Arbor's Apparel: Keeping It Green

Arbor believes in slow growth—and environmental responsibility.

The Los Angeles–based business, founded 11 years ago by Southern California natives Chris Jensen and Bob Carlson, began as a snowboard company, added skateboards in 1999, and recently added apparel to its mix.

Throughout Arbor’s evolution, the common thread is sustainability.

After more than a decade of producing hard goods using environmentally friendly and sustainable materials, the company is launching a line of men’s and women’s apparel with the same “green” message.

The first delivery of Arbor apparel will ship in August to retailers who carry its hard goods, including Becker Surf and Sport, Val Surf and Nine Star.

The initial Fall/Holiday 2006 collection is bamboo- and organic cotton-based, featuring tees, fleece and caps for men and women in a mix of bamboo and organic cotton and blends of the two. The company is working on perfecting the wash process for bamboo-blend fleece and thermals to add to the mix for Spring/Summer 2007.

According to Jensen, this first collection is the beginning of the company’s five-year plan. “Next we’ll add wovens, knits, denim, streetwear and technical first-layer pieces,” he said.

The company also is investigating other organic materials, including bark, yak wool and organic wools from New Zealand.

“We’re so excited about the prospects of what we’re doing with bamboo that we’re probably going to expand our distribution with this product and cautiously take the brand [to] the boutique level of stores,” Carlson said. “That’s what led us to Fred Segal.”

In late summer, the company will ship an exclusive Arbor line for Fred Segal Man at Fred Segal in Santa Monica, Calif. The line is made from 100 percent bamboo and has a slimmer, contemporary fit.

“There’s a different design level in the fit of the garment, and a lot more effort has been put into graphics with the level of work we put into the printing,” Carlson said.

To reinforce Arbor’s environmental message, each garment in the exclusive line will come with a tiny pin made of environmentally harvested koa, a rare hardwood native to Hawaii. And each Tshirt graphic comes with a story or “legend” about the design printed on the inside.

Although other menswear collections in the market are using organic and environmentally friendly materials, Jensen and Carlson believe they have struck an original note by blending the environmental message with a long history in the action-sports business.

“There are a couple of companies out there that are starting to use environmentally friendly materials, but none that have been focused on using environmentally friendly materials for 11 years,” Carlson said. “And none that, frankly, have that cool factor of being involved in the boardsports world. It’s been great for us to see the reception from guys like Fred Segal, as well as stores like Val Surf and Becker and all of our core snowboard and skate shops.”

Source globally, design locally

Arbor’s bamboo yarn is sourced from China and shipped directly to a facility in South Carolina, which knits the fabric and cuts and sews the tees. Printing and dyeing are done locally in Orange County, Calif.

Rather than produce its own organic cotton T-shirts, the company buys organic cotton blanks, which are then custom-dyed. “It’s difficult to walk into developing your own anything in apparel,” Jensen said. “It’s easy and nice to do the organic blanks.”

Wholesale prices range from $14.50 for an organic cotton blend tee to $19 for a bamboo blend top. The plan is to keep prices in line with other contemporary streetwear lines.

“It’s not about artificially inflating our prices,” Carlson said. “We have worked to keep our prices in line with the competitors, yet offer added value. That’s been our philosophy across all of our product lines. We are high end because of the nature of the materials that we use, but we don’t get greedy with pricing.”

Getting in on the action sports

Jensen and Carlson grew up in Southern California’s beachside suburbs, surfing and skating. They got their start in the hard goods business after a chance meeting with a man who owns a tree farm in Hawaii. They began harvesting the rare wood by helicopter, following Hawaii’s strict guidelines by logging only the fallen koa trees.

Initially, they used the wood to produce furniture and restaurant interiors, but soon switched to snowboards. “Chris came up with the idea of creating a snowboard using environmentally friendly wood topsheets,” Carlson explained. “The thing is we soon discovered that not only did it create a really cool one-of-a-kind, old-school look, but it also added to the performance and durability of the board, creating a third composite layer that made the board have more return and more longterm durability and long-term life.”

The timing was fortuitous as the sport was just beginning to gain popularity.

“With snowboards, we pioneered the business—it was hard to get the reps to look at it [at first],” Jensen said. “Now everyone has heard of us.”

The success of its snowboards helped develop the company’s concept, Carlson said.

“The idea of Arbor was to create products for the boardsports community hellip; that used environmentally friendly natural elements to improve performance and style,” he said.

These days, Arbor makes snowboards and skateboard decks from koa, ravenwood, diamondwood, tulipwood, bamboo and cork.

“The key for us is to source natural materials that are green and incorporate them and use them in a way that doesn’t also damage the planet and to create products that perform better, last longer and have a style all of their own,” Carlson said.

Although Arbor got its start in snowboards, the skate business rapidly outpaced it. “[This year] we [will] do about 15,000 to 20,000 skateboards and 10,000 snowboards,” Jensen said.

Along the way, it produced some logo-driven clothing, but the apparel part of the business did not carry the company’s environmental message until Carlson and Jensen discovered fabric made from bamboo.

Discovering bamboo

About five years ago, Arbor began using bamboo-reinforced cores and bamboo tops on its snowboards; last year, the company introduced a bamboo-topped skateboard.

Its bamboo supplier brought Carlson a bar towel made from bamboo, and he and Jensen began investigating how to use the fiber for an action-sports line.

“We’ve been working hard on developing the right weave and developing the right fit, the right blank, and getting it exactly right so we can bring it to the market confidently,” said Carlson, who said the process took about two years.

The development process has made Carlson an advocate of the fiber, and he can rattle off its benefits like an expert. “Bamboo has more tensile strength than does steel,” he explained. “It has tremendous amounts of compression strength, yet it’s really light and flexible and usable and workable.”

Carlson also points out the fiber’s soft hand, durability, and natural moisture-management and antibacterial properties. “From an environmental standpoint, it takes absolutely no chemicals of any sort—pesticides, herbicides, fungicides—or fertilizer to make it grow. It’s one of the fastest-growing materials on the planet, and it doesn’t need any additional irrigation to reach those growth rates, growing up to 4 to 10 feet a year. It’s also incredibly renewable, because you can clear-cut it and it immediately regenerates from its root system.”

In short, bamboo was a perfect fit with the company’s mission, Carlson said.

And it created a point of difference for the action-sports line.

“For some reason, nobody in the surf, skate and snow industry has used bamboo,” Jensen said. “It’s comfortable, and it breathes better. It’s an amazing material. And you’re not compromising anything. It’s fashionable. You have the fit. It’s just greener.”

Local access

For the past 2 1/2 years, the company has been based out of a Los Angeles facility that is steps from the famous Venice boardwalk. About six months ago, Arbor carved out a 500-square-foot retail space on the Washington Boulevard side of the building.

“Believe me, I wish it had opened six months earlier,” said Jensen. He and Carlson plan to eventually move shipping offsite and expand the store to about 2,000 square feet.

The store features a minimalist gray exterior, although plans call for a large mural of the Arbor tree logo to be painted around the entrance. Inside, the small store has a warm gallery appearance. The floors are bamboo, and a bench in front of the store is made from a koa wood log. All of the cabinets and display cases in the store are made from reused snowboard topsheets. And all Arbor products carry a hangtag made with remnant materials from snowboard and skateboard production. Everything in the store is reused or recycled, according to Jensen.

“For years, we saved all of our scrap and now we’re using it,” said Carlson. “There’s no reason to waste any of it—it all has uses.”

The company also contributes to several environmental organizations commited to sustaining vital natural resources.

“We want to make an impact,” Jensen said.

Taking it on the road

Alongtime exhibitor at the SnowSports Industries America (SIA) show, Arbor will branch out in September, when it sets up a booth at the Agenda show in San Diego.

The company will launch its Spring/Summer 2007 apparel line at Agenda. It also will be bringing its skateboards to the upscale streetwear show, which runs concurrently with surf and skate mainstay Action Sports Retailer Trade Expo (ASR).

“I don’t think a lot of [hard goods] companies like ours go to Agenda,” Carlson said. “Most of them have their eyes on ASR. But for the type of brand we are, Agenda fits better. Here we are a hard goods and soft goods company combined that has this great environmental story and design aesthetic. I think we may bring a little something else to the table.”

Although Arbor will be the first hard goods line to show at Agenda, Aaron Levant, co-founder of the Agenda show, said the show plans to expand its mix down the road. For the January 2007 show, organizers anticipate including five or six exhibitors showing hard goods such as skateboard decks, trucks and bolts.

Levant said Arbor should do well at the show in September thanks to its proven track record producing product and shipping to retailers. The fact that the company has an environmental message is an added bonus.

“I think it’s great any time a brand is doing something more than just turning a profit,” said Levant. “If they can do something good for the environment and spread a good message at the same time I’m all about it. As far as the line [is concerned], it looks like they have on-point products for today’s market. The bamboo T-shirt blanks have a great feel to them and it’s a good selling point as well to have tees that are not the normal—it’s refreshing to the buyers to see new materials being utilized.”

For more information about Arbor, call (310) 577-1120 or visit www.arborsports.com.