Reserve Sessions: A Discussion with Om Travelers Podcast

Download the podcast and hear the full discussion. Also available on iTunes, PocketCasts, Google, and Stitcher.

I was recently honored to sit and discuss the American Reserve Clothing Co. story with Tyler Cagwin, the creator of a great new podcast called Om Travelers. Cagwin, who created the concept with his wife Tiffany O, was interested to know how this Syracuse area transplant became a stakeholder in the reemerging downtown retail sector.

For each episode, Tyler asks his subject to choose a location of significance where they’ll meet and record. I was eager to record in our new shop, American Reserve Clothing Co.

Tyler: It’s a really cool location. The clothing is reasonably priced and really awesome, comfortable, durable, and quality stuff with quality people behind it.

Cliff: Thank you. The feel I was going for was somewhere between a clubhouse and your grandfather’s study. I don’t know that a lot of retail experiences are engineered specifically for guys. There’s great music playing; we taste whiskey and wine on the weekends. There’s a great look, feel, and even smell to the place.

Tyler was intrigued that I would dive into the fashion industry coming from a completely unrelated background.

Cliff: I wasn’t the guy that grew up wanting to get into fashion, but a long time ago I recognized that there is a power to clothing. When you’re wearing something that makes you feel good, whether you think you look good or it hugs you in way that makes you feel good, there’s something that changes in you. You’re less concerned about how people are perceiving you and you’re more present in the moment.

Tyler: You talk about how (before you started this company) you had this nagging thought, this pull to do something else. What was it about fashion? 

Cliff: This idea grabbed me at the right time. Every time I’d travel to a new city, I’d try to get to know it. I’d visit the coffee shops, the music shops, and I’d go to the men’s stores. I started to recognize that there is great clothing out there with great stories behind it. That there are great people making fantastic, traditionally-made clothes or ones with a different heritage than what is available online or in the malls, representative of today’s fast fashion.

I started learning how Americans approach fashion, that there’s this idea that clothes should be cheap. And that's not at all the case. You go back a couple hundred years, the only people that bought clothes were the rich. Everyone else made their own clothes or repaired them and passed them down. Some might say that it’s the advancement of our culture and society that we're at a point where clothes are super cheap, but that idea is near sighted and its not true. Clothes are cheap because we are paying people in developing countries paltry wages, they’re working in unbelievably poor conditions so that you can buy that bonus pack of six white tshirts at Walmart – now you can buy your clothing at the same place where you buy your groceries. 

Tyler: One thing that you mentioned was our cultural draw to cheap clothing and the ability to throwaway.

Cliff: It’s so interesting when you hear the narrative that’s out there to buy American -that it’s the fault of all these countries for flooding our stores with these products. But at the same time, there really isn’t an appetite for people to go out and spend more on American made goods.

There’s such a ravenous appetite for throwaway fashion. People think ‘I can buy the tshirt today, I’m going to wear it for six months and then I’m just going to throw it out. The statistics are staggering. 97% of the clothes sold in the U.S. are created outside of its borders, and that’s not to say that all imports are bad, but most of that clothing is created in developing countries with these horrible conditions.

Honestly, you don't always need to buy American made. Not everything in my shop is. But the owners of the right imports stay close to the clothing... and it's responsibly sourced.

Tyler: Those types of companies want you to send a garment that’s ripped back to them so that they can fix it and so that you won’t throw it out. 

Cliff: As much as it’s defamed in the public conversation, the global marketplace has allowed us all to become much more aware of what the product chain looks like from origination to purchase.

It’s an interesting dialogue, but you do see things changing. There is a shift back to something more authentic. Just look at the fair-trade movement in coffee. These days it’s nothing to go in and buy a $5 cup of coffee or a $7 latte. And that’s the model we're trying to develop. Let’s get people to buy from independently owned, local shops. The only difference is the product. 

Tyler: People want to have city centers, town squares, or downtown sectors where they can walk around, get a bite to eat, and visit shops.

Cliff: Urban centers are growing and its becoming more fashionable to live in city centers. The suburban malls of the 90’s are an antiquated model. This whole idea of doing traditional media buys and then waiting for people to walk through your door – it’s just not the way people consume brands, media, or products anymore. We seek out brands that we can self-identify with through the computers in our pockets.

Tyler: What about the internet’s impact on retail

Cliff: We’re going to take a hybrid approach. We started our shop online and we’re going to try to be great at it. We’re gong to build a community. We’re gong to build social content that people love. We’re going to have an experience for our customers when a package arrives from American Reserve. It’s going to look great. It’s going to smell unbelievable. It’s gong to have all the clothes that I wanted -their gong to fit great, and it’s going to be this experience. When people come home from their job and there’s an Amazon package sitting on their front step, they get excited -there’s dopamine rush. I waned to take that and 10x it.

But at the same time, to build this great community online, you have to build content. You have to tell your story, you have to be authentic. Having a shop is a great place to shoot video, to shoot photos, a great place to tell your story.

Tyler: It’s crazy to think that you went from the medical industry to fashion, but it’s another great example of people taking a leap, making their soul happy, and making the community a better place to be.

Cliff: There's an element of where’s my skin in the game? I want to help this city grow and reclaim the economic solvency it once had. We don’t have the biggest footprint, but we’re down here.

And it's fun. I get to tell exciting stories, we continue to tell people why it's important to think about what they're buying in terms of clothing. That’s a magic moment for me. And I’m learning. I didn’t grow up in the fashion industry. I’m learning each day and I’m educating our clients. And that’s exciting for me...

Best,

Cliff Carey

Founder, American Reserve Clothing Co.

cliff@americanreserveshop.com | americanreserveshop.com

Follow our story @americanreserve