Today we’d like to introduce you to Kasey Dixon.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Kasey. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I grew up always interested in being active and creative. I was drawing shoes and designing clothes when the sun went down or when I should’ve been focusing on school. I was either playing basketball, or riding my bike outside. and then coming home and designing what I wanted to wear while doing that. As I grew up, they remained part of what I did, but I transitioned most of my energy over to the IT field, which is what I momentarily thought I wanted to do. I did that in some capacity for almost ten years, while picking up cycling again in my mid-twenties.
I moved around a bit but eventually ended up back in the city to continue my education in graphic design and continued to cycle as a hobby. As I became more a part of the cycling community, my personal blog morphed its way into a cycling group, and then a cycling team, and then eventually, as I was finishing up my education, I opened a bike shop under the name Ham Cycles. During this time I was designing apparel for what would become the Ham Cycles brand and was able to launch the shop based on the success of that.
I continued to operate Ham and continued to put out designs for it on a regular basis, which for the Houston area, and at the time, was not something being done very often, so it got us a lot of attention early on. After continuing to do this for a few years, I began to realize that there’s a limit to your creativity when designing for a bike shop and that people probably only want so many items of clothing that are from that shop, so I began to work on more side projects in a creative way, take on jobs for other clients creatively and began toying with the idea of opening a clothing store, as I felt our neighborhood was really lacking the type of store I would want to shop at.
Once a building I was familiar with opened down the street I took the plunge, signed a multi-year lease, began working on our first collection and acquiring brands that fit the vibe I was after for the shop. I signed the least for Club Never one year ago today, and while my experience in retail was definitely a big help in getting off the ground, the industry is so different than the bike shop industry that I’ve learned a ton during this first year. We’ve now released three collections of our own, which I designed, and have brought in over two dozen brands, many of which were lacking from Houston altogether, or were at the very least, very underrepresented, especially in Montrose. I still feel like we’re in the “proof of concept” phase, and will use these first few years to see if what I want aligns with what our neighborhood and city wants, but hopefully in a few years, Ham Cycles & Club Never can have a building of their own and be a long-standing part of this city.
Has it been a smooth road?
It’s never totally smooth, but you learn how to become a better driver on a bumpy road pretty quickly. Both of the greatest challenges for both shops have been 1> letting people know you exist and 2> convincing them to physically come into your store instead of jumping on the web. We’ve tried to make the experience at both shops as positive as possible where they’re places you look forward to going.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Ham Cycles is a full-service bike shop that also specializes in oddities and apparel that you wouldn’t find in a normal bike shop. We specialize in single speed & fixed gear bikes, but work on and carry all types of bikes. The idea behind opening Ham Cycles is also what I think separates us. We try to provide a friendly and positive environment that doesn’t make you feel like you’re being judged, which is something I always felt when going to other bike shops. So with Ham, it was more about the environment than it was anything else because there’s not a lot of brands in our shop that are exclusive to us.
With Club Never, the same thought process applied, but I also felt the lack of certain brand and streetwear representation inside of Houston. I wanted to combine streetwear and workwear clothing because I felt like they had always been so separated in the past, but myself and many of my friends like both, I figured we couldn’t be alone. I also never felt like there was ever a warm welcome in most lifestyle stores I had been visiting over this time and I just wanted to improve upon the shopping experience in my favorite Houston neighborhood.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I think Houston is a great place to start a business. The financial risk is relatively lower than most other cities our size and there’s a very creative and active community inside the city ready and willing to support something that vibes with them.
There’s a double-edged sword with Houston’s lack of zoning though. I actually feel it’d be an improvement if many or all of the clothing stores were in a general area. Being able to walk and shop through a ‘strip’ is a big thing I love about places like LA. People in Houston can be overly competitive though and I think that if Club Never can grow then our counterparts can grow with us and help improve upon the subcultures inside the city as a team instead of as rivals.
Contact Info:
- Address: 2016 Dunlavy St. #2
Houston TX 77006 - Website: clubnever.com
- Phone: 8325481846
- Email: info@clubnever.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clubnever/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/clubnever/
- Twitter: twitter.com/clubnever
Image Credit:
Fajar Hassan, Eric Tovar
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