Union's Chris Gibbs: Notes on Birkenstock, Jordans, Japanese Streetwear and Kendrick Lamar
Chris Gibbs, owner of world-renowned menswear boutique-turned-brand Union LA, is turning 50 this weekend.
The California-based Canadian-Barbadian streetwear empresario (“I'm hyphenated!”) is spending the prelude in London to see his son, Solomon, who is studying men's fashion at Central Saint Martins.
Also, to celebrate the global launch of the Birkenstock x Union collaboration, hence the Birk-y themes of our conversation held in the German stalwart's still-box-fresh creative studio in Truman Brewery, Shoreditch.
“When I told my sons this Birkenstock 1774 collaboration was happening, they were like, ‘Why did you wait so long?!’," Gibbs says, thinking back to the big reveal.
The truth is, it was not for want of trying. "I told them I actually spoke to a guy from Birk at Pitti Fashion Week about eight years ago. I damn near jumped him, shouting 'Yo man, I'm the brand's biggest fan'. And they were like, 'Why didn't you stay in touch with that guy?'. I was like, I reached out to him, but he never got back to me.”
Still, Gibbs never gave a second thought to signing up to collaborate with Birkenstock when they finally approached him to launch a collab this year.
He believes he wasn't ready then but he is now.
Interestingly, he reckons the same of the German brand, despite its 250-year history. “It's just that, in recent years, Birkenstock has been embraced by a more diverse community.”
He's wearing, as you'd hope, his Birkenstock sandal in “beige taupe” which he tells me is a combination of the brand's Boston and Zürich models.
It also comes in “shadow grey” which he's very happy for you and me to call pink.
His are purposefully beaten up –“I like them better that way” – and styled, for now (being the true clothes guy that he is, changes later for the launch event) with some off-white worker trousers, a purposefully roughly-cut deconstructed blue blazer, a lighter blue cardigan, a yellow jumper, beige beanie and his very great grey-black (hyphenated!) beard.
“I love fashion and if you love fashion, you love other people to see you love fashion, right?" he tells me. "You're communicating something to someone else. But I'm not the biggest peacocker, so I do a lot of, as they call it, 'anti-fashion'.”
Entering his fifth decade on Sunday, there's good chance his child-like enthusiasm, together with his apparent patience and humility – surely, reasons for his success – are here to stay.
The rest of our conversation certainly suggests so.
On joining Union
“I started working in the New York store in '96, they opened in '89. I was going to college and I got the job. Back then, it could have been The Gap. Like, it was just a job. A job to get me through school. When I finished school I frequently travelled to Paris, London, Japan etc. before moving to LA in 2003 where I started working for the store there. Here, I was doing the buy for both stores.”
On taking over Union
“The big recession hit in 2009 and they closed down the New York store in 2010. They were about to close down the LA store too which is when I made a deal with the owner of the LA store, Eddie Cruz to take over. It was an incredible moment – scary, but incredible.
“I didn't have any money but he helped me finance it which was great, but I inherited a lot of debt. It took me about 10 years to dig out of the debt, his debt, but I took the opportunity, and that was almost fifteen years ago.
“I went from being the t-shirt folder to the owner – that's a career highlight.”
On Japanese streetwear
“We were kind of the store that introduced the Western world to Japanese streetwear. That's where my Union chapter started – when we began embracing Japanese streetwear – bringing it out of Japan to LA when I joined the Union there in 2003.
“I first went to Japan around 2000/2001 and I was blown away. The culture there; the attention to detail. Their appreciation for clothes back then versus where we were at was wild. We were selling a $20 T-shirt and it's hung on a rack. You'd go there and $20 T-shirts were folded on marble tables. So, just to see how my culture was their subculture – the appreciation and how they were elevating things. Even the way I've designed the Birkenstocks is more Japanese than anything else. It's my favourite place to go; it's where I visit for inspiration. I love the way they look at things.”
On buying Birkenstocks in Japan
“I'd always come back with a pair of Birks in the early 2000s because they got to do different shit. And it was always better. They had the felt ones; they had pop colours. They had lots of the Birkenstock Zürichs. I always used to get that shit for my wife and at some point she was like, OK, don't get me Birkenstocks. And I was like, yeah, but these new ones are so dope!”
On the Union x Birkenstock 1774
“There's a narrative where we could've picked the Boston, the Zürich, the Milano or some other – you know, there's a bunch – and picked a colour or unique fabric and called it a day. But I really wanted to do something new and different as Birkenstock has always been on my list of dream collaborators.”
“Virgil [Abloh] famously once said that a designer should change a design by 3-5%. It's about changing something up to make it interesting and new, giving people a reason to buy it, but don't change it so much that it's this new foreign thing that turns people off. I'm always trying to do that trick. I was also thinking when designing this that I might just get one shot at this so I want it to be something I wear a lot.”
On the silhouette's name, “Bimshire”
“We spent like a month offering names, and legally we couldn't do any of them. In the end I was like, Okay I've given every name of every neighbourhood I lived in, every street I ever lived on...
“Anyway, half my heritage is Barbados, and the locals there – as well as ex-pats – appropriate the name the UK first called it when they found it: Bimshire.
“And I thought, maybe this name is so obscure there won't be any legal issues.”
On Birkenstock's place in a sneakerhead's collection
“As a guy who wears sneakers all the time, I need the pivot.
“Allow me to compare it to American football. You'll have two running backs: one's a speed running back and one's a power running back. You need those two sides to your footwear collection. You want the hype sneaker with the crazy colours that are hard to get and you want the dope, indelible classic piece which, to me is the Birkenstock.
“If you're wearing a hype sneaker every single day you're going to look like a try-hard. You need the balance.”
On his sons being involved in Union in the future
“I really love the idea that my sons can become this new generation's voice for Union. I'm about to turn 50...”
On Union elevating from boutique to brand
“We're growing into a new era of who we are – putting our brand first. Hopefully, we're unique and people are into that. And if that's true, and if we can expand on that, I want to take it as far as we can. I would love to come to Europe.”
On Union potentially coming to London
“Historically speaking, as a mixed-brand store, London already had what we did. So, there was no real need for us to be here.
“As for our newer self, I hope that we're going to be making stuff and sharing ideas and stories that are new and unique to the UK. But the first thing I'd want us to do is re-open in New York.”
On how his experience in retail informs his approach to product
“Since I started as stock and evolved to shop staff, to manager to buyer and eventually to owner, I have a good understanding of each aspect of the business. And so I design for retail. I'm thinking about the guy/woman/kid etc. who walks in... how they're going to be drawn to and appreciate the product. Sometimes, I add an aspect to a product simply for shelf appeal.
“Having that tool is very important to me. When I talk to other people in the industry who have also come up that way and found success – my good friend Jerry Lorenzo [founder of Fear of God], for example – who used to work at Diesel, he gets it. He's told me before that working at Diesel taught him everything he needs to know about this business.
“It's why I told my son to experience Union before he left LA to go to school here. I told him to go touch every brand, feel it and ask questions. Why does one T-shirt cost $20 and one cost $100? Go ask why. There's always an answer there – you might not like the answer, but there always is one.”
On forthcoming projects with Jordan and Nike
“Our next Jordan [1 High] will be our really big moment of next year. It comes out in the first quarter.
“We're also working on a Nike story for '26 – that one is going to be really fun. We're, so to speak, unlocked a new offence for how we attack Nike. Working with them is so incredible.”
On other upcoming Union collaborations
“We've done a new BornxRaised collection which I'm super excited about.
“We have worked with one of my favourite super obscure brands out of Japan called Discovered – it makes some really, really cool stuff. It's really big on deconstructing and putting things back together. We've done a capsule collection with them.
“We've got a project coming with 40 Acres and a Mule [Spike Lee and Monty Ross' film production company]. That's been a no.1 company I've wanted to collaborate with for a very long time.”
On Kendrick Lamar
“I was in a friend's office the other day, and we were on a Zoom call with someone from the NFL. And they were talking about how they were talking to Kendrick [co-founder of pgLang, a multi-disciplinary company that collaborated with Union in 2023] and his team had mentioned us in conversations around the Super Bowl. But I don't know – we'll see.”
The Union x Birkenstock 1774 Bimshire is now available on the Birkenstock 1774 webstore, and also at Bstn and End.
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