Roland and partner Rick were inspired to take over Detroit’s Burn Rubber because, “It seemed natural to sell these things we’d been into our whole lives.” Not only does the store stock the latest and best in clothing and kicks, Burn Rubber is a genuinely chill place to drop by and hang out, turning the “buy or bye” sneaker-store stereotype on its ear.


Frank151: Tell us about the history of your store.
Burn Rubber: Burn Rubber was started in 2004 by another person who was a mentor, I originally did his website for him. In 2007, my partner and I bought the store and turned it into what is today. We brought in a different clothing line, some other shoe brands and kinda turned it into more of a lifestyle boutique as opposed to just a sneaker boutique. I mean, we're definitely still a sneaker boutique, but we have more things to offer now.

F151: Were there any other shops that inspired you?
BR: Well, you know the inspiration to go into business for ourselves was really just that these are the type of things we've been into our whole lives. With the exception of some of the newer brands, we've been wearing Polo, Adidas and Nike our whole lives so it was just a kinda natural thing to want to sell the things that we were into.

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?
BR: The shop is real streamlined and clean. When you walk in we have a wood floor and wood shelves, everything matches. We have a piece of art on the wall by Tristan Heaton. I guess basically when you walk in the focus is just on the apparel and the sneakers.

It's kinda like, a lot of people draw the similarity between our shop and like a barber shop. People just come in and hang out; some people come into buy things and some people come in just to kick it. 


F151: How did you decide on your location? How important has the location been?
BR: The store was already here, it was opened by my mentor, but it's a shopping district in Michigan. We're actually located in Metro Detroit, we're about three miles north of Detroit but a lot of people come out here to shop and to eat.

F151: What brands do you carry, and which are your top sellers?
BR: Starting with the sneakers, we carry Adidas, Nike, New Balance, Gourmet, Pro-Keds, and we have some Timberland stuff. And then with the clothing we carry Stussy, 10 Deep, Acapulco Gold, Playcloths, our brand. Our brand is kinda like a really big seller, our private label. You know the Burn Rubber fitteds and different Burn Rubber t-shirts and cut and sew. We sell Levis, UNDFTD and Crooks and Castles too.

F151: What brands or specific products are you excited about for Spring / Summer 2010?
BR: I think one of the things that we're really excited about is, Nike sportswear has a tiered clothing range and they do these collaborations with a company called Loop Wheeler. Loop Wheeler is this company out of Japan, and they have these loop wheel machines that they make their own fabric from and there's only a handful of machines out there and they own 'em all. It takes a day to make a sweatshirt. So I just think that that story is cool and what goes into making those garments is cool. And of course there's always the regulars, you know. 10 Deep is high quality and they put a lot of thought into the theme for the line. So you know, just things like that.

F151: Are there any trends in fashion that you're excited about, both for Spring / Summer 2010 and beyond?
BR: Yeah, I'm excited that a lot of brands are cleaning things up. It's like a couple of years ago, when we first got in, there was a lot of bright stuff, a lot of things that were being done were for shock value and it seems like they're calming that stuff down and things are getting a lot cleaner as far the design. It's more focused on the design and the garment than just having a shocking message on a t-shirt. It's kinda getting more grown-up and I'm excited about that.

F151: How has social networking (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) affected retail for your store and retail in general?
BR: Well, we don't really use the regular forms of advertising. Like we don't pay for ads or take out ads anywhere so really our success has come from word of mouth. I think our website has driven a lot of business because it's a way that we can keep in contact and communicate with our customers directly and right away. And really, with Twitter, it's crazy. Like we can say, "I'm having a sale tomorrow," and people will be here because they follow what we say on Twitter. So I guess it's more instant than it's ever been.

F151: What about ecommerce? What effect has online sales had on your store and on the broader retail industry?
BR: In general I think that it has made things more convenient for people, I think people have access to things they might not have in the past. For our store, sometimes we're able to reach further, people buy stuff from us from all over the world.

F151: What future plans for your store do you have that you’d like to share?
BR: We have some collaborations coming up. We've worked with some pretty big companies, probably in the Fall we'll be releasing that. The cut and sew program is going to be coming out in the Fall, we're going to develop the line even more and that's probably all that I can share right now. 
 
F151: What Scion promotional items have been the most popular with your staff and with customers?
BR: Man those socks are the best that I've ever had.

F151: Can you explain the cult following for Scion socks?
BR: I dunno but last time those socks came, one of our employees intercepted the box and we didn't even get 'em. Like the way it is with me and my partner, if Scion sends us socks and there's only one pair, one of us gets the left and the other one gets the right, until another pair comes. So that's just how it is. I also liked the little cellphone cleaner things, I thought those were dope.

F151: Do you have a favorite Scion music compilation? Did any of the compilations make it into your store’s music rotation?
BR: Yeah we do play 'em in the store, but when I think of Scion I think of those socks.