you decide what to release or hold back?

CN: We discuss all product ideas to see if not something is a good idea and should be produced, or if it should just stay as an idea, tucked away for another time. For something like the Push It Real Good, we thought that even with a serious pandemic going on, we could still produce something useful and funny. It was a dark time, and little projects like these help get us through the day, mentally.

It’s been six seasons and counting since your inaugural Spring ’18 collection – “Sleep Dreams and Exploration”. In what ways has the label matured since its launch?

JC: Maturing as a brand has been figuring out better business practices, and that is everything from listening to customers, growing with retail partners and finding more avenues to support local fair manufacturing and talent. To me, maturity is realizing where you can take a little less in order to share the work and profits a little more and see growth overall for everyone, and we’re now seeing the fruits of that labor. We love our customers, stores and factories so we’re continually trying to grow up and be better for them! As a team and brand, we’ve each had to figure out what to fight for and what to concede in business and design, and I think we’re getting much better at that!

What upcoming projects or releases can we expect from Goodfight?

CL: This month we are continuing our Salvage Program with a very special deadstock fabric Coaches Jacket release (previously we've only done it in collaboration with Dover Street Market Singapore & Ginza) and introducing the Wanda Skirt, our first ever non-male-specific garment. Being that half our team is female and Calvin comes from a womenswear product development background, it's no surprise we're here (in fact, it's more surprising it hasn't manifest earlier). It's our first piece made to fit Julia & Christina specifically, but can of course be worn by anyone. The whole idea emerged organically in our effort to re-purpose salvage fabric, but it feels right and we're very excited to introduce more new styles in the near future!

Lastly, there IS a shoe collaboration in the pipeline that will include footwear and ready-to-wear. It's going to be a good one.