FUN TIME brings back the fun times. If you’re a millennial you’re surely bragging about the cool childhood you had. Because, truth to be told, we had the best cartoons, the best clothes, music and toys. We were more innocent and -I’d dare to say- more outgoing. If you miss that feeling, we might have something for you!
When we stumbled upon the FUN TIME super cool website and we started scrolling through the lookbook we fell in love with the sarcasm of the brand. That’s something you don’t come across so often! Most of the brands these days have a mission. They want to make us look like someone else. Like a poster. Like an advertisement campaign. From the one hand we have the the uptight/preppy/please-try-to-stay-classy style that many designers/brands follow. Then, we have the wear-this-to-look-cool mentality. If those two, completely different designing angles meet somewhere, well, that’s on a superficial level. And with superficial, I mean that it’s not the clothes that will make us look classy or cool, anyway.
The difference of FUN TIME is that Adrian Riemann (founder & designer) decided from the very start to take it all a little easier. Influenced by music and the memories of a carefree childhood, FUN TIME’s sweaters and T-shirts could put a little salt and pepper in our monotonous, humorless lives. But better let Adrian tell us all about it.
How did Fun Time start?
I run another brand with two friends, TRINITAS, which is a bit more fashion oriented, so I already had the knowledge and connections. FUN TIME is a throwback to my youth, hip hop and music influenced, and a bit more light-hearted.
How would you describe your brand in three words?
Nostalgic, ironic, fun!
What’s your working process? How many people/sources are involved in it?
Basically it’s just me doing the design work, but I have a small group of people helping me out when it comes to production, distribution and other things.
Since it’s weird times for world’s economy and especially for Europe’s and since you produce everything within the european borders, it’s always interesting for me to ask if you’ve been affected by the financial crisis. Have you?
A bit, yes. The thing is, I started the brand during the crisis. A stupid timing actually. But the good thing was that I never had my time before where everything was really really good to be sad about it taking the downhill. But it was, and still is hard for a new brand. Stores are very cautious and don’t take the risk to invest in a new brand. We’ve lost quite a few stores during the few years FUN TIME exists because they went bankrupt. I’ve also heard from many people who are in the industry longer than me that they now have to work twice to three times harder to make the same money. It has definitely affected the industry.
Just to stick a little to this social-political chit chat. Fun Time is clearly addressing to the Millennials. This/our generation has suffered the most through these hard times because of underpayment, unemployment etc. Yet, we tend to have this (relatively) positive outlook toward life, similarly to your brand. Why do you think that this is happening? Does it have to do with the fact that we grew up in a more innocent world? Was it more innocent, after all?
My generation, and especially here in Germany, grew up quite innocent. After the cold war, and also maybe too young to understand the whole terror thing? Most of our parents made good money, so they can finance us. But I also think we live in a time where it’s really easy to get distracted. You can watch movies, listen to music, play games all the time thanks to the internet. So you can just ignore the bad things and focus on the fun things.
Let’s switch to something more light-hearted. What’s fun times for you?
Simple things, always. Spending time with friends, music, movies. Cooking, eating together. I don’t really need much.
You have a concept for each collection. What’s the concept of your latest one?
The whole brand is kind of dealing with my youth, with things that inspired me. The latest collection is influenced by my hip hop background, when me and my friends wanted to be like the gangsters from the ghetto but actually lived in well-protected homes with caring parents.
What should we expect from Fun Time in the near future?
At the moment I’m brainstorming about how to get the label to the next level, how to change it a bit up. So stay tuned!
Last but not least, what’s the role of “hope” and “passion” in your life?
Hope … never really thought about that. I always tried to do the things I want to do. Not to hope for something to change if I can’t influence it. Most of the time it worked out. I hope it stays that way. Passion is important, of course. I think you have to be passionate about something for it to turn out good. Because then you also don’t care about failing or about problems. Just doing things because other people are doing the same things isn’t a good idea.
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All photos courtesy of FUN TIME.