Guide Book
A new playbook for smart fashion.
Oakland-born, El Cerrito-bred fashion designer Sam Taylor was at a career crossroads in 2016. His athleisure company, TESH (The Evolution Starts Here) had just folded, and he was debating his next move. The athleisure market was by then so saturated that he thought it wise to swerve into streetwear, popular with Millennials and Gen-Xers alike, and where he felt he could make the greatest impact.
“I knew I didn’t want to do anything that resembled anything else on the market, so I said if I was going to get into streetwear, it had to be more mature,” Taylor says. “I need to do something that’s revolutionary, that’s going to differentiate me from my competitors, and so that’s where the whole tech idea came into play.”
Attending several tech-related seminars, where he learned that technological advancements were already rendering many jobs and businesses obsolete, only reinforced his decision to incorporate high tech into high-fashion streetwear.
“Fashion is the last occupation to embrace technology, so if we don’t start embracing it, then more brands like Sports Authority, Bebe, BCBG and Wet Seal will close. The reason they closed was because of technology, so this is where I’m going to rest my head. I’m going to get into streetwear and maintain the aesthetics of coolness, mature young adult and upscale, but there’s going to be some sort of tech infused into this to differentiate it.”
When Taylor, 45, conceived his new label Silent Panda, named for the humble strength required to make it in the fashion industry, he incorporated state-of-the-art wearable technology, including innovative materials and label-placed QR codes, into each label, which, when swiped by a smartphone’s QR Reader, activates the Silent Panda app and exclusive brand content and offers.
To increase brand awareness, Taylor expects to partner with entertainment and sports figures to develop capsule collections that consumers can then buy to connect more directly with their heroes than they can now over social media. For Taylor, it’s about keeping up with the times.
“As technology grows, the consumer’s smarter now and has more demands and expectations,” Taylor says. “The consumer’s not just gonna shell out $600 to $1,000 for a jacket that doesn’t do anything for them. They want to get the most out of this garment, and technology allows them to do that.”
As certain as Taylor sounds in his pitch, launching a revolutionary line is always a major risk, but the former professional baseball player for the California Angels and Cincinnati Reds is no stranger to successful landings following tremendous leaps of faith.
In 2000, on a flight back home to the Bay Area after being injured and released from his contract with the New Hampshire baseball team Nashua Pride, he resolved, with little more than sketching talent and passion,
to give a fashion design career a go.
The risk paid off. After being admitted into Academy of Art University’s two-year fashion design program, he excelled so rapidly that he left six months early to accept a design position at Outkast Clothing Co., in Atlanta. He went on to become the design director and buyer for Pacific Sunwear’s hip-hop-inspired sister chain D.e.m.o., in Anaheim, and eventually returned to San Francisco to work for Old Navy and Levi’s. It was also in San Francisco that he won the 2005 Gen Art Fashion Talent Award.
In 2009, when retail took a hit from the global economic crisis, Taylor struck off on his own to launch a successful athleisure apparel and footwear brand, TESH Sports. But after one of his main distributors, Sports Authority, went out of business, so did TESH.
As the Oakland resident prepares to launch Silent Panda with an e-commerce website going live on Tuesday, Oct. 10, he’s decided to return to Academy of Art University as a guest product-development and entrepreneurship instructor, to help steer a new crop of aspiring designers toward successful fashion careers. Through this partnership, Taylor will also offer select Silent Panda items for sale at the school’s boutique, Shop 657.
Joan Bergholt, Academy of Art University’s vice president of institutional effectiveness and Taylor’s former instructor and mentor, was excited to welcome him back to the university.
“Sam was a very serious student, having already had a successful career as a baseball player,” Bergholt says. “Students will be able to identify with his experiences from launching his own company and will be interested in the lessons learned and his excitement over his upcoming venture with Silent Panda.”
His 16-year fashion career, largely within the formerly niche market of streetwear, gives him added street cred.
“I wanted to get in and inspire as many students as I could to help them understand how serious this business is and what they have to do in order to be successful,” he says.