Today we had the pleasure of sitting down with Andile a.k.a "scotch" from Designer Original Product Enterprise and chat about the latest POP-UP space @DOPEstore.
iamsodope(IaSD): How are you Cap?LOL
Andile: I'm good bro....happy I made it into 2012.
IaSD: So tell us about OLIskateboards?
Andile: Oli skateboards is a very special project....that I started working on in 2004.It was my first move into the world of designing....and skateboarding was really taking off at that time and I wanted to design something cool, something that wasn't typical and that's how I came up with Oli. I worked on this for about a year and six months and things were going great and the product I was producing was growing,so naturally I wanted a space for my brand.
IaSD:Yeah??
Andile: Yeah....but i had no knowledge on how and where to even begin.....and money to support two businesses was going to be really tough to find.So I decided to get more experience by relocating to a new city where I could focus on my goals.
IaSD:Where did you go?
Andile: Moved to Brisol in England and that's where things started falling into place and the vision started coming clearer. Worked for a really dope company called NEXT for three years and that's where I learned about store operations.
IaSD: And OLI?
Andile: The plan was to come back and open an OLI skateboards store in Durban.....but after being exposed to so much when I was in Europe....I felt that I had to do something better,build a world that would bring together everything cool.....That is how the company Designer Original Products Enterprise was born.So to answer that question you asked me ealier... Oli is the reason for D.O.P.E
IaSD: Why the return now?
Andile: Well I felt the time was right for the space to pay homage to reason its around....and also because with the store being finished, there is more time to design products. Also the area we in needs a skate shop,the amount of kids that skate in the city is insane....but there is no place where they can get skate goods is silly.
IaSD: Where to from here?
Andile: Well Oli skateboards is a Pop-Up store for now so lets wait and see.Its here till Feb and in-between all of that we are looking at hosting a skate comp in a few weeks, we've already had AV13 premier and more product is coming in this month..who knows whats next.
IaSD: Should we expect a stand alone OLI store?
Andile: That would be a dream come true!
IaSD: Thank you for taking the time to speak to us.
Andile: No worries.
all images shot by JEFF RIKHOTSO.
