Homeboy Brandbook

The history of Homeboy Loud Couture – How the German skateboard clothing brand Homeboy created the blueprint for street inspired apparel in the 1980s.

BUDDHA MONK

THE STORY OF STREETWEAR PIONEERS: HOMEBOY LOUD COUTURE

How

the German skateboard clothing brand Homeboy created the blueprint for street inspired apparel in the 1980s.

Here’s a surprising streetwear history fact: One of skateboarding’s first and most influential urban apparel brands, Homeboy, was not born in the rugged streets of New York City but the European banking capital of Frankfurt, Germany.

The brainchild of surfer and boardsports apparel pioneer Jürgen Wolf, Homeboy barged onto the skateboarding scene in 1988 ready to shake things up by producing “Loud Couture”. Backed by a high-profile skateboard team, the brand created a new category in board sports retail with its extensive collection of street-themed soft goods inspired by hip-hop, graffiti and action sports culture.

At the time, skateboard clothing was mostly an afterthought in an industry dominated by hardgoods manufacturers making wheels, trucks, and boards. But Homeboy blazed its own trail as a pure-play clothing brand and became one of the early pioneers of streetwear.

“35 years ago, I founded Homeboy as a skateboard clothing brand. Just that… Skatewear!” said Jürgen Wolf.

Lost treasures:

Jürgen Wolf digging through the Homeboy archives for ILLUMINATED PAPER, N.Y.

The rest is history: Homeboy created the mold for street-inspired looks by introducing staples such as the coach jacket, Xerox-style graphics and workwear-inspired pieces into skate attire.

„But the biggest bang was the development of the world‘s first baggy pants.“

DOWN AND OUT IN L.A.

Back in 1988, Jürgen Wolf was in Los Angeles. He already carried heavy-hitting labels such as Airwalk Skateshoes and Eastpak. He was on the lookout for new labels that had more clothing in the program and Airwalk was a footwear-only company.

He simply needed some extra heat to sell to his retailers. He was looking for cool T-Shirts and Sweatshirts. But there was nothing. So he decided to start his own brand

So he picked up a pen and headed to Venice Beach to put his own vision for a new apparel brand on paper.

STRAIGHT FROM THE STREETS

Pre-digital workflows: Homeboy logo design, original size with embroidery instructions for manufacturer.

Wolf scribbled down a logo and a few designs for his new clothing brand:

Hand-made stylistics: Original 1980s Homeboy T-shirt design, glued on paper for screen-printing.

This was new – and beyond just boardsports and surf or skate style. This was coming straight from the streets

“Somehow I had the word ‘Homeboy’ in my head, since I was really into hip-hop at the time,” said Jürgen Wolf, adding: “I was already pretty much over the whole skate rock thing“

URBAN LEGENDS

„Who needs Haute Couture?“

The year 1988 is considered the break-out year of Hip-Hop. Cult bands like Public Enemy, Run-DMC, N.W.A or Ice-T, swirled upt the scene not only musically but also fashionably. Homeboy sensitively picked up the vibes of rap culture and the mentality of the artists and formed them into fashionable originals.

Who needs haute couture? Original ‘Loud Couture’ T-shirt design.

Then it was time for some sleight of hand. Some street-style hustle. When Jürgen Wolf presented the pieces from the new ‘U.S. brand’ Homeboy to his sales reps.

“I said that I hopped on an inland flight from L.A. to New York City and met the guys from Homeboy on the Lower East Side. The coolest dudes ever! Really into Skateboarding, BMX and Hip-Hop. Straight from the streets! And… here’s the collection!”

The sales reps loved Jürgen Wolf’s new clothing brand. At the next big tradeshow for boardsports retailers, Overlook distribution showcased Homeboy Loud Couture as the latest American brand next to Airwalk to an overwhelming response.

“Customers bought our gear without questions asked. They liked the stuff. If I would have told the actual truth, my reps would have probably told me, ‘You gotta be out of your mind! You’re just a shitty distributor. All your clothes suck,’” said Jürgen Wolf.

On that note, a small mutiny did erupt among his reps when Wolf finally came clean one year after launching Homeboy. “They were all really bummed and implored me to tell everyone the truth. Except this one rep, he was a bit older and more experienced. When they were done venting their anger, he looked around the room and asked: ‘So, have you sold all your product this season?’ And when everyone replied yes, he said: ‘Good, then shut up and keep selling. Nobody needs to know!’”

And nobody did. It would take years until Wolf opened up to his best retailers about Homeboy’s little secret. “And we never, ever told the end consumers. Back then, you were pretty much nothing as a German brand. Nobody would have bought it,” said Jürgen Wolf.

US FLAVOR MADE IN GERMANY

In hindsight, the origin story was a smart move. “There was no internet back then, so nobody could check on our story,” said Jürgen Wolf.

boy products proved strong sellers and the baggy pant has finally revolutionized the jeans market.

Looking back, Jürgen Wolf is also proud of having pioneered what would become a major streetwear trend in the 90s: “The Coach Jacket is one major reason for our fast success back in the days. Hundreds of thousands were sold in more than 40 countries worldwide. It helped showing our big brand logo to the masses. Homeboy was the first brand worldwide putting this jacket into a clothing line. All others followed us.”

Now all Homeboy needed was a convincing catalogue – not yet called a “Look Book” in the 1980s – to create some brand magic. The grimy city streets of New York City would have been perfect for setting the tone, but Homeboy lacked the marketing budget for such an elaborate production.

Jürgen Wolf and Homeboy cocreative Holger Dahlen repping their brand back in 1995

So the hustle continued.

For the right street-level backdrop, the Homeboy crew scoured Frankfurt in search of the grimiest, dirtiest corners they could find. And plenty dirty it was. The first European city to boast a legitimate crack cocaine problem, Frankfurt is home to NYC-style skyscrapers and an eclectic mix of street characters.

Often referred to as ‘Mainhattan’ for its impressive skyline and location on the Main river, the European banking capital offered the appropriate street-level aesthetics for Homeboy, without breaking the travel budget.

Vintage American cars and graffiti completed the fashion shoot that built a strong foundation for Homeboy’s image in catalogues, ads, and hang tags placed on apparel.

Family Affair: Homeboy 1992 Catalogue.

REAL SKATE INFLUENCE 1989

Hip packs and sweat pants: Homeboy Loud Couture skateboard magazine ad from 1989.

Aside from urban stylistics, Homeboy managed to keep an ear to the street by involving skateboard athletes as brand ambassadors and creative consultants. Most prominently, pro skateboarder and musician Claus Grabke came on board in 1989 as a headline team rider and creative guide behind the scenes.

“He was in charge of the skate team and designed countless graphics for us,” remembers Wolf.

Claus Grabke stacked the Homeboy skate team with international rippers including Jeff Hedges, Marc Mitzka, Aaron Deeter, Anders Pulpanek, Lee Ralph and Noah Rector. Despite Homeboy’s street-oriented approach, the pro team mostly consisted of vert skaters, who attracted tons of coverage – with prominent logo placements – in the international skateboard media

Rooted in skateboarding: 1989 ad featuring international team rider Jeff Hedges.

“Our guys always had editorial coverage at contests and such as well, so Homeboy and our logos and designs were really prominent,” said Wolf.

Further expanding the blueprint for a street-inspired clothing brand, Homeboy insisted on changing up their logo pretty much every season – which has long since become the standard modus operandi for streetwear labels.

“We changed the logo all the time. People didn’t understand that at all and said, ‘Why do you have to change the logo so many times? Coca-Cola only has one logo and it‘s been that way for 100 years!’”said Wolf, adding: “I didn’t really care, I just did it“.

Street style: Homeboy team rider

“We changed the logo all the time. People didn’t understand that at all“

MAJOR NAME FAME

Broadening its focus beyond just skate boarding, the brand also sponsored BMX riders, rappers and hip-hop stars, further engraining Homeboy into Europe’s budding action sports scene and urban culture. Just as Jürgen Wolf did in Skateboarding, he also gave stuff to a few emerging artists with clothing, some of which would have their big break in the 1990s.

A wise move. Perhaps Homeboy anticipated at that time what very many years later triggered the Influencer boom.

These artists included influential Frankfurt rapper and producer Moses Pellham, who was 16 years old when Homeboy started flowing him gear. Over the next decade, Moses P. sold millions of records under his own name and with protégées including rapper Schwester S. and R&B sensation Xavier Naidoo, who later modeled Homeboy’s mens suits in the mid-1990s.

Wolf’s long-time business buddy Holger Dahlen, who came on board in 1990 bet on the right horse by sponsoring a German rap act known as „Die Fantastischen Vier“ from Day 1. The massively popular Deutsch-rappers wore Homeboy on the cover of their best-selling Sony-produced album and in German teen magazine Bravo – engraining the brand in the minds of millions of young mainstream customers.

“With these music acts we were fortunate to reach an audience beyond skateboarding, people who listened to Hip-Hop music. Plus, features in Bravo magazine like teaching the Fanta Vier guys how to snowboard, reached the kinds of huge audiences you can only dream of today.”

The close intersection with the urban culture also led Homeboy to incorporate baggy pants into their line up as early as 1991. “The retailers were not digging it at all when we rolled out our baggies, but they soon came around as the rest of the scene caught up on the trend. Baggies have been a staple in our line ever since.”

With booming sales came the freedom to experiment. Wolf started producing snowboard boots, surfboards, wetsuits, wake boards and snowboards under the Homeboy brand name, further transcending established boundaries.

“This was at a time when these individual groups, although they figured under the headline ‘action sports’, couldn’t really get along with each other. I didn’t care, and I didn’t want to have to change clothes every time I went from one sport to the other. Plus, when we fall down, we all bleed the same red blood anyway.”

As another prescient move, Wolf points out 1992’s release of Homeboy’s Gas Station apparel collection, replete with service segment-style uniforms and corporate brand logo influences that would later fuel the ‘workwear ’ trend. “This was 2 years before the big work wear companies discovered the street market,” said Wolf.

HOMEBOY X PUMA

„199 I contacted Puma at ISPO and simply asked about a PUMA Oldschool,“ says Jürgen Wolf. „No one knew what I was talking about. Until they finally tracked down the oldest Puma employee at the booth, who, based on my quickly made drawing, identified it as a CLYDE. I asked if they could not remake this shoe for me in black, blue, green and red. 6 weeks later I got a call with an invitation from Puma headquarters, drove there and saw „my“ 4 shoes on an infinitely large meeting table, asked for an exclusive deal for 2 years and got it for my company Overlook. Cheekiness wins out, I thought to myself.“

The Homeboy x Puma Collab from 1993 is probably the oldest collaboration worldwide.

„I just made it back then without asking anyone from Puma because no one would have known what to do with it anyway.“, said Jürgen Wolf.

Homeboy Pricelist 1993

EXPANDING INTO FOOTWEAR

The year 1993 marked an important fork in the road for Jürgen Wolf’s business model. Having just started his new apparel label Original Battle Gear (OBG) for the emerging motocross, snow sports and budding downhill mountain bike markets, he decided to double down on focusing energy on his own labels. These labels also included forays into hardware such as the successful mountain bike brand Cycle Craft, a pioneer in full-suspension bicycles.

At the same time, his biggest import brand, skateboard shoe company Airwalk, was struggling. From a strategic perspective that opened up a new product segment for Homeboy: footwear.

Blueprint for success: Original Homeboy shoe design sketches by Walter Telford, New York.

“Up until then, I was only allowed to produce work boots because of the Airwalk deal. Now I was free and developed the collection together with former Airwalk designer Walter Telford,” said Jürgen Wolf, who had seen the potential for a new wave of low-cut, street-savvy shoes as he also was the exclusive distributor of the PUMA CLYDE model that was blowing up on the streets at the time

As it turned out, Walter Telford had just the right formula for the early 1990s streetwear era. Although going from soft goods to shoes presents a major leap of faith, Homeboy’s foray into footwear became a major success.

“His sketches were amazing in terms of detail and technical perfection. I completely focused on Homeboy at the time and we made a huge turnover in footwear sales alone. Those were crazy times.”

Standout shoe releases for board sports included the skate-oriented cup sole models ‘G-Force’ and ‘Speed’, which was fairly new for the time.

Models like the mid-top suede ‘Warp’ and rubber toe-capped ‘Record’ cultivated a low-key, urban aesthetic in understated colorways.

Cold as ice: Homeboy offered a full line of snowboard boots in the late 1990s. This ad was promoted by CYPRESS HILL.

Keeping in touch with the burgeoning snowboarding scene, Homeboy created its own line of snow boots that carried the signature street-inspired looks into the snow segment.

Models like Stalefish, Shockwave and Terror featured the brand’s ‘H’ logo next to color paneling in urban-inspired colorways and intricate lacing systems. Looking ‘street’ on the mountain was now a reality.

STARS WEARING HOMEBOY

Raw style: Rapper and Wu-Tang Clan founding member Ol’ Dirty Bastard (RIP) for Homeboy, 1998

MAC

Advertisements for Homeboy shoes not only featured athletes, but a next wave of urban artists such as rappers Cypress Hill, Wu-Tang Clan, M.O.P. and much more.

The brand also released its own compilation CDs – back before MP3s took over –featuring affiliated artists.

Throughout the late 1990s, Homeboy continued to push the boundaries in the apparel segment by releasing full-fledged outerwear collections replete with ‘puffy’ jackets and heavy-duty sweatshirts.

CYPRESS HILL

CRAIG

BUDDHA MONK

RIDING THE

Homeboy was firing on all cylinders and when the internet became the next frontier for global businesses, Jürgen Wolf teamed up with a venture capital partner to join the digital gold rush.

As the first step, they took over publishing house B&D, home of action sports publications such as Monster Skateboarding, Snowboarder, Surfers, MTB Downhill, Moto-X and more. In April 2000, their online retail platform for action sports, Cyber Pirates, was ready to launch on the stock market.

From today’s perspective, Cyber Pirates offered an innovative ecommerce approach: “I not only sold my own brands online, but we offered labels such as Burton to carry their products via a commissions deal. Back then, lots of brands were still hesitant to launch their own online stores, so we sold their gear online for them while they handled shipment. In return, we received 25 percent commission on each sale,” said Wolf.

The concept garnered a substantial response in the industry and Wolf had high hopes for taking Cyber Pirates public. “Except four weeks before going public, the whole Internet Bubble burst in march 2000.”

Practically overnight, Wall Street had crushed Homeboy’s street dreams and Wolf had to face the realities of rebuilding his business from the ground up.

Homeboy Ads in the 1990s

Original flavor: Homeboy apparel advertisement from 1997.

BACK WITH A MESSAGE

Back in business: Jürgen Wolf and son Julian at a collection launch event.

The end?

Not quite so soon. Business circumstances aside, Homeboy had left a substantial impression in the European boardsports scene. 2017 Wolf’s son Julian pulled an old big-logo hoodie out of the archive and rocked it to a club party, the response was off the hook.

“Dad! People freaked out at the club! They’re totally into it, you have to bring Homeboy back!” said Julian, who followed in his father’s footsteps as a surfer and skateboarder.

Having kept all the original artwork and screenprinting films – plus the rights to the brand – Jürgen Wolf did not hesitate to bring Homeboy back as a father-and-son unit. Completing the creative team, streetwear pioneer Holger Dahlen, who has played a hand in molding the Homeboy brand for over 30 years, is also part of the team

Like father, like son:

Homeboy partner Julian Wolf hitting the waves in Bali.

Homeboy 3.0

Julian Wolf

Dandy Diary 2017

“Dad! People freaked out at the club! They’re totally into it, you have to bring Homeboy back!”

“With the internet, it’s totally easy to do business which would never have been possible back in the day,” said Wolf.

Since then, the stars have aligned, as Homeboy‘s return has caused a stir on the international stage. „After a few months, a lot of people caught wind of what we were doing and wanted to get involved right away. There‘s a lot of enthusiasm and energy behind it, and we‘re having a lot of fun doing it.“

What’s more, the streetwear pioneer also has a few thoughts about the current state of what has grown into a global billion-dollar industry.

“Streetwear is on everyone’s minds right now, and many brands are suddenly claiming to be streetwear. Even those luxury sissies at Gucci or Louis Vuitton. Now the kids of rich bankers are running around with SUPREME, not to mention the son of an Arabic sheik covering his Ferrari in SUPREME logos,” said Jürgen Wolf.

According to the veteran, it’s up to the original streetwear brands with board sports connections to set the trends, and lead where outsiders will follow. “We shouldn’t let anyone take it away from us and work together to push this trend forward for the next decade!”

At that time Jürgen and Julian formulated where the journey with homeboy should go for them:

HOMEBOY - THE ORIGINAL BAGGY PANTS COMPANY.

The way there was also formulated:

WE ARE AN ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY.

Both were firmly convinced that the time of SKINNY JEANS was over. So what was their logical conclusion? BAGGY PANTS will enter the stage again and this happens via skateboarding. That‘s exactly where skinny jeans started their triumphal procession in the early 2000s.

Julian only knew jeans with the fit of women‘s tights. He started experimenting on his own body and began altering old oversized Levis jeans at a Turkish alteration tailor in Frankfurt. Every 3 months the pants got bigger. Whenever, first he and then his circle of friends got used to the wider shape, the next larger version was made.

After many months, son and father had the BINGO effect in 1996: „These are the perfect pants, Julian!“ said senior Jürgen Wolf. „These pants will go to Turkey and become the new base of Homeboy!“.

We ate shit, Man!

Developing the new baggy pants cut consumed a lot of time. Very many prototypes later, the perfect baggy pants of the modern era was born and there was no one who wanted to buy them.

Coincidence brought Julian together with David Kurt Karl Roth and Carl Jakob Haupt, the makers of DANDY DIARY, at a party in Berlin. The two turned out to be big homeboy fans and when Julian told them about the Baggy Pants idea they were on fire. The idea of a collabo was born, but it took another year.

At the end of 2017 the time had come. The Frankfurt strip club PIK-DAME, located in the Bahnhofsviertel, was the perfect place for the collabo HOMEBOY X DANDY DIARY. The perfect place for the Frankfurt - Berlin axis. The guys from Dandy Diary came with a whole coach of party-loving fans from Berlin. Frankfurt welcomed them joyfully.

The kids celebrated the new wide pants. The attending trade press did not. The feuilleton was represented numerous, because book fair was in Frankfurt. Here, too, only incredulous shaking of the head.

2016 - 2017 - 2018 - 2019 = head shaking

Jürgen Wolf says at this time: „We ate shit for 4 years! No retailer bought a single pair of pants from us. Online only the cool of the cool bought. Those were few!“

By early 2020, the first customers were ready. Few skate stores dared. Baggy Pants took off very slowly.

In 2021, more and more retailers came. Unit sales still at a low level.

The turnover and the costs for marketing were not in a reasonable relation. Jürgen Wolf was happy not to have to answer to any house bank or investor. „They all would have turned off the money tap and declared me crazy!“

„In 2022, I had the first feeling that our plan might work out,“ says Jürgen Wolf, who is responsible for sales. „But we were still far from out of the woods.“

The breakthrough then came in the winter of 2022 and spring of 2023. After almost 7 years of preliminary work.

BAGGY PANTS ARE SET IN SKATEBOARDING WORLDWIDE!

„Baggy pants are now standard in skateboarding worldwide and Homeboy is going to take a huge slice of the pie!“ says Julian Wolf, the maker on the marketing level.

„This is exactly the way we are going with Homeboy. In Europe, we‘re going the D2C and B2B way with equal force. In the USA, Canada, China, Japan we are specifically going the D2C way. This is paved by the sponsoring of top skaters. Especially in the USA, there will be a team that guarantees worldwide exposure. That opens the doors worldwide!“, says Jürgen Wolf.

WE ARE AN ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY

The team around Julian Wolf produces entertainment content around the topic of action sports and skateboarding in particular.

Homeboy is the story! Our team riders are the main characters.

Boys and Girls... Unisex

Fans become customers and customer become fans

All of us united in the:

Be curious what will happen here.

More to come

FW23 Blowball Jacket

Looking back at the early beginnings of his brand, Wolf is amazed how things have come full circle:

“35 years ago, Homeboy was founded as a skateboard clothing brand

The antipole of fashion

But ultimately, we landed exactly there, in fashion. Because streetwear, as it was called later, was a major game changer to the youth. They were able to express themselves in a cool way. And that’s why we’re still here today.”