Coming from Australia you've had to deal with a  unique set of challenges to make BLANK viable. You're close to PAM, who've also managed to start a label here and take it to a global level. What do you think is the secret behind a successful international brand?

Well I guess you need to consider a lot of things , including climate , exchange rates , population , shipping etc.. but probably the most important is having an original line. In most parts of the world now there are popular labels, and a bunch of other labels that look really similar , so why would a store import something from Australia if they can get something similar around the corner..

You get to look at both Japan and the US as an outsider. What things have you noticed about how creative currents flow between those two markets. Which do you look to first for trends and inspiration?

Japan nowadays is probably my first point for inspiration, just going there and appreciating the Japanese way of life is crazy. I think when Japan started to develop their own brand of hip hop in the mid 90s and gave people an alternative to US imports it really started to take off. Imports started to drop and their own labels started to flourish in both music and fashion.  USA also has a good level of quality when it comes to manufacturing but the advances that Japan has made with its textiles and printing etc.. are just too good.

You took a step back from BLNK in the late 90's. Why were you sick of it, and what made you come back?

Yeah I took a backseat for about 2 years , it wasn’t a conscious holiday or anything , I just started to loose focus . A lot had changed in the market place , Australia went from having no street labels to being flooded with a bunch - the thing that bugged me the most was none of the labels were Australian .. they were all licensed product..(for those who don’t know , this is when businessmen decided to sell clothes. As they don’t have any means to create a label , they will reproduce an existing label for a market place). To me clothing needs to stand for something , or it's just pop/disposable. At this point in time I couldnt see any need for a label , I was loosing rack space mainly due to pricepoint .. this was around 01/02 ..I was working on my book and travelling to Japan a lot at this time and I remember by summer 03 deciding to close about 90% off my retail base .
I was tired of the uphill battle I was experiencing with them , the following 2 years '04 and '05 were extremely difficult. I had closed the accounts I was selling to but I had only really opened a couple of new ones. Financially it wasn’t viable but I was enjoying it immensely. I know that must sound weird but I was determined to change the whole thing around. Slowly  more like-minded stores opened and I was able to re establish a new retail base. I guess one of the main reasons I decided to re-establish the brand was the fact that we had never sold out , we remain 100% independent company and a lot of artist and family had stuck by when the times where tough.