Riding a wave Local dude opens pop-up shop to sell his clothing line to the skater, snowboard and surfer set By: Bill Redekop  Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Thursday, Sep. 13, 2018

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/09/2018 (2297 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Surfer dude Jordan Kendel found his first factory to manufacture clothing after a few drinks and while singing karaoke at a beachfront bar in Bali, Indonesia.

“I was 27, broke, with no real prospects, and my girlfriend had broken up with me,” said Kendel, the owner of Ekumenik, a clothing manufacturer for the skateboard, snowboard and surf set.

It sounds like “Wasted Away Again in Margaritaville” was on the playlist.

But Kendel struck up a conversation with a member of the live band backing him up and explained he had an idea for a clothing line if he could find someone to make it.

The band member arranged a tour of a local clothing factory and it ended up producing his first product line.

A decade later, five factories in Bali are now producing Ekumenik clothing. Kendel spends six months of the year in Bali, where he keeps a second residence for surfing and sourcing his clothing line; the rest of the time is back in Canada, mostly in Winnipeg, where Ekumenik has its distribution centre.

He sells across Canada but pulled out of Europe recently because he was getting stretched too thin. His sales have increased by 30 per cent in each of the last four years.

“I’m chasing my dream,” said Kendel.

Kendel’s Ekumenik is not well known in his home town, however. It’s better established in places like Vancouver Island, Saskatoon and Quebec, he said.

He hopes to change that with a popup store he’s opened on Corydon Avenue. Kendel has moved into skateboarding shop Green Apple at Corydon Avenue and Lilac Street for the rest of September.

“I’d had some success selling T-shirts in high school” with some friends, called Jibb Clothing, Kendel said, recalling his back history before starting his current business.

He not only manufactures in Bali but keeps a storefront there that lets him gauge reaction to his products from the international clientele there, almost like a focus group. “We can test the product right there on the global customer,” he said.

They work with small samples of 40 or 80 articles of a clothing line and see what sells. It also allows him the flexibility to change and improve a product based on customer feedback.

They make just about everything except socks and gotch: T-shirts, hoodies, jackets, raincoats, parkas, collared shirts, Hawaiian shirts, polar fleece, winter vests, pants, caps, shorts, bathing suits, and even cardigan sweaters (he used to use wooden buttons for authenticity but not anymore.)

One product line is called “Weekend at Terry’s” but Kendel wouldn’t divulge what actually happened at Terry’s that weekend. “Yes, there is a real Terry but there are also about a 100 Terrys” in places where he has partied and “couch-surfed” while on snowboarding trips in Alberta or surfing expeditions in Bali.

“The laid-back surfing culture is what got me. Hanging out at the beach. No worries. Good waves. Maybe not,” he said.

“I think you’d be surprised how many surfers there are in Manitoba. People surf on Lake Winnipeg, the Great Lakes….”

Kendel graduated from the University of Manitoba with an economics degree, then moved to Alberta to be near the Rocky Mountains to snowboard. He worked in snowboard shops, learned about retail and thought he could own his own company.

He said Ekumenik sales have been strong but cash flow has been a problem because many of the independent retailers he deals with are struggling to compete against the big players and online shopping.

“If sales were the indicator, I’d say we’re successful. If cash flow is, I’d say we’re struggling,” he said.

But Kendel says the market is growing, with snowboarding now in the Olympics, and skateboarding and surfing slated to appear in the future.

The name ‘Ekumenik’ is a Greek word meaning a mixture of diverse elements or styles.

Decisions on Ekumenik clothes are filtered through an ethical and environmentally responsible prism. Kendel, 37, likes to say his business plan is best summed up by a Tom Petty lyric, “a rebel without a clue.”

He tried to explain. “I think a lot of young people these days — or maybe at any time, for that matter–are rebelling against how society thinks we should act or make our way in the world. We don’t necessarily have an answer to that except we know what’s going on isn’t right,” he said.

“For me, I’m an environmentalist. But anything I say gets shot down by people who worship the economy.”

Manitoba outlets that carry Ekumenik products besides Green Apple include Royal Sports (the first outlet to carry its product), Two Zero Four Skate Shop in Selkirk, and Tergeson’s in Gimli. Its product is in over 100 stores across Canada, and was in a large retail chain until recently but he has quit. He prefers dealing with independents like himself who support one another. He was with larger retailer Bluetongue in Europe until recently.

There are only two employees now, himself and the operations manager, down from four last year, but it pays four sales reps across Canada.

Its sales total about $1 million at the retail level. It has also become a distributor for cold-water wetsuits made by an Australian company, Adelio, and CHPO sunglasses and watches out of Sweden. Green Apple owner Mike McDermott described CHPO sunglasses as “sick,” meaning good.

The official launch of the pop-up is Thursday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. There will be refreshments, a skateboard video by skate shop Blue Tile Lounge in Toronto, and a new product that amalgamates Ekumenik and Green Apple logos.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca