How Cav Empt Stayed True to its Roots

Despite already being in an existential tailwind, the world of fashion has been thrust into an even more acute crisis. Before the pandemic, the world of luxury had spent the last decade grasping desperately for that illustrious buzzword “authenticity,” shoving collaborations and pseudo-streetwear-inspired looks down runways and, in turn, our throats. Now, with in-person retail shuttered and political patience for high earners waning, the fashion business — along with a handful of its “streetwear” interlocutors — is faced with an unpleasant look in the mirror. 

This isn’t true for Cav Empt, a brand born as something of an escape route from the consumerist mores of high fashion. Founded by Bape and Billionaire Boys Club alumni Toby Feltwell and SK8Thing, the brand fits comfortably in the role of antihero. It defies the conventions of consumption at every level of its operation. In the early days of the pandemic, we caught up with Toby Feltwell, who discussed the strange state of the world. 

It’s a strange time for brands like yours, one that has always been more about depth as opposed to exposure.

Yeah, totally. I think the three of us that basically do the brand, have all come down that path, to this inevitable destination; there’s been no sort of planning. So much is just following the links. It just sort of happens, but I was always interested in a similar background, skateboarding, music. In things that offer an opportunity to find out more about what’s behind it, where it came from, and how it links to other things, rather than things that feel an obligation to completely sell themselves and explain themselves immediately.

I think now more than ever, there’s this panic around authenticity in fashion.

And I think we have a whole new type of consumer now, who is a lot more engaged with themselves, whether they want to be or not. Whereas I think, before, a lot of consumerism was based in escapism, where it was like you’re buying into something to kind of avoid who you were, what you were, whatever you were trying to kind of get away from.” Now, what do people do with a consumer base that is completely self-empowered? It’s been interesting to watch how the brands who were successful in the previous version of society have been struggling to sort of find something to grasp onto what we’re in now. 

For you guys, has this whole situation given you any different perspective on how to approach the brand?

What we do, to some degree, comes out of some sense of dissatisfaction or boredom. But when the events of the outside world are constantly changing, it’s quite difficult to work out how to react to that. And it sort of stopped us in our tracks for a little while. I mean, we started doing the brand in response to a sort of feeling of flatness. There was a certain stage after the earthquake in 2011 where things were very unknown, so there seemed to be a gap and a need for something new to happen. 

But I don’t really feel the same about where we’re at in this current situation, although it definitely feels like a gap. It just sort of feels like there’s a certain sense of waiting or like, ‘when is the next thing going to happen?’ It’s a fascinating time to just be watching what’s going on. But in terms of how that fixes into what we’re doing, I think it’s still unfolding. I think we’re just watching it as much as anybody else. “I mean, if nothing else, what’s been going on since last year has opened up people’s minds to the possibility that there are different ways for things to be organized, and they don’t have to follow what they’ve learned about society to this point.”

Do you feel like we’re at a moment now where streetwear has a role to play in the future of the way youth engage with culture?

The best thing you can say about streetwear as a phenomenon is that it’s self-created. So it’s a spontaneous fashion that’s graded by people on the street, and that comes with various sorts of baggage. But the best part of that is that the idea that anybody can just create it or be a part of it. So it would be nice if people, in general, were able to have that understanding, that you can start your own thing. Because I think much of what’s gone on in commercial society in general, is designed to push people into an exclusively consumer role, so that your job is to just buy stuff, and that you don’t really create anything. The way that things are made is completely invisible, and you’re just at the end of a pipeline. 

But something that I’ve noticed over the years is when you get people who are into what you’re doing, but they react to it in a very kind of consumer-minded way. So their understanding of interacting with somebody who’s making something is regulated in the way that they’re just like buying something from Amazon. There’s not really an understanding that there are people on the other end of the process, doing this. And I think that serves to make people feel that they are just in this kind of consumer position, and doesn’t inspire them to feel that they can actually contribute something themselves.

I wonder what you think about the push towards sustainability that a lot of fashion brands have made?

I think that there are people in those businesses who are genuinely conflicted about it and would like to make real change, but at the level, those things currently exist, they’re just marketing. I think that it’s possible that people can quite easily be satisfied with a message of something happening rather than the reality of anything changing. .

It makes it sort of difficult to go against the grain

Yeah, I mean, there was a moment when it got made, very clear, and really obviously that the currency was popularity. So, you get this sort of matching of the coolest thing as the most popular thing. Which is kind of weird. It’s a difficult environment for people to try and create something that’s alternative.

How do you guys navigate creating within that? 

We do very little other than put up products. That’s the major output of what we do online. And I think that’s what people want to see. But we haven’t made that much effort. I mean, it’s actually quite a long time since I’ve spoken to a journalist. Because it always seems a bit cheesy to explain what you’re doing. And it feels like a sort of sales operation. And as you’re saying, I’ve always been drawn to things that you have to kind of make a bit of an effort and find out what’s going on. But we’re also not trying to be deliberately obscure.

Has the pandemic influenced or changed the way you release things?

It was clear to us that this was one of the nails in the coffin of physical retail. It’s been going in that direction very clearly, people’s willingness to buy some kind of quiet, esoteric, weird piece of clothing online has really changed, and it’s not going back in the other direction anytime soon, as far as I can tell. 

Offices and high-end retailers have been the cornerstone of some of the worst things about the development of cities. So it’s going to be interesting to see what’s left. 

That’s something I’ve actually spent a lot of time discussing with people here. We very well might see kind of a very similar thing to what you read about London in the 1980s of the rave scene. Just out of the pure availability of space.

Do you feel like the brand has served itself well by not getting too big?

When we started, I think we had the possibility in our mind. “We know how to do this. We could do something and just cynically make it as big as possible and cash out.” But then partway we realized that we actually don’t have the skills required to do that. 

But I think the other thing that we realized is that all of our experience up to that point had shown us that the sort of road that goes to more, and bigger, and new horizons, is exciting up to a point. But it inevitably leads you away from the reason that you started doing what you’re doing in the first place.