Buying In - (Page 22) 22 rob walker the hundreds Bobby Hundreds, needless to say, is not particularly impressed by the likes of Hello Kitty, or Marc Ecko, or any of the brands at Magic. Well, that’s not completely true. There’s at least one brand that Bobby Hundreds believes in. It’s called the Hundreds. This is the brand that he and his business partner, known as Ben Hundreds, founded in 2003. The Hundreds came about when Ben and Bobby met not while skateboarding, but at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, where they had some firstyear classes together. They bonded over their mutual interests in art, music, and design—and their mutual horror of becoming the respectable suit-wearing drones their parents wanted them to be. Seeking a more fulfilling alternative, they decided to start something of their own: a brand. The Hundreds sold Tshirts, with designs created by Bobby. Ben runs the business side. And that’s why they were at Magic. They had a booth, and they were selling their shirts to retailers, meeting with magazine editors and trend consultants, and networking. They had created their first line of shirts less than two years earlier. Department store chains were too mainstream for the Hundreds; instead, they wanted to get their T-shirts into certain skateboard shops or independent “streetwear” stores. Their bête noir was Urban Outfitters, which they saw as the ultimate corporate vulture. The first store they set their sights on was Fred Segal, a trendsetting boutique in Santa Monica. They showed up one day in 2003 and “ambushed” the buyer. “There are fifty new T-shirt lines that come out every day,” Bobby explained to me, so they knew that theirs would rise or fall on the strength of the Hundreds as a brand. “We really
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