The Mulholland Way
Jay Holland isn’t the kind of guy most people would picture as a luggage and accessories designer. He’s confident, soft-spoken and unmistakably masculine. His clothes are stylish, but his appearance isn’t overly preened nor his shoes overly laced, or even laced at all on the day of our latest meeting. Yet, as the president of Mulholland, his family’s San Francisco-based business, Jay and his brother Guy, the company’s vice president, have their hands in every design decision, from the color of the zippers to the shape of the chairs.

Photography by Jaime Beechum

Jay’s personality is evident in their line, which is a blend of luxurious hides and rugged authenticity that is equally at home in the boardroom or the back of a pickup truck. It’s a look that’s killing the men’s luggage market right now, yet the Mulholland brand name remains strangely out of the spotlight.

The reason lies in the ethos of Holland family. Rather than talking in revered tones about “the journey” over sepia-tinted photos, they’re busy journeying. Instead of cooking up next season’s marketing campaign, they’re tweaking a safari bag with notes from their latest trip to the Serengeti. Jay and Guy are their own R&D department, an arrangement that’s led to great things from a product standpoint, but hasn’t left much time for branding.

After more than 20 years in the business, Mulholland is stuck between the product-first attitude that built a multimillion-dollar company and the oddly generic brand image that’s evolved alongside it. Faced with a global recession pounding the retail sector, conventional wisdom says that a costly rebranding effort is suicide. Cut back, scale down, and wait for it to rebound – that’s the safe thing to do.

It’s just not the Holland thing to do.

Photography by Jaime Beechum

The Hollands live big, take risks, and are perfectly comfortable putting it all on the line. Instead of pulling back, they’re channeling the family’s vigor into a global rebranding effort. Ironically, Jay and Guy are fighting to reassert their family’s legacy into the company that carries its traditional Irish name. It’s a challenge, to be sure, and that’s exactly why Jay’s loving it.

Evil Monito: Let’s start from the top, how’d you guys get started?

HOLLAND: My dad was an apprentice saddle maker before getting into the oil business. When he retired, still fairly young, in about 1986, he called up me and my brother and asked us if we wanted to start making leather stuff. We had no idea what we were going to make, so we just started with stuff that we’d use during our family trips. Our first product was a fly reel case, and then we moved on to a rifle case, and tested everything out as we went.

As it turns out, we made a perfectly balanced rifle case-not because we researched how to make rifle cases, but because we used them all the time and figured out what worked. Then, we moved into other things, like this safari bag [points to a safari bag in the corner of the room]. My dad was going on safari in Africa, so we made that safari bag right there and it’s been in our line ever since.

Photography by Jaime Beechum

EM: And everything was made here?

Yes, here in San Francisco, but not in this particular building. We moved here a few years back to start making a lot of the product here, but there just wasn’t that same sense of pride in craftsmanship that I was hoping for. I wanted it to be a family tradition for the workers as well, but as we grew, it was more of a job just to pay the bills. Since it was already smashing our margins, we decided to offshore the bags.

EM: Makes sense to me. So, where’d it go from there?

As our creativity took hold, we thought we really needed to get into the furniture business. So, we did it as part of an interactive retail concept and created what we thought were some cool things. The business was going gangbusters until 9/11, and then it all crashed. Customers were going out of business right and left, and we thought, “Gosh, the furniture business is kind of rough,” so we moved out of it. Now, ironically, we’re moving back into it.

EM: Interesting. How does that fit in with the larger branding scheme?

Through all this, we realized that we never really made a concerted effort to build a brand and more importantly, we weren’t properly gathering all our components into something that made sense.. We put our effort into making great products, but never to say that this is the thing that we like to do — this is our hook, this is why we make this product the way that we do.

EM: Yeah, that seems pretty important from a marketing standpoint.

For a certain demographic and psychographic, you have to perform quality-wise and do what you say you do. We’ve always come at it from that side, the product side, but now it’s kind of like, hell, let’s tell the world what we stand for, what we like. Let’s draw a line in the sand and say, “This is who we are. We like bikes. We like hot rods. We like cool, well-made, stylish things.”

Photography by Jaime Beechum

EM: So are you going away from the outdoorsman feel that you’ve had?

No, we’re adding to it. This is another facet of it.
We want to characterize the person who’s interested and curious about a lot of things. And, instead of fashion chasing, they’re image creating and defying labels. The 50′s, 60′s and 70′s, and before, there was a term for an individual like this, man or woman: sportsman. An individual who went out and was active in a bunch of ways, outdoors, indoors and so forth. We want to bring that back.

It’s not a matter of saying “I’m a surfer” or “I’m a cowboy,” it’s about doing everything. That’s what this company stands for above anything else: getting out there and doing what you love. We are a family of eccentrics, and it all started with my dad who is, without a doubt, the most interesting person I know and have ever met. I’ve got some stories about him that would blow your fucking mind, but I’m a family man now so I’ll keep quiet.

I will say that there’s a lot of him in this company, but what we really want to incorporate is his love of living like you were absolutely grabbing life by the throat and shaking it to death. All these automotive things, as well as the hunting, the fishing, and truly living as a gentleman and doing things with charisma, are what he personified.

My dad showed us that you can be comfortable in what you do, and it can look good, and it can still perform. It’s like taking a Range Rover hunting instead of a pickup. You take a classic-looking leather bag that functions while still maintaining a classy aesthetic. That’s what we stand for, and that’s what we want the brand has always stood for. It`s just that over the last couple years, we spent too much time listening to so called brand builders who felt we needed to change our product to appeal to the bigger urban/metro market segment instead of our traditional market. In short, we lost our way and listened to a siren’s song. Now, we`re going back to what we know, and what we stand for.

EM: Where do the motorcycle parts fit in? [Jay recently licensed a custom 1940's Harley-based motorcycle and line of parts based off of it]

I really like the old post-WWII stuff like flathead V8′s and souped-up Model T’s, and I’ve always ridden motorcycles. As a result, I want to commission bikes and bike parts each year using a different brand each time. This year, it’s Harley. Next year, it might be Triumph or something else entirely, because we also like things like Porsches and Ferraris and Maseratis, too. But that’s the beauty of it: it’s the variety of things that we can all enjoy. If it has wheels on it and can go fast, we think that’s cool.

EM: What kind of cars are you into?

All kinds…Let’s see, I’ve got a newer Porsche, a ’36 Chevy hot rod, a 1950 Ford convertible, a ’77 old-style Bronco, and then a couple of bikes at the house. I had a really bad motorcycle accident a few years ago, so that’s when I started to get into the cars.

EM: What kind of accident?

A woman T-boned me over by Lefty O’Doul Bridge near [AT&T Park]. She tried to make it between two cars and didn’t see me, and I laid the bike down and she ran right over me — it fucked me up. I was three months in the hospital; coma for two weeks, wheelchair for six months, lost 50lbs…But, you know, it changed my life. It’s one of those things that either changes you for the better or you lose it. And, luckily, I think it changed me for the better. It certainly calmed me down.

EM: Wow…That’s incredible, but it’s also the essence of living life the way you’ve described. Shit happens and you’ve gotta be able to roll with it.

Agreed. You know, it calmed me down enough so that a woman like my wife would fall in love with me, and now I have two beautiful children. I almost lost both of my legs, so I can’t run but I can walk OK. [Rolls up left pant leg] I lost an inch off this leg. I almost lost both arms and legs. Broke all my ribs – everyone of them up and down here [motions to ribs]. It broke my face up pretty badly, too. I actually used to be really handsome.
[laughs]

EM: Wow, that sounds terrible.

Yeah, it was pretty rough for awhile.

Photography by Jaime Beechum

EM: So…let’s talk about the new direction you guys are taking with the brand.

Yeah, so, now we’re kind of sitting here looking at what we’ve become, and it’s not us. I mean, the product is, but the brand isn’t.  We’re adding more of a personal touch to the brand and including some of things that we talked about-like bikes, hot rods and other stuff. We’ve got a new logo [shows me a logo with Mulholland written in a non-serif font], which we’re rolling out into two lines: Mulholland Deluxe and Mulholland Spa. All of the men’s stuff is going to go under Mulholland Deluxe, and the women’s stuff will go under the Spa line.

We’re adding belts and shoes to the line, which should be in stock soon. We’re also doing some outerwear for the first time.

EM: What kind of outerwear?

The stuff you keep in your wardrobe forever: button down oxford shirts, khakis and overcoats, both leather and cotton (waxed and unwaxed) coats and motorcycle jackets.

I’ve been designing jewelry since high school, so we recently added some men’s jewelry, which is mostly bracelets and stuff. Real thick, manly stuff made from unpolished sterling so that it doesn’t look too flashy or anything.

EM: And what about the retail store? [In Union Square, located across from the legendary Wilkes Bashford.]

Yeah, that’s a great example of what we’ve become by default – we’re redoing the whole thing and putting in some cool wood stuff and doing kind of a two-sided thing for our two different lines. I don’t like the way it is now. We were in a hurry, and now we have to go back and fix it.

EM: Any chance you can give me dates for this stuff?

[laughs] Of course you’d ask…Let’s see…The retail store should be done in November; the jewelry is in stock now; the outerwear, shoes and belts will be ready in January; and we’ll roll the branding out in December just in time for Christmas. Of course, this is all provided that everything runs on schedule…

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Mulholland’s line of bags and accessories are available on their Web site at http://shopmulholland.com/, which they will also be redesigning when they roll out their new branding strategy.

Photo gallery below (photos by Jaime Beechum):