Co-founder and CEO of YouTube Chad Hurley is ditching his digital duties for the world of fashion, <em>Forbes reports. He'll be focusing full-time on his menswear brand, Hlaska (named for Hawaii and Alaska), that he founded with Anthony Mazzei in 1994.
Hurley told Forbes, "In [a] sense it's exactly like YouTube. We wanted something that wasn't available, so we built it ourselves," adding, "While a menswear company can't "go viral" in the Dancing Baby sense, you must ask yourself what makes something spread so fast. It's people's experiences. That may be something funny, like a Dancing Baby, or something shocking. Or merely just great customer service. Sure, word of mouth is slower than an Internet video, but they're born of the same principles."
And as for differences between Internet-land and la mode, Hurley remarked:
In the Internet world, especially in Silicon Valley, everyone is at the ready all the time, and turnaround is relatively short, if not instant. But it takes time to develop a new briefcase, for example. From sketching to sampling, to revisions to production, that can take weeks or longer. That's why we're expanding our Burlingame, Calif. factory to start producing our own clothes full-scale. Domestic production of clothing is pretty difficult, but they said that about online video catching on, too.
The Cut writes, "Hlaska is mostly stuff that a young Silicon Valley employee would wear to work: there's a lot of short-sleeved collared button-downs (perfect for crumpling into a ball at the foot of your futon after a long night of coding) as well as laptop covers and leather messenger bags." So, Hurley won't be (mentally) too far from his old stomping grounds. We're not talking couture, here.
Check out some of Hlaska's offerings -- the cufflinks are pretty cool -- and tell us what you think.
