Originally the name of In4mation’s distribution company, 5&A Dime is now a thriving apparel store that aims for the “timeless appeal” perfected by brands like Ralph Lauren. That’s why 5&A Dime’s space is specifically designed to develop character with age rather than feature up-to-the-minute décor that will date in a matter of months.


Frank151: Tell us about the history of your store.


5&A Dime: 5&A Dime actually started in November 2005. It's kind of a little bit complicated, but we worked in conjunction with In4Mation in Hawaii, we're friends with them. And I've been working with a brand called Alphanumeric since it started, I think that was in '88-'89. So I've been friends with these guys in the industry for a really long time, and I was going back and forth in talks with them about opening an In4mation store in San Diego. At the same time Todd and Ryan were trying to develop the In4mation brand, but they were also doing distribution, which was called 5&A Dime, they were distributing brands like In4Mation, Crooks & Castles and Lalo Hawaii*. I think it was one of those things where Todd and Ryan were just looking to focus on the In4Mation brand itself and a lot of the other brands were able to do their own distribution, so we just took the 5&A Dime name and brought it to San Diego.

Initially when we first opened, we carried I'd say a dozen brands and we focused on like books and toys. But obviously over the course of five years, we've kind of shifted gears, we're doing less with the toys and although we're doing some stuff with Super7 and RealXHead*, our focus has kind of gone more towards the apparel. Also, you know, when we first started the store we never really thought about the 5&A Dime branding so now we're trying to launch our own line, five years later.

F151: Were there any other shops that inspired you?
5&AD: I think there were a couple of stores on the East Coast, but really honestly, I think my biggest influence comes from like Ralph Lauren and Polo. I grew up rocking Polo, as did most of the guys, and he really had that timeless classic and that's kind of what we were going for with our shop.

F151: How would you describe the design of your store? What was the inspiration behind it and what type of environment are you trying to create?

5&AD: Yeah, same thing, it's really just like that kind of timeless classic. You know when I looked at a lot of other stores, a lot of guys were going for something a little more modern, but the way I look at it, my sister and I, we own the store together and we have old souls, you know? So when we developed and designed the store we were just thinking "timeless classic" because that's kind of just what we love but, more importantly, if you think about it as the store gets older it's going to have more character. You chip away at the paint or scratch the floors or add more antiques, it's going to add more character, whereas if we did something modern, we're just going to have to remodel. ’Cause you know if you look at it like in five or 10 years, our stuff is going to look outdated so we went for something a little bit older. I'm happy with it, we get to add on to it with fun little things like antiques or taxidermy, things like that, you know.

I would say we've been blessed that Love Right* and Alpha Numeric have their offices right next door to us so there's a little collective of us guys doing design that's like a hangout. There's a lot of kids that just come around and hang out, you know it's important to us to make our customers feel like our friends.

F151: How did you decide on your location? How important has the location been?
5&AD: Um, the location just kind of came about accidentally, so you know, we didn't put a lot of thought and planning into where we were going to go. For us it was that we could afford the rent. It's still to be determined, I don't know whether it's a good spot or not. [laughs]

F151: What brands do you carry, and which are your top sellers?
5&AD: We currently carry Crooks & Castles, that's a brand we've had since the very beginning, those are friends of ours and I would say they're one of our top sellers. We've also had really great luck with some of the local brands, for example LoveRight*, Brixton, Loser Machine. We carry a sunglass company called 9FIVE, they're local too. And all those are in like our top five brands, they're selling extremely well for us.

F151: What brands or specific products are you excited about for Spring / Summer 2010?


5&AD: Well, we're working on a project with 9FIVE, so hopefully we can have that released late summer. We're actually doing a shirt with DJ Neil Armstrong and a mix CD so that should be pretty cool, that's actually coming out the end of this month. He's from New York. We did this Manny *Who? shirt a few months ago, he got a hold of one and he's been rocking it so we actually got in touch with him and booked him to do a show here in San Diego along with the shirt and CD.

F151: Are there any trends in fashion that you're excited about, both for Spring / Summer 2010 and beyond?
5&AD: You know, it is nice to see that a lot of people are trying to dress a little bit more adult, I mean, clean up their act a little bit. It's not so important to be wearing bright, colorful stuff you know. You know what's really cool? To see US-made stuff. Like a lot of people are shifting gears and actually getting their stuff made in the US. We're actually trying to do that ourselves, we're trying to do stuff in the US mainly because we can get it quicker and there are smaller minimums.

F151: How has social networking (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) affected retail for your store and retail in general?
5&AD: Okay, with all those social networks, honestly? Man. I'm not a fan of it. I feel like it's a necessary evil at this point though. I mean, we do it ’cause we have to, not necessarily because we want to, I know that sounds bad to say but it's like… it's like taking care of a baby now. It's like, "Oh, did you Facebook today, did you Twitter…” It does kind of bother me that I have to depend on like a 12-step process to even release a t-shirt in the store. It's like, "Oh, Facebook, Twitter..." Tumblr, what's all that stuff you know? I know I sound like an old man. So it's kind of a necessary evil but I'm learning to accept it, I think. Sometimes for me I feel like it's all just becoming noise and that kind of bothers me. But maybe if we can find our little niche, if we can make it funny or something, more entertaining or something rather than just like, "Hey, here's a new shirt..."

F151: What about ecommerce? What effect has online sales had on your store and on the broader retail industry?
5&AD: Uh, it's good. I wish it was better. I mean this whole thing has been a crazy learning process, a lot of this stuff we're doing for the first time. Even ecommerce I think we're going on our third year with it, but it's still a work in progress you know. That is the 5&A Dime baby that we have to take care of, like with blogging and putting up new product so we can keep customers coming to the site.

I know that there's like a lot of brick-and-mortars that rely solely on their ecommerce. It's really weird ’cause actually for us it's like, opposite. I mean, we have our blog and our website but I feel like we do better in-store than online.

F151: What future plans for your store do you have that you’d like to share?
5&AD: Really, it's trying to develop the brand and figure out how we're going to do it. Like if we're going to try put it in other stores or just do it all ourselves. I'm personally leaning towards just doing it and selling it ourselves, but that's pretty much still to be determined.