Tealer : the interview

Tealer, it’s first and foremost a story about friends. Two roommates who had fun delivering T-shirts via their cell phones and who capitalized on the buzz generated by this bold door-to-door sales approach to create one of the most prominent French streetwear brands today.

Anyone visiting their shop on Rue d’Alexandrie for the first time—nestled among the traditional boutiques of Le Sentier—would quickly grasp the brand’s concept: fresh clothes, drawing inspiration from a variety of sources, but always on-trend. The references to weed are obvious to those in the know, but less so to people in their forties who are accompanying their teenager Buy the latest hoodie.

Snoop welcomes us. He’s currently working on developing the Tealer brand. After touring the shop’s three floors—including the basement with its skate ramp—we head to their offices a few hundred meters down Rue Saint-Denis and step into the bustling Tealer hive.

The team now consists of about twenty people, ranging in age from 20 to 45, who are busy in the open-plan office creating the next visual, launching Facebook campaigns, or setting up new partnerships.

How did you get into «weedwear»?

Snoop: Tealer’s DNA is «T-shirt Dealer.» It started out as a place—a phone number that would ring, someone would call you, and they’d come deliver your T-shirt. The idea to launch our own T-shirts came from the show “T-shirt Stories” on ARTE. We thought, why not us—with T-shirts that reflect who we are?.

So, are printed patterns really your go-to?

S: Yeah, that's kind of our trademark. These days, you can still have a T-shirt printed on the spot with a design that came out four years ago.

Who decides on the designs of the clothing and accessories you offer?

S: Everyone contributes to the design of the visuals and props, though the bosses have the final say. Lately, we've been particularly proud of the bong Tealer. We have just one bong, in a single color. This accessory was designed by the whole team. Accessories should be cool and fun, while our clothes are comfortable and don’t necessarily reference weed.

Between weedwear and streetwear, who is Tealer's target audience, after all?

S: Tealer is a collective. We ourselves are a mix of smokers and nonsmokers, skateboarders, surfers, and snowboarders. We all come from very different backgrounds. And that’s what makes it work. We don’t have just one style. We adapt to our own tastes and to what’s trending in fashion. And I think that comes through in what we offer.

Tealer is well-known in France, but is the Tealer brand known elsewhere?

S: We have a pretty strong presence in Europe—in Italy, Spain, and Germany. We’re forming distribution partnerships throughout Europe. We’d also like to expand into countries further east, like Poland or the Czech Republic, where there are large skateboarding communities.  For now, the reason we haven’t expanded there yet is mostly a matter of organization. Canada and the United States—why not? We’ll see, since they’re big markets. In Spain, we have a pop-up shop and a permanent distributor. Then the Cannabis Clubs and more and more.

We're also launching some great collaborations with major international artists—people who inspire us. It gives us great visibility, and them too.

What do you think about the situation regarding cannabis in France?

S: The Tealer brand doesn’t really take a stance on this issue. We have our personal opinions, but we don’t get involved in politics. That said, we’ve never faced any pressure because of our prints. Once, a mom thought we were actually drug dealers and that we wanted to get her son to smoke. But it’s rare for people not to understand that we just make clothes.

A coffeeshop, a cannabis club, or a Tealer dispensary—would that be possible?

S: It’s possible, but more as a collaboration—not really under our own name. We could sell our clothes and accessories in those stores, but we won’t have a big Tealer logo on the storefront. It would cause too much confusion.

At one point, references to weed were everywhere in your prints. Now they’re more subtle. How do you explain this change?

S: It's partly because that's the trend. About 4 or 5 years ago, Wiz [Editor's note: Khalifa] sort of made weed accessible to everyone for the new generation. These days, we don't make big prints that cover the whole T-shirt anymore. That trend has kind of passed, so we're going for a more subtle look. And we've matured, too.

In the subtle?

S: Yeah. So you think this is just a pastel yellow sweater? Take a closer look inside the hood—see that little pocket? (He points to a small zippered pocket inside the hood.) What do you think it’s for?

Jeff, one of Tealer's two co-founders, is joining us. He was part of the original duo with Alex, the other co-founder.

Do you miss the shop's slightly more "ghetto" days?

Jeff: Yes, definitely. That said, I’m also glad we moved out of our apartment and now have an office where we can comfortably develop Tealer. But back then, everything happened really fast—we’d have an idea, and within an hour the T-shirt was ready.  If we made a mistake, it didn’t matter—we’d just start over. Today, there’s a process; we’ve become more professional. People are counting on us, too—both our customers and our partners.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

J: I love Paris, but I hope to have other opportunities—to travel. For example, we’ve been working for a year and a half to set up shop in Barcelona. My dream would be to build Tealer teams all over the place. I love getting new projects off the ground. No two months are ever the same. But I could just as easily be fully focused on the Tealer label. I don’t know.

The best weed you've ever smoked:

J: No exaggeration—it’s Tealer Kush. It’s not our doing; it’s a guy in Spain who really liked us and our clothes, so he created a strain just for us. It’s a killer strain—he bred it just for us. It turned out to be a strain with mandarin flavors. It feels like you’re biting right into one. It’s not available from CSC yet. We’re the only ones who know what it tastes like.

When is the next Tealer party?

J: January 21 at the Showcase. Every show is a total blast. I get to spend the evening with guys I looked up to when I was a kid and who I get to play with now. It’s a total trip.

To explore their world, the Tealer website.