About Us.
I Love Ugly is a small team of friends with synchronized aspirations. Born January 26th,
2008 it stood out amongst its peers. “I love ugly” was an ironic title which designer Valentin
Ozich felt suited his character. ‘One mans trash is another mans treasure,’ what one may
think is beautiful another may regard as “ugly.” Taking pride in ones differences and stylistic
preference is the philosophy, which Valentin felt the need to embed in the brand and name of
the label.
At first the brand started as a pet project, slowly treading along as a glorified hobby.
Valentin spent the Initial years strengthening his design skills. In 2010 Valentin met Barnaby
Marshall while packing t-shirts in a warehouse. They shared a similar passion for music and
entrepreneurship.
Barnaby spoke to Valentin about the many possibilities of label growth with innovative
business systems. Seeing what he had to do to create the best fashion label possible, they
began to create the ideal team. They found people who both excelled at what they did and
had the passion and motivation to go the hard yards. Nikolai, Mo and Nathan came on to finalize the I
Love Ugly team.
Valentin: Designer. Graduating with a degree in visual communications, Valentins talents
were scouted and commissioned by such brands as Adidas originals, MTV and the Vodafone
music awards. He started I Love Ugly in 2008 as a passionate “starving artist” selling t-shirts
out of his closet. What started as a humble pursuit soon turned to an international presence
on the blogosphere and worldwide hype.
Barnaby: Business Director. Barnaby has aimed to create an innovative business system that
allows for high end products to be sold at affordable prices. Barnaby shares a similar passion
for music as V, Nikolai and Mo, having a degree in audio engineering.
Nikolai: Production & Development. Nikolai is extremely analytical and has the remarkable
ability to solve numerous system problems. With a major in operations, he doesn’t have time
for bullshit.
Mo: Branding & Design. With a Masters in architecture and multiple national and international
awards in design and branding, Mo’s role amalgamates branding and design. By branding
through design he hopes to recreate the customer experience, packaging, store fit-outs,
furniture and products. Along with V he is working on pushing design boundaries and
changing the game.
Nathan: Customer Service. Nathan worked for Adidas for many years. Having seen the
insides of a large clothing company and the way a warehouse works on a large scale, there
was no better option when it came to finding someone to manage stock, enquiries and
accounts. Nathan strives to provide the absolute best customer service from any online store
possible and ensure every customer is completely satisfied.
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I Love Ugly Story:
I Love Ugly was born in a cupboard in March 2008 with Valentin Ozich pouring over his desk
making illustrations of his intricate and entangled subconscious thoughts.
Once described as a starving artist, he came to the point where he had to choose to stay
making music in his experimental hip hop group or do the visual art thing, which he was
equally passionate about. Choosing the art side of things he soon realized his potential being
commissioned by clients such as MTV, Adidas originals and Vodafone.
He then began to fuse his passion for illustrations with t-shirts. Gaining popularity these t-
shirts evolved into vests and hoodies. Season after season Valentin introduced different
products and expanded the range of I Love Ugly until it resembled a street wear brand.
Valentin had no experience in fashion, just the drive and passion to do what he felt was best
at the time and creating things he would like to wear himself.
In December 2009 Valentin decided to take on I Love Ugly full time and ditched his job at
the time packing t-shirts. He and his wife Eley opened a flagship store in Auckland and also
stocked other labels and art exclusive to New Zealand. By the end of 2010 the label took
precedence and Valentin decided to close the store and fully concentrate on the brand, then
came friend Barnaby Marshall.
Valentin and Barnaby met packing t-shirts in 2008. They became friends and often spoke
about their dreams of owning their own clothing empire someday. They shared the same
passion for hip-hop and both made music outside of the t-shirt warehouse. Valentin left to
open Broken Puppet Boutique and Barnaby went on to study audio engineering and pursue
music.
It was around then that Barnaby met Lui Tuiasau (now @peace) and formed their first hip hop
duo – nothing to nobody. The pair worked on an EP that they released in august 2010. They
kept busy with gigs around Auckland and spent countless hours recording and rerecording
licks, samples and snippets, piecing together their tracks.
At the end of 2010 Barnaby founded Milk Underwear. Milk strived to provide good quality
underwear at an affordable price and deliver them right to your door. Milk started strong
and underwear was flying out the door for the first two months of business. Soon Milk
ran into some trademark issues and was wound up. Now Montys underwear carries
on that legacy, a joint venture of Nikolai, Valentin and Barnaby with another partner.
www.montysunderwear.co.nz.
In January 2011 Valentin and Barnaby found an office space together to share their vision
of building their businesses. From there it was a natural progression to become business
partners. It didn’t take long from there for the other projects they were collectively involved
in (among them a website design company and a labeling business) to trickle off the radar.
Soon I Love Ugly was their only focus. Together they shared the vision to create a premium
street wear brand.
Both parties shared an entrepreneurial hunger and love of hip-hop, clothes and art making
the partnership an obvious move. Still making music and art by night (a little less these days)
I Love Ugly is the daily creative output of the duo.
Nikolai was the next addition to the I Love Ugly team in early 2011. He brought a new critical
way of thinking and great technical skills to the business. Having got straight A’s for the past 4
years at business school, Nikolai had a good understanding of how to build a good corporate
structure.
Despite his logical thinking and business sense he also had a hugely powerful skill in
computer programming. Nikolai built the entire online store from scratch and continues to
improve it and build other business systems with his skills in computer programming.
For the earlier part of 2011 the boys built the I Love Ugly online store 1.0 and worked on
selling to their NZ retailers and a few in Australia. Notably in July they shipped their first order
to ASOS.com.
Later in the 2011 young grass hoppers Zac and Ash came in to help with some Mac Op and
Design. Zac now works in the I Love Ugly store in Mt Eden and Ash continues to do casual
part time work.
In November 2011 I Love Ugly opened a pop up store, near their offices in Mt Eden. The first
two months were a huge success, the past 10 months had clearly compounded into a much
larger following. In early 2012 they took on the shop full time as their first flag ship store.
Dom came on board in early 2012 to work at the shop with Zac. His gift of the gab served him
well and it wasn’t long before he was a seasoned pro of selling.
It wasn't long after that Mo came along. Mo approached the team with a vision for the brand.
He had experience in design and branding and had a great intuition for the way the details
of a company affect the way it is perceived. So a new role was created. Brand manager. For
the first few months Mo got involved with product design and helping V to present products in
a way they haven’t been seen before. He brought to the table key brand slogans that helped
to shape many of the subsequent decisions – “sophisticated simplicity” “branding through
design”. These phrases had a deep connotation and the effect of these will continue to shape
the way I Love Ugly grows.
I Love Ugly is now being recognized around the world on the blogosphere and is picking up a
large following of customers. In the next few years their product offering will grow and the true
essence of the underlying brand will be revealed.
I Love Ugly combine art and fashion. We are heavily focused on our customers knowing our
roots as a brand and where we find inspiration. Not much has changed to the core values
from early days of illustration on t-shirts to a diverse menswear label. It’s still about art. It’s still
about true inspired thought. It’s still about going against the grain and trying to give people
something they haven't seen anywhere else before.
We hope you enjoy.
