BUTTER GOODS
GARTH MARIANO
It reflects the growing global communality of skateboarding that learning the location of Butter Goods came as a surprise. When I first saw the brand’s clothes in Bankrupt Store, London, a few years ago I made a midlife crisis impulse buy (mega-baggy green cord skatepants with Windows logo-flip embroidery) then followed them on Instagram. The content was global, the skating was good, and I assumed they were probably in the US. But Garth Mariano and his mates have built this excellent skatehouse from Perth, Australia – famously the most geographically isolated city in the world.
“You’re right, it is a semi-conscious thing that we don’t play the Australian card,” says co-founder Garth Mariano. “Part of that’s because we wanted to appear bigger than we were back when we started – an aspirational thing – and part of it is because now, on the internet you can be global. It just takes a lot of work to get there.” Mariano and his childhood skate-bro Matt Evans started spreading Butter in 2008 when they were staring down the barrel of “horrible” conventional employment. They gambled instead on graphic design, and parlaying their passion for skating into something in the spirit of the Aussie skate brands they’d loved as teens but which had at that time faded. Modestly Mariano credits their timing as crucial to their success. “We got to learn the ropes before social media was such a big part of it, and got to make mistakes.
Then we got a second breath when Instagram and Shopify and everything suddenly made selling around the world way easier.”
Recent capsules include a great collaboration with the estate of Charles Mingus, and cross-references to a broad chorus of cool musical artists and genres of music is a strong design subplot. Meanwhile, Butter is an organism in connection with many skating individuals across disparate local scenes. There is no “team” per se, says Mariano, but the brand works with skaters whose style (of skating and being) it likes to create signature lines and designs in collaboration. About the nature of the Butter aesthetic, Mariano is imaginatively non-specific, because what matters more than appearance is spirit. “For me, not just in skateboarding but in style in general, what is good style is authentic and effortless. And I think that’s what skateboarders bring to most things, you know, whether it be how they dress or how they approach life in general. They’re pretty authentic people. So in skateboarding, whether it’s in the execution of tricks or how someone puts an outfit together, that’s where it becomes special to me.”
As for Butter Goods’ working philosophy, he summates: “Just try not to be a dick, don’t step on any toes, and when we can do a little bit of travelling here and there. But honestly, the internet and just working hard are a pretty good formula to follow.”