Nick Sisombath // Collegium
Costa Mesa, July 8 2024
Can you introduce yourself and tell the people what you do/ who you are?
My name is Nick. Founder of Collegium. I started this project in 2015 as a passion project for me as a sneakerhead. Now it’s real life, I’m living the dream of having my own sneaker brand. It's been a long journey. It's been almost ten years now and we're sitting in the first flagship shop. We're opening several more by the end of this year, so we got a lot coming. The journey continues from the garage, to being carried at Nordstrom, to having our first shop, and now to opening the next three shops.
You wear a lot of different caps. What do you like doing the most?
When you start this, you don't really know what you're good at. I think for me, my favorite part of it all is just connecting with people. It's always been like that for me. I think the start of my journey was when I fell in love with sneakers and the people that I connected with. I would always camp out in lines for sneaker drops. Now being on the other side of it, where people are waiting outside for my sneakers is so cool. Even just connecting with people is amazing. I don't take any of that for granted because people are choosing to spend their hard earned dollars with us. We're working to service people and give them the best experience. The least we could do is make sure everyone’s experience is the best that we can possibly make it. That's the enjoyable side for me.
What does Collegium mean to you? Where did you get that name?
It's pretty simple. The basis for me was that I always wanted to start a brand that had a community behind it. You'll hear that word over and over again, because community is super important for my brand. We’re community first, customer first, and metrics and numbers second. So collegium in ancient Rome is a secret society of three or more people that share a passion about anything, could be academics, painting, art, grave robbing, politics, anything like that. We redefined it as a secret society or a group of individuals that are product enthusiasts and share a common interest. For me, that secret society can be a synonym for family, community, and things like that.
You just came back from Paris Fashion Week. How was that?
This was our third Paris fashion week. It’s always an interesting scene. We just rented out a little showroom and showcased our Spring Summer 25 collection. It’s planned out nearly six months to a year in advance. I felt really good about it. We have 4 or 5 new silhouettes that aren't even in our store that we debuted in Paris. Our amazing sales team booked a bunch of appointments and almost every appointment was really happy to see the direction of the brand. We're opening a lot of new accounts globally. So I feel really great about what happened down there.
I was talking to our friends at Open Air who also went out to Paris. They were saying Paris is so different than the US in how it’s a lot more slower paced.
Yeah, I think the culture in Paris or almost anywhere outside of the US is slower paced. In the US we're very head down hustle and bustle. I think in Paris there’s an emphasis on enjoying conversation, community and people. I feel like out here, we've created a work culture where it's go, go, go.
Being predominantly raised here, what does Orange County mean to you? How important is Orange County to you, and how does it compare to everywhere else that you've been?
In the simplest way, it's just home. When we thought of opening our first store, we wanted to do it in our own backyard. We had this amazing success where this was supposed to be a pop up. We had a sign outside that said we're only here for a couple months, which was November to January. It ended up doing so well that we're still out here and it's July of the next following year. It's our home base, which acted as a springboard into stuff that we're doing now. We're opening a store in LA, we're opening a store in Boston, and we're opening a store in a major mall. This all sprouted out by just starting in our hometown and figuring it out.
Do you think you would be where you're at now if you started this in another city, not Orange County?
That's an interesting question. I don't think it matters where you are. It just matters how passionate you are. I think I could have done this anywhere just because I love it that much, and I was willing to do whatever it took. I don't think just because we're in Orange County or in Southern California, it was a launchpad. We didn't get our first big box store until I was on the other side of the earth in Italy, where I was doing a trade show. It had nothing to do with California, had nothing to do with New York, had nothing to do with Vegas. It had everything to do with just willingness. I took a one way ticket to Italy to do this trade show, put up a bunch of sneakers on a wire table and figured out how to get this brand off the floor. It wasn't because I was in California that allowed us to get into big box stores. I was just willing to do anything.
Any favorite places in Orange County that you like to go to to eat or hang out in?
Rodeo 39 has great food. There's great food all across Orange County. There's not really a favorite place because with Orange County, you can get to any great food place in ten minutes.
From growing up as a sneakerhead, to working at Nordstrom, to selling your entire sneaker collection to help fund the start of this brand, what moments along your journey have helped pave you to where you're at now?
For me, it was just pure love. It was just a pure love for footwear and traveling. I grew up playing sports and collecting shoes, which evolved into a love for footwear. After school, I would go to Finish Line or Footlocker. I could name any shoe on the wall and tell you a little about it. I would go on Nike talk, ISS, and study different shoes. I started with dunk exchanges and meetups, then it got bigger and bigger with like Got Sole and StockX. My footwear journey kept growing as well. I was on the early side of it. I started finding out I just like product in general. I was working at Chase as a private banker, but also working at Nordstrom on the men's shoe floor. Back in the day, Nordstrom used to make you wear suits all the time, which is how I fell in love with dress shoes. That's where my eyes started opening up. Like why are your $500 dress shoes more than my $85 pairs of Nike Air Force ones. Most people just like following trends for fashion. For me, it was just a pure love for product knowledge. And that's how we sell Collegium. There’s a story behind it. We don't need to be the coolest brand out there. We just need to believe we created a really good product at a solid price point.
Do you have a favorite full circle moment that you've experienced?
There's no favorites because it's always going to keep evolving. I'm really bad at celebrating the micro wins, but always looking forward to what's next for us. My next favorite moment is coming up in October. I've collected sneakers since I was a kid, whether it was playing sports or just collecting and buy, sell, trade. Now having my own sneaker brand, I guess now thinking about it, it's pretty cool and we're very thankful and I'm very appreciative. To have your own sneaker brand is one thing, but the experience is so much more. I had people camp out at 11pm for the launch of this store. And then to drop a shoe and it sell out on opening day, that's a full circle moment for me. Camping out for a pair of Jordans as a kid and then to come here and be like, dang, people camp out for our stuff. So cool to see. I guess that's one of my favorite full circle moments for sure.
You started manufacturing in Italy right off the bat. What made you decide to do that?
I knew a lot of people that had done t-shirt brands and screen printing. I always thought if I'm going to do something, I want to do something that’s very difficult. I didn’t want to do something that was just lackluster. I wanted to do this and take it seriously. It was for myself. It was blind faith. I have a personality trait that's just like let's just send it. Even to some of the opportunities I have, we're way under bandwidth to do this, but we have to jump when they say jump. That's part of the business, like you can't just sit there. If you're like, I can't pull it off because I'm too young. I can't pull it off because I don't have enough money. I can't pull it off because whatever, it's like you just got to go. Iif you really want to do it, you'll figure it out. And then you'll learn. You'll dig deep and find out by yourself, like, do I really want to do this or do that? We’re almost in year ten, it has to mean I really wanted to do it. Most people that start something, they'll drop it the first year because the first thing they do didn't really hit off.
How has the process been with working with an international manufacturer?
To keep it short, it's never easy. But if you really want to do it you make it happen. We have production that happens overseas on some garments that has me starting calls at 8pm to 4 a.m. Being on different time zones is one thing. Then you have language barriers and then you have stylistic barriers. A European style shoe is very different from an American style shoe. Shapes are different and trends are different. Even shipping, when you don't have any revenue coming in, shipping to Europe or Asia is $150 for one sample. It was a scary journey, but I went all in.
How have you been able to maintain such high quality over the years at such an aggressive price point?
In simplest way, it’s just creating timeless product in the best possible way that I and the team are able to do. It's not about if this is the best product in the world. We're just going to do our best job curating the best product. In the early days, our product wasn’t the best out there, we were still learning. I didn't know what I was doing, but I always asked how do we consistently get better? I’m the type of person with my brand where I’ll tell you about the product, I never like to say I'm a sales person. I would rather people know what they're buying. So that translates to how we create product. For me, it's a transactional thing. This is what you’re getting and this is why I believe it's one of the best things out there for this price point. That's what we try to carry. Our logo has three pillars, which is material, craft and wearability. We have some of the best materials out of Italy. We craft from handmade artisans in Italy. And we spend a lot of time developing the comfort. Like if you're spending X amount of dollars, I want to make sure that you don't hesitate to wear them.
How did you get into furniture and cars and non-fashion interests?
It's a mentality thing. Like if you get into sneakers first, then it develops into clothing. So then you get into fashion, and then after fashion you start to think about culture and lifestyle. Like I like this car. I like this lamp in my room. Again, it’s the root of Collegium, it’s a society or community of product enthusiasts. For me, when I discover something, I kind of go obsessively into it. So for me, it was cars, like, “Oh, what’s the most fire classic BMW I can get into?” And it started with Japanese, JDM cars, and then it became Euro cars. And then I started studying really hard. I don’t like to do anything halfway. I don’t like to get into something and just not know everything about it. It’s like, why do you like that BMW? I know why it was popular. I know why it won races. I know what colors were out there. I know the production dates.” That then becomes synonymous to watches, furniture, clothing, cars. For me, it's just a lifestyle. Just having your own taste and knowing who you are.
Does your lifestyle and non fashion interests bleed into your brand?
Yeah, all the time. Like literally the store we’re sitting in right now has some cars, MCM furniture, postmodern furniture, just like a mixture of just things that I’m into. Our next store is literally me on Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp, throwing offers on really cool, rare things that I like. Stuff I wanted to buy regardless of whether we open a store or not, and I’ll figure out how to make it work in our next store.
How have you seen your style evolve over the years? How has that transcribed in your brand too?
I think we all go through it. Everyone goes through it. We have our cringeworthy eras, whether it’s stacked ripped denim with Chelsea boots or x, y, z. The digital age has allowed us to see so many micro trends super fast. I think as you start buying into smaller trends, you’re like, “That’s actually really not me”. I’ve always just worn a pair of trousers, a plain t-shirt, and the focal point is footwear for me. I just find for me it’s experimenting with micro trends, which is totally normal and fine, and then realizing, “Oh, that’s not me, that’s not for me.” You have to think of life, like it’s easy to zoom in, and you want to be a part of these fast fashion trends and what’s hot and what’s not. But then you think about life and you're like, is my wallet growing with these statement pieces that I'm buying? Then you zoom out, and you're like, “Dang, I just bought this $1,800 jacket or $1,800 pair of trousers,” and you're like, “Oh, I can't even keep up with the next one.” So then you zoom out, like, “How do I find my identity?” Like, “I’m just going to wear this and I’m super comfortable in that” instead of trying to chase the next hot thing. Because at the end of the day, once you chase and then your lifestyle can’t keep up, you're like, “Dang, I look kind of silly still wearing my $2,000 pair of biker ripped denim, and I spent my last paycheck on it. And I can't wear this for the next five years, and I also don't feel comfortable wearing it.” So I think that it's a natural journey. And there’s nothing wrong with finding that. You have to go through that so you can discover. So for me, I'm not chasing any fast fashions. I'm just going to wear what I like. I still get inspired and influenced by micro trends, but I always think "how do I twist it and kind of just make it my own thing?”
Talking about trends more, how important would you say trends are in building your brand?
Trends are important and they're not important. We have customers that come through our doors and buy our Destroyers, which have been around since 2018. And sneakers right now aren't necessarily the trend. Everyone wants to get into derbies, boots, penny loafers, whatever. It's just that cyclical era. So trends are important, but also, we don't try to get blindsided by that. We know what we want to create. And for me, the creation for Collegium is always just the re-imagined timeless rotation of footwear. Whether that be our low-top vintage basketball sneaker, our low-top vintage tennis sneaker, our low-top penny loafer, our moto derby, our boots, or our waffle trainer. I just create a footwear rotation I would want for people and time it at the right time. So I think being knowledgeable about trends and when trends are there and having a silhouette ready to go. We have a sample in the back that was from 2017. We're like, “Oh, it's time to launch this shoe because it's super hot.” But for us, it was always just creating, “What is the ideal rotation of footwear? What should every guy or girl have in their closet?”
How do you bridge a balance of creating a unique look that stands out in this huge, oversaturated fashion area but also be able to reach a wide enough audience to create a successful business?
We don't have the answer to that, but all we can lean on is just believing in what we believe in and saying, “Hey, we don't need to follow the trend.” Sometimes we just need to lean into our clean styling. All of our shoes really have no big branding on it. We always take pride in that we go to Italy like four times a year and go to a bunch of factories to find the next interesting thing that we want to use. I think it's just playing around with that, launching some new silhouettes every now and then. But we don't want to be a brand with 100 silhouettes. We want to be like an In-n-Out or Raising Cane's menu. Like we're good with 15 solid items. And these 15 items will be something that can be shared with your kids. My dad gave me my first pair of Stan Smiths and he took me sneaker shopping. You want those types of moments. You want that timeless moment that you can pass down. We see it all the time. A dad and son will buy a pair, and they share that moment. And that’s super cool. Or a customer’s like, “I’m going to keep these for my kids.” Like, I had a customer that bought a chore jacket, and he got his son's name on the chain stitch of it. So well, I think I think a lot of newer brands get stuck in creating such a niche vibe, a niche look that only appeals to a certain audience.
How are you able to steer away from that?
It's just what I want to do. I don't go into it thinking like, how do we do something better than somebody else? I’m just like let's just be us and hope that there's an audience for us. I think it's great to speak to a particular audience over and over again and really get a heavy following from there. But I think once you capture that audience, how do you then make something for everybody else? It's really your viewpoint on the product. If you want a product that services 500 people, you're more than welcome to just keep doubling down on the 500 people. But for us, I think the vision is grander. We believe Collegium can be a household name, and we believe it can grow from a five person team to a 500 person team, to a 5000 person team. We believe our vision for product can be a household thing. Like simple, timeless things. So we try not to narrow down and get so focused on getting the kids that are on Instagram or getting into these micro trends because at the end of the day, fashion is fickle. I think it's an evolution of what can become timeless and things like that. And we know that those things are temporary.
Why is business so important to you?
I feel like I've seen my fair share of what fashion can look like. And it's bigger. It goes back to the community, it goes back to the business, the family that you're building when you start a company. You want your financial and professional life to progress. You see brands stay small, where there's nothing for a team bigger than more than five. I want to build a company or a brand where the team can build real careers out of. I don't think you can do that by just servicing a micro trend. You have to build a company. In fashion that’s a lot harder to do. I want to think big, and I want to genuinely create a platform where I don’t necessarily have to be a part of it. I knew exactly what I was getting into in my early days in fashion. We're trying to do big things so that you have an option to say, hey, I want to grow within this company here and I want to be here for a long ride. I think we can do a lot more than just having one associate at the store. It’s a two way street. You're working for me, but I'm working for you too, where I'm trying to bust my ass so that we can create a career for you. All those attention to details that my team puts in, we can't do without them. I want to repay that. I want to build that platform with people on the team. Our team is getting bigger every day. They might not know what they want. But it's my job to make sure that we can go beyond that. I've been a part of different fashion brands or companies and seen these very niche focused brands not go beyond that because they're so focused on just that niche. But that's only thinking about yourself. So for me, it's the human aspect. I don't want to ride this journey alone. Yeah. You can make way more money just going to a tech company and doing that. But for me, I want to do something special with a group of people, and just do something where we’ve paved our own path.
How were you able to have a collaboration with Discord? Many other clothing brands would never have thought to collab with such a non fashion company, what made you think to do this?
We started a discord to just create a community. It was pretty much replicating what I enjoyed so much in the sneaker forums. In those forums, there was a general chat to just talk about brands. There was a what did you wear today? There was a buy, sell, trade section. There was a sizing section. We just wanted to recreate that because we knew we had a pool of customers that wanted that same exact experience that I wanted when collecting sneakers. So that's how the discord was created. For that reason, some of the Discord marketing directors that were a fan of the brand thought it was a cool way to use discord. Discord isn't just for gaming, you can use it to build a brand and build a community. And that was interesting to them, which then later, positioned us to do a project together. They loved how a brand owner can use it to create a community. It crossed my mind, like, how do we make this cool. But it wasn't about cool for me. It was just the genuine feeling that the collab needs to be for our community. We love our community. So let's do this project for them. If you guys are down to buy 100 pairs of shoes, we'll give them away and it'll be a thank you to the community and to showcase how you can use discord to really cultivate community for your brand, or your community. That's how we position it, and that's how we still run it to this day.
I think that lasting physical connection is very important to you. So, how important is it to have a physical store for you?
I think it's super important. 90% of the customers that walked through the door never heard of Collegium. So doing cool viral things or making the next reel or doing the next content piece is always cool on Instagram. But it also loses a human aspect. With footwear, it's one of the most high involved purchases. I could buy an extra large t-shirt and if it doesn't fit me, I'm gonna figure it out and it's not that high of an expense. If my shoes are one size too big, I'm not really going to wear them, but I spent $500. So us being shoes innately makes us want to have a retail store. I really believe in the human aspect of business where when you come in, our prerogative isn't to sell you shoes. Our prerogative is to give you a good experience. There's so many digital brands right now. Retail's in a weird space, but it's important to have a human connection with a community because you're able to create long standing relationships with these people. It's so easy to make a sick brand now. The barrier of entry has dropped. For me, I would rather just go back to a physical store. And I think there's an appetite for that where people are going into physical shops. Like dude, I could give two craps about what brands are popping on IG. I just want that human experience again.I want to walk into a store and discover something, and be like, this is dope. I honestly don't care if I bought the hottest, coolest IG brand, because at the end of the day, there's going to be another one next week, so I would rather just have a super dope connection.
I agree. I think it's very obvious you're trying to create a story behind it for someone, a lasting experience. You're not just in it for the money.
Yeah money doesn't really matter because at the end of the day, all the products that you buy, even if it's the most hyped ones, they lose the hype and then they end up being nothing. I'm gonna get $20 from Second Street when I trade it in, whether it's this shoe or that shoe. That's our innate way of combating an oversaturated market. We're hopefully creating a relationship where people like to wear their stuff because they really respect it. I want people to wear it till it's done because they’re a fan of the brand. It has nothing to do with resale. It has nothing to do with what kind of clout am I going to get from this? They just like the product for the product and like the journey. That's as pure as it can get. That's what we hope to achieve.
What’s in store for you and the brand in the future? Any exciting plans?
Yeah. We're going to have three stores coming this year. One of the stores, a full circle moment for me, is hopefully popping up across the street in a major mall. I used to work in that mall. So for us to go from working at Nordstrom, to being carried at Nordstrom, to potentially opening a store in that mall is an insane story. As a kid growing up out here, we used to go to that mall all the time. Opening a store with the likes of Louis Vuitton, Patek, and all these major brands is awesome. We did this from the ground up, from my little Honda Civic trunk to, to opening our next special design store in LA, which is Cars, Coffee and Collegium. A lot of the new silhouettes and brand direction that we're going into is all part of what we got going on. A lot of exciting things. We're just really focusing in. We feel very confident that these next six months are the defining moments of the brand. These six months are the defining moments where we put our head down and say, hey, the six months that we have here can change what we're doing with the brand for the rest of our lives. So that's what we're going to be focusing on. The next stores, and the next concept spaces, and the next designs. And this is hopefully the glow up moment, you know. Yeah man I'm excited.
