MARKETPLACE: DISC LONDON

With our Incoming Marketplace site focused on highlighting youth owned brands, tastemakers and selected products we’ve been working with a variety of brands and people to create a site catered to young consumers. With that goal in mind this and each week until the Marketplace we’ll be featuring our favourite selections, one of those is Disc London. We interviewed it’s founder Harry Salmons to learn more about the brands mission and goals.

MEET THE FOUNDER HARRY SALMONS:

Hi. I’m Harry Salmons, I’m 20-years-old and from the UK.

After studying art throughout school I now study Art History at university alongside DISC. I also have a design studio called TITLE.

DISC really is an extension of everything I’ve ever been passionate about. I’ve always been studying and making art throughout school and have been obsessed with brands my whole life. From my first pair of NIKE’s to Pokemon cards, I’ve always been a consumer fascinated by modern culture. The brand is really my personal mark on this internet-era zeitgeist we’re experiencing.

After university I want to take my ideas further with DISC and to work with and for some great brands… and have a shoe with NIKE.

Tell us more about the DISC brand and the Inspiration behind its inception...

In my final year of high school I was doing some graphic design work for a friend who had a clothing brand. I had always wanted my own brand and while I was working on it I realised that there wasn’t much I was helping with I couldn’t do myself. So I decided to start my own.

The inspiration behind DISC is that moment of realisation. The brand is a homage to the message that in the age of the internet, the only thing preventing you from creating a big idea is not starting it.

Making my own brand has made me realise that the barriers to entry were all inside my head. Nowadays, if you want your own brand you can just make one.

What's your brand's mission and what values do you involve in your development process to maintain the integrity of this goal?

DISC is about experiencing the inconceivable power of creativity, connectivity and access the internet provides us all with. We want to share the feelings of optimism we have surrounding the digital age and to encourage others to act on it.

Recently we’ve been exploring different ways we can share this idea with more people. It upsets me that 47% of the world still doesn’t have access to the internet and that means there’s a lot of people out there who have amazing ideas and don’t have the means to act on them. In an effort to begin to change this, earlier this year we did an end of year sample sale raising money for a UK charity called Computer Aid International. Their mission statement is to end digital poverty worldwide, providing professionals in impoverished countries with second-hand, donated computer equipment. We want to share the possibilities of the digital age we take for granted with as many people as possible, so this is definitely a group we’ll continue to work with.

Our generation has grown up in a digital age where anyone can start and promote a brand from their laptop or iPhone, how do you think this has influenced the development of DISC?

It has influenced the brand in every way, so much so that it’s in our motto: 'a product of the internet’.

It’s so obvious to me that without the digital age I’m fortunate enough to be a part of, owning this brand would almost be an impossibility. Think about it - pre-internet clothing brands had the enormous cost of a brick-and-mortar store, had to rely on newspapers and physical billboards for advertising and didn’t have the ease of online retail that we have today.

To understand that is to also understand that the ease in which we can share information and ideas with people in 2021 is a huge privilege. It’s that enthusiasm I try and pour into my brand.

DISC LONDON / Tap to enlarge

(SOURCE: Disc London)

Tell us about the Inspirations behind your second collection...

Our second collection (releasing 26th Feb) is titled ‘Through thick and thin’. We’d been planning a winter collection for ages but it kept being repeatedly put off again and again due to the ongoing pandemic. As a result, the title is a homage to the perseverance and intuition our generation has shown during these difficult times. I’ve seen more brands being created, more ideas being shared and more people fulfilling their aspirations remotely than ever before since COVID began. We meant this collection as a nod to the internet generation’s role in this difficult time on planet earth.

Where do you hope to see the brand in the future?

The goal has always been to work with amazing people on amazing things, to be stocked in some big retailers and curate some events and retail spaces.

I’ve had the vision for so long of a retail pop-up space that doubles as a gallery for young artists and friends to show their work, a place for workshops, talks. The concept is, sort of, ‘what if we could bring the power of DM’s into real life?’. I truly believe that conversation and accessibility is key.

Learn more about DISC below! While you’re at it give them a follow as well.

The DISC® Collection 2 'Through Thick and Thin' releases on the DISC webstore 26th February.

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