Smaller designers flourish with Web retailer

Starting a surf or skate clothing company can be all about who you know and the politics of the industry, Hawaii natives Sean Brady and Adam Paddock learned after a trip to a 2005 action-sports retailer expo.

They toured the rows of companies that had booths at the trade show and wondered why some of the smaller companies weren’t blowing up.

“We thought, ‘We should start a store up and carry some of these lines,’ ” said Brady, who now lives in Newport Beach. “And the idea was born.”

Costa Mesa-based AntiApparel.com is Brady and Paddock’s baby now. The pair decided that opening up an Internet retail shop would allow them to operate it for a fraction of the cost. The pair first brought their plan to Ted Wueste, co-founder of Costa Mesa-based Factor54 at the January 2006 ASR trade show.

“We were mostly concerned with who else they were carrying and why. We can’t be total choosers, but we’re finicky with who we work with because of the way our brand works,” Wueste said. “They told us their story and they seemed like smart kids … and I liked the brands they were looking at, and I liked their model.”

AntiApparel.com is offering the smaller companies a place to flourish.

“The reasons we wanted to start this company is to not be wearing everything that everyone else is wearing,” Brady said.

The online retailer’s best-selling brands are all what Wueste called “semi-underground” and include Fyasko, Tavik, Monument and Atwater.

The website seems to be giving the companies a wider fan base, with orders coming in from all over, including areas where there’s no ocean for miles.

“Any kid in Ohio can go to PacSun and get a Quiksilver shirt,” Wueste said.

But the smaller brands featured on AntiApparel.com haven’t always been able to reach national and international markets as widely as the big guns like Quiksilver, Hurley and others.

Although there were some hiccups — the warehouse got broken into — the company is now running smoothly.