After Two Years of Mysterious Campaigning, Deadstock Resurrection Launches On Kickstarter
If you’re on Instagram (like me) and follow the various #denim hashtags, you’ve probably come across Deadstock Resurrection. Gorgeous pictures of vintage workwear and denim soon caught my attention, and I noticed the tease of “breathing new life into the world’s leftovers” posted in the captions. Turns out it was all part of clever promotion for the launch of a brand. Now, almost two years after the logo was posted as the very first picture on the feed, Deadstock Resurrection is ready to launch with much fanfare on Kickstarter.
The Art of Building Suspense
It wasn’t long after the first picture was posted that I stumbled upon the mysterious and semi-anonymous feed. In the beginning, there was no contact info, sales pitch or anything. Only photos of old denim, vintage workwear, and boots. I was drawn in and wanted to know more.
Trying to be a good investigative journalist, I eventually made contact with the man behind Deadstock Resurrection, Peter Overbeek from Amsterdam. When confidentiality was assured between us, I was let in on his project and the daily teaser campaign he was conducting for his brand, amassing thousands of followers on his account.
After many setbacks, Peter is now finally ready to launch his Kickstarter campaign and I can now, exclusively through Denimhunters, reveal more of our confidential conversations of what will be happening with Deadstock Resurrection.
Where Others See Limits, Deadstock Sees Opportunities
Deadstock Resurrection is different from the rest in so many ways. Launching a brand through Kickstarter isn’t breaking news, but while small start-up brands usually see it as a challenge to meet the minimums of fabric suppliers, Peter has turned this to his advantage.
The business model of Deadstock is found in the hashtags #reuse, #reclaim, and #reconstruct, which have appeared in almost every post on the Instagram feed. When I first asked Peter about this he was very quick to respond,
“Everything I design is inspired by vintage workwear and military clothes and made from quality fabrics found all over the world. All will be limited editions.
Popular items can be repeated but not from their original fabric, as I will be sourcing worldwide rolls of selvedge denim and other fabrics that I like, and calculate how many items can be produced and that’s it.
When it’s sold out, it’s sold out!”
All the garments will be numbered with limited edition labels. For instance, 100 yards of an unusual deadstock selvedge will make about 31 pairs of jeans. Rewinding on Peter’s career explains how he arrived at this business setup.
A Philosophy of Great Design and Sustainability
Like most of us, Peter was first attracted to denim in his teenage years. He was a metalhead and his jeans were black.
As a bit of a rebel, he was artistic and went on to design school. He became a graphic designer and eventually landed in the art department of G-Star. There, he worked closely together with the design team, which became the start of his career as a designer. He recalls it, “expanded my knowledge and understanding of the possibilities, design, innovation, and craftsmanship of denim.”
He left G-Star to join another Amsterdam-based denim brand, Kuyichi, whose philosophy matched his better. There, he started building a network of mills, fabric suppliers, and other sources for more unique textiles.
While at Kuyichi, he made the decision to start his own brand. That brings us up to a couple of years ago and the beginnings of Deadstock Resurrection.
How To Make It In the Denim Business
Much like Ben and Cam of HBO’s underrated show, ‘How to Make it in America,’ Peter has had several ongoing pre-launch battles. But while we never got to see how it turned out for the two young New Yorkers in the fictional world, Peter persevered and found reliable sources and producers to overcome the many problems of launching his collection.
The garments will be crafted from start to finish in The Netherlands and Deadstock launches with seven products. In addition to a bandana, mug, T-shirt, and sweatshirt, you have a chambray shirt, denim jacket, and, of course, a pair of five-pocket blue jeans.
The jacket and jeans are made from Nihon Menpu denim, 15.5 oz. and 16 oz., respectively, while the Japanese chambray is 10 oz. and organic. You can get all the details on the Deadstock webshop, but pre-orders must be put in through the Kickstarter page.
In the end, the teaser campaign has proven to be a very effective tool attracting a target market of denimheads and workwear enthusiasts. Click here to go directly to the Kickstarter campaign.
