(00:03): Hey guys, I'm welcome to built on passion. I'm your host, Matthew Debo. And today we have on devil dog dunes, vice president of men's merchandising in sales, Sean, commonly and devil dog Dre, marketing strategist, Stephanie Newman devil dog Daries makes vintage inspired men's denim clothing that are designed a comfort and enhanced performance though. They may seem like a new merchant brand devil dog has been standing tall since 1948. Their initial focus on manufacturing helped them bring some of the biggest names and denim to market. So it was only a matter of time before they rolled up their sleeves, cut their jeans and started designed their own products. In fact, their of experience in working with other designers that helped them cultivate the tools to create some of the best NM genes you'll find on the market beyond making incredible products, double dog is actively involved with the wounded warrior project to help support and honor the Marines and all the art forces that fought so bravely for our country.
(01:00): Double dog dungaree, founder Lewis Rosenstock happens to be a world war I veteran himself and started the company shortly after world war II. Double dog actually happens to get its namesake from the military. Part of the reason why he named double dog double dog is he wanted to honor the history of where their namesake comes from. And even after the rebrand in 2019, devil dog still carries the same history, rich spirit and support for in this episode of built on passion, Sean Conley and Stephanie Newman share what it's been like to completely rebrand a legacy brand, how they seamlessly adopted a bigger mission that their products can support some big plan for expansion in 2022. And the how and why behind double dog DUNS. Well, we're here. I'm here with Sean Conley and Stephanie Newman. Yeah. Who are you guys? Who are you and how do you get here?
(01:51): Who are we? Okay. I will start with me. Are you? I am vice president of sales and merchandising at devil dog dungaree. I, how did I get here? It's been a long journey in the apparel business. Most of us are, you know, the ones who have made it through all these different battles. We call ourselves the veterans, but it's a, it's always great to be able to take all that knowledge and pass it along to the young people coming in like Stephanie. So my name is Stephanie Newman. I lead the marketing here at devil dot. How did I get here? I came from a world of performance and now I'm with performance jeans. The I guess the, the easy stepping stone, you know, you live in the world of pants, you die in the world of pants. That's what I always say. Exactly. I think it kind of, you described it fairly well, devil dog dunes, but what is devil dog? Dog
(02:48): Devil dog is well, first and foremost, it's a great pair of jeans for sure. But the brand name, I can give you a little bit of history on that. It was established in 1948. Our company we've been around for a long time. It's a family business. Third generation family business started in 1927. The founder of our company was a world war I veteran and post world war II. He decided that he very patriotic guy, as a lot of people, his generation were post world war two. He decided that he wanted to concentrate his company in producing denim, which is what he felt Americans really wanted at the time. And he moved his factory base which was then upstate New York down to North Carolina, where, which was the hub and the center of, of the denim world back then. And he established our brand name, double the, a dungaree in 1948. And of course devil dog was the nickname for the Marines still is to this day. So very powerful and important name. He basically named his brand after after the Marines and all actually all the men and women, you know, who served our country during that time we, the name itself also became the name of our manufacturing group down in North Carolina. We're also known as double dog manufacturing company in our hometown, which is Zebulon North Carolina.
(04:11): I know you guys are going through like a pretty serious rebrand, but before, before we, we dive into that was the focus up until a little while ago, like strictly manufacturing. It, it seems like you guys kept busy in that way a hundred percent. You are correct. And I, I would say that first and foremost we were manufacturers that is our core competency. And, and even today is our core competency through that time period. Yes, we were always producing the four other brands really in about, I would say the eighties to nineties is when private label became very important. So direct production for retailers that became a big part of our business as well. And even today, we still produce four other brands through our factory, as well as four retailers as a factory owner. You know, you, this is something you, you can't really, you know, push away or deny. It's something that's part of our culture and what we do. And we feel now looking back on it, I mean, that's how we leveraged our brand to what it is today and how we were able to gain all that experience all this years, all these years of making jeans for other people all these years, all of this history, all of this knowledge, we've been able to obviously use it for our own benefit, which has been great.
(05:26): It's probably even great, cuz like you have the perfect platform to just do R and D without really putting yourself in a place where if you know, something doesn't work out, you know, it's not gonna be your brand on the line. You can just see what they're doing, experiment with, you know, different designs I assume. Yeah. I mean, well, you know, certainly element as it relates to the denim, you know, there's a lot that goes into fabric development and working with our suppliers, trim companies, there is washing there's cut and so manufacturing. So, you know, learning all of that, you know what we're good at. And then within denim, obviously washing which people and especially our customers today for our brand, they just love the, lived in look and feel and flavor that vintage vibe, which we've been able to, you know perfect. Like you said at years of making for other people. So yes, obviously, you know, that's been great. I, and there's just so much that I, that we could talk about even from a fit standpoint, you know, all of the people that we have working for us that are experts in pattern making and specs and fitting and how that relates to the fabric and shrinkage, you know, all of it. It's just unbelievable and what a blessing it's been for our brand to be able to rely on all of that knowledge.
(06:45): So with that, when you're working with, I know obviously with devil dog, your denim and clothing company, you kind of can call the shots on all sides of it because that's, you guys are producing and designing and doing, you know, everything from the beginning to the end, but for the other brands, is it them who comes to you with a design or an idea and you bring it to life or do you go to work with them and say, okay, here's the best things you can do. Here's you tell them what designs would make sense and what are trendy, who I guess pushes that side of it along. Yeah, it's, it's the individual customer. And it's, it's generally we have history with all the people we do business with at this point, they know what we're good at, what they can get out of us and that, and what they can get out of our, our factory and how that relates to their, whatever their agendas are. So, you know, we, we, you know, they're in the driver's seat, but they certainly know what it is that we do best. And I, I think that's why they come to us.
(07:43): That makes sense. And then with devil dog, obviously you take those ideas, those orders, different designs from your customers, and you can apply it to your own thing saying, okay, here's everything we learned up until this point over a decade of being in business as manufacturer. Yeah, well, it's a, it's a hundred years almost. Oh again, excuse me. Since a century, it's a century of of that knowledge, not all the same people since the beginning, but, but fair point, you know, all that knowledge has been passed down and yeah, exactly. Right. When we first decided as a, that we were going to launch our own brand, all the things that we were experts at, these are the things that, that most brands that you know are trying for the first time, that's where the failure usually sits. Right? It's it's your supply channel, your supply chain to make sure that what you're gonna get out of it. And, and you're sure of the quality, obviously that's something that we knew all about. There's costing and pricing. There's the finance there's shipping there's distribution, each one of those elements that is a real struggle for a new brand was really something that for us was much, much easier.
(08:58): And again, you know, to be able to leverage all of those strengths and it's, it's not just a factory, it's also, you know, the, the logistics, which today in days eight and today's days and age, especially during COVID how, what a nightmare logistics have been well, you know, we have all the right people on, in all the right places to be able to do exactly what our customers need. And when I say customers, you know, I'm talking about, we have our own direct to consumer, so we have our own website. So my, our customer is sitting at home right now, trying to figure out what gene he wants to wear and pops on our website and figures out the right fit and the right size and the right wash. And then also our retailers which come in varying shapes and sizes from a small mom and pop specialty store in a town, you know, somewhere in the Midwest to maybe a larger store that has multiple locations. So, you know, it's, it's worth thinking about how do we service all of these things and really as a brand today, that's exactly what you need to do because you know, it's on, you know, both through the web and the internet and being able to really promote your brand properly, which obviously Stephanie and her team does day in and day out on the marketing side to what we do more on the sales group, you know, reach out to new specialty stores. I mean, it's 24 7
(10:19): With that. I know you guys are in the middle or I guess I don't know if you'd call it rebrand or more of an expansion what's going on with that. How's how's that working out? Yeah. We can talk all about that too. See, yeah. So to your point when we made the decision to start double dog, that was in 2018, we first launched it. The first launch online, we built our website, our social media platforms, and everything started for us being able to ship to stores. July, 2019, our website went live what an unbelievable day that was when we were able to switch everything on. And of course, you know, the starting point for us was the things that we make in our own factory, which all of the denim bottoms, all of the casual bottoms we produce. And that was fantastic. We had a great response, right? From the start people responded to the fits to the fabrics, to the different washing, being the factory. We were able to get back into it right away, figure out what best things were.
(11:21): Let's get more of this. Let's get more of that. That didn't work so well. Let's make, let's not make that one again, but let's go in this other direction. So very, very quickly, we were able to figure out what was selling and what people wanted more of and react to that through our own factory. But even at that moment, we knew that we had something that was gonna expand beyond what it is that we produce. And that leads us to to today this year 2022, we are finally truly expanding this from just denim and casual bottoms to a full lifestyle collection. So now we have caps and accessories and belts and wallets, and t-shirts graphic tees, sweatshirts, pullover, hoodies. We have denim jackets coming in soon next month denim shirts, we just got our first shipment in and it just went live this week, our sweatshirt.
(12:24): So we're so excited and even, and just the way it all happened is really kind of crazy. So it's the way it's unraveling for us is like, okay, we've got new products that are gonna be hitting every month. So customers who are used to coming to us and shopping and seeing their favorite jeans, and maybe I'll try this one now, suddenly they go on now. And, and now they're gonna see all these sweatshirts and in another week or so, they're gonna see the casual pants and the shorts, and then they're gonna the jackets and the denim. So it's gonna be a real fun ride. Sure. That up until this point's been insane too, because that's, you're not talking about a lot of small changes, even, you know, developing like the brand identity is one thing, but adding all of the different pieces of clothing to your lineup outside of denim,
(13:12): It is a tremend amount of work. You know what I love about how all of this started again, to go back here, we are this factory that knew, had to make this one thing. And then we took that core competency. And that was the birthplace of the devil dog toes brand when we launched. And as it was almost like, and it's, and it's, it has felt like this all along the brand has told us as we've gone through this journey, what it needs next, you know, so the marketing team and suddenly we needed to step up our game. And now suddenly we have Stephanie, who's heading up that team and, and doing such a great job. And then yes, point being able to design and develop all of these other products. These other categories is a whole different skillset from what we had. So we had to go out and hire a great designer and Zulu Williams joined the, the company last year. And his background is from department stores like Macy's, and he's now taken charge of this expansion, bringing all these new products to life. And it's been like that, you know, as we go, we bring in the right people, we bring in the right teams, we know where we want to be eventually. And it it's step by step.
(14:30): Where is, I guess I mean, it, I don't wanna just put you into like a final goal post I'm sure there's a lot beyond the horizon there, but what, what does that look like when you finally get to more of a cruising altitude for devil dog as a brand? What does that, what does that look like to you? It is finding th that right volume level for this brand that is appropriate for it. And we know that we're not there yet. We know that there's so much more runway to go, and we can see it from the reaction from our customers. If you go onto our website, check out any of our genes that are there, check out the reviews. This is some I've been doing this for a really, really long time. And I have ever had this kind of response to a brand that I've worked on ever. I just know in my heart, and just from my own experience, that this is a brand name. That is it. It's gonna take its place right there alongside, if you think about all the, the major denim brands that a guy will think about when he wants to go out and buy a pair of jeans from Levi's to Wrangler, to Lee, to some of the more contemporary brands as well.
(15:38): I see this brand right up there with those brands, it's gaining that momentum. It's gaining the customers, being able to really satisfy the needs and, and just finding that right, that right balance and are right. And I keep saying that we're right at this point, it's like this, right. We're right at this threshold that happens usually with a brand like ours. That's kind of coming on where you notice that instead of us spending a lot of energy, reaching out to new customers, they're calling us, you know, that it kind, the scripts switches up a little bit and suddenly they're like, Hey, and this is already starting to happen. We just went to a show in Dallas and we had more than one store come to us and say, oh, I just got your post on Facebook. I wanna see what it's all about. Maybe Stephanie has something to say,
(16:31): Yeah, I was gonna say the, one of the best things about this brand is it speaks for itself customers. They, when they put them on, they love the jeans. We pay so much attention to detail that as Sean was mentioning, if you look at the reviews, there's a reason why we have so many, five star reviews. Our return rate is so high people say, this is my third, third pair. This is my fourth pair. They keep coming back to it. Cause devil dog has paid so much attention to the details and the jeans and how the construction is made, that it becomes their favorite denim. And that's exactly the goal with our new, with tops. There's so much detail in our tops that you'll notice that you wouldn't even notice if you're wearing. Cause it's the insight lining or it's something like that, that we've taken into consideration, like elbow patch side. There's always attention to detail on this brand.
(17:23): I like the elbow patch side. That's one thing. I mean, it's on, it's on the inside of the sleeve. That's that's what you, you mean by that, right? Yeah. I I'm, I know I can't visually everybody see it, but yes, we inside our bandana pocketing details inside. Okay. I like that because I want to feel safe without people thinking that I'm just trying to keep my elbows bump free. I want to play it you know, fast and loose. So yeah, you'll see. You'll notice in all in our new tops and our hoodies and crew necks that they all have, the specific elbow meant for that. The patch is there for reinforcement. I'm assuming that like the demographic, I mean, even just by looking at your website, when you, you mentioned I brought it up, it it's pretty clear, like, okay, rugged, casual, like classy, rugged, casual. I, Sean, I, I muted you.
(18:10): I would agree with that statement. I, I always like to say to people, this is not a young men's gene brand. This is a men's gene brand. And there is, you know, a lot of, there's a high expectation for that demographic in quality and value in everything we put into the garments. We put, we spend lot of time doing our research to make sure that this is a well made garment that is comfortable and brings a level of performance to the table. So, you know, in all of our denim genes, there is stretch and it's performance stretch, which means it's not just a spandex and polyester. There's the are like re products like dual effects that really help the shape retention. And, and women know this because they've been wearing stretch forever for some guys it's newer to, to their vocabulary, but having stretch that doesn't bag out forever after you warrant once is kind of critical, but it also needs to the look and feel like denim.
(19:12): That's the expectation that a guy has when he buys a, a denim gene. It can't just be, you know, super thin and flimsy. So we put a lot of effort in picking our quality and making sure that it is up to the standard that, you know, that we, that our customers expect, which is well made soft hand feel, which is come on very, very strong in terms of a desire that guys have when, when picking out their clothing. That's another important element of ours. The performance part is very important. Sustainability as an element of performance is also something that we are embracing both in our products and as a company, you know, and a manufacturer as well. So all of these things are important. And as we transition from our genes to our tops, they have to have that same, that same, those same elements. So as Stephanie was saying, you know, the, the elbow patches cuz we're expecting that, you know, guys gonna wear 'em like, like guys do, it's gotta be sturdy and well made, but soft hand feel fit their lifestyle. These are all important elements.
(20:23): I feel like there's always points in clothing that like will always fail. And you know, I GU I guess that I'm, I'm assuming that's part of the the R and D is just be like, okay, like you always get rips here. You, this gets worn here. You know, you have your, your arms up, you were mentioning for like the elbow patches. So like there's gonna be, it's gonna be pulling there if it gets too tight or whatever. And it all makes sense. Yes. And also that, that also goes back to pattern as well. So understanding how our customers gonna be using this product and making sure that there's enough built in for her size so that the armhole is not too tight, that could create a problem or, you know, the rise the crotch area, all, all these different points, stress points. Obviously you have to be thought about in terms of the measurement and the spec and the fit and all of it. It just all comes together.
(21:15): So you mentioned you were, I guess, doing more and focusing a lot on sustainability. And while I was peaking on your site, I saw actually a, a bit of that, a lot of the, the plastic recycling that goes into it, what is double dog's commitment to sustainability? Like what does that look like first and foremost? It's we, we almost feel like it's a part of just the way everybody should be looking at it. You know I can't say that double dog is a sustainable, there are brands that are SU that are sustainable brands that are like everything about what they do is for whatever whatever the purpose is. We employ that as one of our performance features. So that could be, and I'll give you a, for example, all of our pocketing is made with reprieve. Reprieve is a kind of polyester that's made from recycled soda bottles turned into chips, turned into, into yarn, and then sold back to our mills as polyester filament. That is one thing that is pretty easy for us to, you know, bake into our garments. Some of our, the base fabric denim itself has reprieve it. One of the three core denims that we use in our line, which actually has the most amount of elasticity has reprieve actually woven into the garment itself into the fabric itself over and above that, you know, just the way we act as a company.
(22:37): So from our facilities, which use solar panels for the electricity, or, you know, the, you know, since we're a manufacturer, we have to think about things like water and conservation of water and how we wash things and what happens and, and how much of it goes out into the environment versus comes back in and gets refilter back in. So all of that stuff is important, but it's like operationally, it's just common sense now, isn't it? I mean, it, you know, it's, it's not like this is a, a trend, like a, like a fad. This is, we're adopting this into to our, the way we work. And that's kind of how we like to look at it.
(23:13): It's almost next to impossible to be all encompassing with sustainability and in the fashion industry, like it's hard to be completely closed loop. Like the, the solar panels, like I've talked, I've had the pleasure of talking to a lot of sustainable clothing lines. None of them really ever mention thing about solar panels. And obviously with the manufacturing company, you're using a lot of power. So I feel like it's where do you wanna focus your energy into help take the stress off as we go? You know, the other interesting thing is and we went through a, a period where we actually did the research into like what it would take to make something fully green, so to speak as we did this, it was like, okay, well, okay, we can't have any zippers and we can't have any, there are some things that UN unfortunately at this point, the technology is a, of quite there, but as it does become available, we are working with our suppliers to bring it into the loop. For example, recycled cotton. Now we're starting to see a lot more of our suppliers, literally take the scraps that happen in their manufacturing process and re process that back into cotton yards. And that's another element there's also just kind of buying from our suppliers who support things like us cotton, where we know that how they're farming is gonna bring less pesticides into, into the equation. So these are things we're doing step by step in, as we can add them in, as they make sense. That's how we're approaching it.
(24:49): And honestly, to take that further, not to get too political either when you're running a business, sometimes doing things fully sustainable is not, it just, you can't do it like it won't sustain everything. And if you're manufacturing for like four, other of, some of the biggest denim companies clothing companies, and I mean, you, you kind of gotta pick your battles. Now It's hard because you can, you can get lost in the weeds. And the one thing we don't want to be is hypocritical about, you know, what is we're trying to achieve. We are a denim gene company, and we are hyper focused on making the best possible denim jeans for our customer. That's, you know, where we're, where the reaction that we're getting adopting a certain technology into our manufacturing as it's feasible and, and workable, then that's great. And if we could bring our customers along with us, then that's wonderful.
(25:41): 2018 was I feel like the, the big jumping off point for devil dog as a brand, a, you were creating your own denim, you were manufacturing genes, you had some semblance of an identity, but what really went into forming devil dog, as it looks today, you know, as it looks to the consumer, the people who are now coming to you guys versus you going out and kind of showing off to the, the people you're trying to attract. That's the secret sauce when you're brand building, right? And you're, you're trying to create something where nothing exists before. This has been a step by step process, thinking back to 2018, we knew that we wanted our own brand. And, and maybe at that moment, that's all that we knew, you know, it wasn't until we got into the process of developing what that might be and speaking to our suppliers about what we could get and how we could, again, leverage our strength with them to be able to, to get our own products as we were developing it for the very first time, you know, the story was unfolding. So here we were, you know, trying to figure out what fits were gonna be important and what, and what fabrics were gonna be important. And it was just sometimes it's really a matter of just getting your hands dirty.
(26:59): You get, you know, a lot of people say they want to do it and think that they wanna do it, but you gotta get in there and actually do it. It took us about six months to, you know, to take the, the concept of this is the brand. This is where we're gonna go. Here's the things that we can take from the, you know, the original logos and the original design and the colors from way back when this is the stuff that we wanna hold onto. And this is the, and this is part of the future. That's now gonna be added to it. And so I would say that, you know, it really took us and it didn't really kind of come together until about December to January, 2019. And then we started showing retailers and it wasn't really to show retailers to get them to buy it. It was really more about, let's get, we need to get a reaction, you know, what do they think about this story? And it it's funny that right then January, 2019, I remember this is, you know, the owners came to me and said, you know, look, you know, this Rand is very meaningful to us because tells the story of our family. It tells the story of our factories. It has, you know, this heritage, it has a time and a place cuz it has an origin story, you know, 1948 LAN North Carolina. But also this is the nickname for the Marine. So we also need to be, you know, very sensitive to the fact that, you know, this is something that's very special and it was right at that moment that they said, let's think about how we can give back socially. If we're gonna really be a brand, we need part of this story to be a, a give back story.
(28:39): And that's what we want to do. We reached out right at that point to wounded warrior project, we just told in the story and I just loved the fact that, that here we were, you know, yes, we had a factory. Yes. We had a lot of great backing and all of this knowledge and leverage, but we had this brand that hadn't sold a piece yet. All we had was some buyer's reaction and they, they thought it was a great idea. We told them the story and said, look, we, you know, we would love to sponsor you and figure out a way to give back to veterans. We think that's, that would be perfect alignment with our, the, our brand and, and what we're trying to achieve. And they said, yes. And I just like, and it was right around then where between that, you know, that acceptance and the story kind of coming together, where here is a brand, a name that was inspired by men and women who fought for our country.
(29:30): And now suddenly we have this social cause where we're gonna give back to injured veterans and we're making a product that people are liking already. All of that happened right around then January to February. And I, and I think that that's when we said to each other, oh my God, we have something, we took it on the road. We went to Vegas where the big shows happened and we just took a booth. Literally people just kept stopping by and saying, whoa, what is, this is great. You know, tell me more. And we just spent a lot of time there just telling our story. I think we won, we won an award of being best emerging brand. I think it was then that we really kind of knew that we had something
(30:12): Best emerging brand and you guys have been around for almost a century. So I also just wanted to mention what Sean was talking about when the warrior project, our company today has, regardless of sales gave a hundred thousand dollars to wound warrior project. We actively go, we were in the veteran's day parade. Anytime they need our help with projects, we're always willing to do whatever we can in our capacity to help them. And that every one of our denim genes has like a little Terry tag on it that says our partnership with wound warrior project. And it has our verbiage of our partnership with them.
(30:49): It's cool. How you, as a brand, you guys had this rich in history, like the identity was already there, obviously devil dog already is attributed to the military. You're still able to keep your identity expand on an honor of the name sake without any growing paints. It seems, It feels great. I mean, literally every day I'm here and just thinking, you know, this just doesn't happen the way, the way this brand has kind of come together and everything that we've been able to put in place. This just doesn't happen very often. I mean, I think about, and if you put some thought into it, think about denim brands that have reached that threshold. I talked about earlier, we're headed there, everything that's been put in place, and it's really great. It's a wonderful feeling,
(31:31): Rich in history and still with a bright, bright future. Stephanie, Sean, thank you guys, both for coming on the, to the show today. If anyone wanted to find out more about devil dog, what you're doing, obviously check out some gene, maybe some of the new, the new clothing lines coming out. Where's the best place for them to check out? Well, of course you could visit us at our website, which is www devil dog.com. That is the mothership, so to speak. And you could always catch all the late and greatest there. You can sign up for a newsletter and be the first to hear of all of our new products as they launch. You could also find us online at Nordstrom. So nordstrom.com, dillards.com on maer.com where you may also find us in select stores under those name plates and of course, nationwide and better specialty stores across the country.
(32:29): Thank you both for coming on. Thanks. Thank you. Woo. We made it. Thank you again for tuning in to this week's episode of built on passion. Hope you learn something hope you maybe grew as a person. Maybe you have a new entrepreneurial idea, maybe all of the above. Maybe you got a new perspective on your favorite hobby or favorite piece of gear and you just, you fell in love all over again. I'm hoping for the last one. That last one actually sounds pretty good. I'm gonna ask one last time for the people in the please leave a review. It is super helpful and a great way to show your support of the show. And if you know someone who might be interested in this episode specifically share it to 'em and all joking aside. Thank you for everything for supporting what we're doing in any event. That's it for now. I will see you next week. On another episode of built on passion.
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