GREATEST: Avi Gold
The Toronto-based streetwear veteran shares what it's like working with Dover Street Market, how the game has changed and why he started Better™ Gift Shop.
For the last twenty years, Avi Gold has always been in the cut. If he wasn’t hanging with the crew at Goodfoot in Toronto, he was interviewing legends like Young Guru at Baseline Studios, or plotting with Nike on installs around the Air Max. Over the years, he has built a reputation as a man with no title. You can’t classify him as an editor, a maker or a student of the game because if you asked around, you’d discover more. After years of collaborating with his creative peers, he made a bold decision to start a brand of his own, Better™, and in July 2018, he opened up his first brick-and-mortar in Toronto, Better™ Gift Shop. Was his path intentional? Possibly. Was this all planned? Not at all. Whether it was kicking it with the crew or touring the globe with Dover Street Market, it was simply Avi Gold keeping it one hundred.
Since the early 2000s, you’ve made it a point to bring a different set of personal ideas to Toronto. Whether it was bringing up Just Blaze to rock a set in 2008, activating a pop-up shop with Cam'ron and Dipset or curating your first art exhibit with Veefer/VFR, why was it important to bring something new to your hometown?
It was just natural. It was more instinct because for the most part, especially back in the day, Toronto was a boring place. There wasn’t much happening here in the early years, so I always looked at what was happening in other cities. The internet was such a vague place, so if you read about certain things that were unique and that spoke to you, it was special. [My crew and I] looked at what was happening around places like New York and saw Just Blaze DJing at Santos Party House, so it seemed obvious to bring him up here to DJ a party. [In everything I did], I always asked, How can I add flavor to the city and make it exciting?
You’re always thinking outside the lines in anything you do. Let’s face it, Toronto is widely respected, and now, the city’s recognition is vastly different from just 10 years ago. Coming up, it wasn’t a stretch for you to get away with moving at a slower pace, but you always made it a point to step outside the traditional lines.
I had to think outside of this place because Toronto, is just a bubble. Don’t get me wrong, I love my city. Some of my best friends and day ones are from Toronto and there are a bunch of talented kids here; I’m not just talking about hip-hop. But it’s still a conservative place. In anything I did, I had to make my mark elsewhere in the world—whether it was somewhere in Europe, Tokyo, New York, L.A.—for people to respect me here [and notice what I was doing]. It’s just how it works out here. It’s a big city, but it’s still a small circle. It’s still niche to be up on someone like Richard Prince or John Baldessari. But Toronto had to see what other cities did before it would do it itself. That’s why I chose to do things outside of Toronto first.
You first made a name for yourself in editorial by sharing stories that people typically wouldn’t highlight. How much did magazines impact you when you were growing up?
Magazines had a 100% impact me. These weird niche articles about this guy living in this city, stealing for a living, or this other guy skateboarding. That’s where I found out about everything. Even visually, if I saw a certain photo in a magazine, it made me want to do [something similar] and emulate that. The one magazine that changed my mindset was Mass Appeal. Everything interesting happening in the world was in that magazine. The covers were with artists. The products featured were ahead of their time, whether it was an old Supreme shirt or a SSUR graphic tee. I also saw an early issue of Vice recently. That magazine was always too weird for me, but some of the content was fire.
Innately that’s the thing about you, man. The stuff you put out has always been your general interests. It was never about jumping on the latest thing, but more about sharing ideas that personally inspired you and putting your spin to it.
Absolutely. I come from a really exciting era because things meant a lot back then. As much as the 90s had an impact, the early 2000s were special for me, too. The way things were back then—packaging, retail, products—everything was on point. Seeing Futura collaborate with Unkle on a sneaker was crazy. I always talk about the Ari Menthol sneaker. Ari was just so fucking ahead of his time. Whether you want to wear the shoe or not, it was such a smart idea and it was 1,000% innovative.
Back then, the allure of discovering something new had a special meaning and a more intimate experience, versus today where everything is so accessible.
Exactly. Back then, you had to get in a car and drive. You had to go to New York or take a flight to L.A. I’m not even mad at [how connected it is now], but everything is at your fingertips. You don’t have to go to Paris to watch the Louis Vuitton show; you can watch it on your phone. Everybody knows who everybody is. Back then, if you wanted to know who Neal Santos was, you had to meet him; you had to be physically immersed.
The last year leading up to the launch of Better™ Gift Shop, you made it a point to take a trip to Japan for the first time. Did that have an impact on you in terms of discovering new things, similar to how magazines were a gateway for you back in the day?
My first time in Tokyo was the craziest shit. But as much as you could see things online or in magazines, you have to go there to really experience it. It’s so different. It’s the attention to detail, the precision, the honor. I saw a lot of elements of detail that people otherwise wouldn’t think about in other places.
Would you say that changed your perspective?
That opened my mind, knowing how people really care about what they do out there. It expanded my horizons.
Your path is interesting. You went from making a dent in the editorial world and hosting to creating tangible products. Over the years, you evolved as a maker…
It’s about being in the now. A lot of people get stuck on the same old idea. I have extreme ADD, but a benefit of that is my mind is always racing. I like this photo by this L.A. photographer—How do I find out about that dude? Oh, you shot this person—who is that person? Oh, they make t-shirts. They skate for this brand. I’m just always on to the next thing because I don’t want to get caught behind. I want to evolve. That’s my natural instinct.
You opened Better™ Gift Shop in Chinatown, Toronto. This neighborhood is raw, and it speaks to everything you have done so far. Why was Chinatown right for you and your brand?
I owe a lot of that to Sam James, who I share a studio with. He saw the spot and was like, “Okay, I know what you’re trying to do, I understand it. Check this space out. It’s in the cut, and we’d have to clean the shit out of it. But it fits perfectly with your aesthetic.” His vision showed me the way. I had such cold feet, like, “I can’t open a retail store. It’s a huge commitment, dude.” And then one day over text he was like, “Yo, if you’re in, I just got the space. So I’m in with or without you.” I was like, “Alright, we’re in.” [Laughs] I was freaking out.
But the thing is, your vision is authentic and honest. The work you put out never felt forced. It was always about what you were into and you recreating it for today’s time.
I’m always trying to push forward, to pay homage to an old thing and make it a shoppable experience. How do you acknowledge your past but inspire the future? I’ve always been interested in branding, but sometimes the shittier things are better. If you go to Slauson, you see the shitty jewelry booth and the Korean woman who runs the sneaker store on a garbage slat wall. There’s beauty in those things. You have to look for it, modernize it and make it exciting.
If you go to Slauson, you see the shitty jewelry booth and the Korean woman who runs the sneaker store on a garbage slat wall. There’s beauty in those things. You have to look for it, modernize it and make it exciting.
How do you see Better™ evolving?
If I can be brutally honest, I didn’t really know what I was doing until pretty recently. I’ve traveled to Tokyo twice, and I’ve been to Europe like 100 times. You see the way people are doing things, and I’m talking about experts: Adrian Joffe, Michael Kopelman, Garreth who owns Palace. When you see the way they’re doing things, it pushes you to be just as good. Do you want to hang with the big dogs? Then you have to be perfect. It’s more than graphic tees now. That’s the evolution. But if we’re going to make graphic tees, they better be the best graphic tees out there. It has to have a feeling and level of depth, a perfect stance on branding. I’m a competitive person. The confidence I have now, I may not have had it when I was younger. I’m competitive as shit, and that’s fueling this fire inside me.
There’s only a handful of people trying to break the barrier of creating something new in retail. With that mentality, what do you want to bring to the Better™ Gift Shop?
I’m really trying to make it memorable and create a community. A place for unique individuals to hang out, to see things, to experience things. People don’t think about scent, like how does a store smell? That’s my whole thing about incense. There’s got to be incense burning all the time, and if people get a headache and want to leave, I don’t give a shit. It triggers your mind. It’s a full-blown experience. We have the original Sneeze [Magazine] metal New York street box in the store. We also have Japanese vending machines. Weird things that make people think outside the box.
You’ve always been a student of the game, but did you ever see yourself progressing this far?
My honest opinion? I never thought I’d progress this far. I never thought I’d collab with Marc Jacobs, I never thought I’d design for COMME des GARÇONS, and I never thought I’d do a Dover Street Market installation.
Would you say taking risks attributed to your success?
For sure. Years ago, Matt George told me, “No risk, no reward.” That had a big impact. I flew to Paris like two years ago and somehow got a meeting with [Dover Street Market]. I was like, “I want to build a hot dog cart for you.” [Laughs] I was expecting them to be like, “Okay, the door’s over there.” Thank God that DSM is receptive to new ideas because that really pushed me and gave me a platform. I wanted to get out of making bootleg t-shirts, make real products, work with artists and make things people would respect whether they buy them or not. I had a mastermind idea. I thought, Maybe this hot dog stand idea could happen in London. Since we launched in London, we’ve brought this experience to five cities across the globe.
Knowing how much Tokyo had an impact on you and your ideas, and coming back and seeing how receptive Japan was to your brand when you hosted your pop-up with DSM, was that a surreal moment?
Japan hit me emotionally. You work so hard and ask yourself, “Is this really happening?” There are people lined up out the door, products you never imagined making, artists you’re working with that you never thought would give you the time of day. Even 032c. I never thought they would fuck with me. I have a friend who works there, and I was begging her, “I’m coming to Berlin, I want to meet Joerg [Koch].” She was like, “He doesn’t have an interest in meeting new people.” When I did meet him, we hit it off well. While I was in the store, there was a Japanese kid wearing one of my t-shirts, and [Joerg] freaked out! “You’re Avi Gold!”
You’ve been able to pivot almost every year and always bring new ideas to light, but through it all, you managed to stay true to who you are.
I hate people who aren’t humble. It’s not hard to be humble, but it is hard to pivot. That’s the most important thing. If you stay stuck on one thing, that’s all you’re ever going to be. A lot of people have evolved and there are a bunch of new kids now. Those kids speak to the new generation. That’s where it’s at. You have to evolve and make sacrifices to make this a real thing.
Interview by Michael Bercasio
Photography by Kevin Marzo (Toronto) & Michael Knapp (NYC)