The Daily Street has been nurturing and supporting the UK's streetwear and sneaker culture since 2009, though others came before it The Daily Street was the first of the London based sites to really focus on the UK and what was happening here, becoming the essential go-to for every head who wanted to stay on top of things in blighty. So here Complex talks to one of the co-founders Alex Synamatix on The Daily Street's route to the top.

You know given your status in the UK it was surprisingly hard to find articles about The Daily Street online...
We actually haven't done any interviews for a while. A brief history I guess starts in 2009 with myself, Adam Scotland and Jamie Szulc. I met Adam at Westminster University where we were studying commercial music and we met Jamie through our interest in music. At the time we were running our own personal blogspots rambling about trainers to no-one essentially. Adam had made a conscious decision to focus on streetwear and at the time there was quite a bubbling little scene in the UK.

It's weird it's like streetwear sort of came back up around 2009... before becoming the beast it is today.
Yeah it was an interesting time, we had a bit of a brainwave that the three of us should come together and essentially try out a professional blog focused on the UK. At that time larger blogs like Hypebeast and Highsnobiety and the large sneaker brands hadn't really globalised their output yet. None of the sites we were looking at were focused on what you could buy in the UK. So we set up a blog based on the hope that other people wanted something like that here and The Daily Street snowballed very quickly from there. Within three months of launch we were invited to our first press day, I remember emailing to ask what I should bring. We were finding our own way with no prior experience of journalism.

I find it interesting you all have musical backgrounds do you think that has had an affect on TDS?
Almost certainly, though in recent years my involvement in music has died down. The further we've got into the fashion industry the more obvious it becomes that it helps if you have an outside view provided by something like music. Fashion and music are one and the same they influence each other equally.

What were your struggles with the blog in the early days?
Pretty much the same struggle as going forward; finding the time. It takes a lot of hours to run a blog, it's almost like the more you do the more the demands keep growing. Luckily for us we were still at university and our tutors were willing to count the work we did with The Daily Street as part of our final year and we had some finance from our student loans.

Was winning over the streetwear industry hard?
I think we managed to spot a decent enough gap in the market, the PR's and the brands felt they needed that UK specific gap filled even more than we did. There was a positive reaction from the likes of Canoe—the PR agency for Vans— after our launch they said they'd been waiting for something that really spoke to the UK consumer.

How did you make TDS UK specific?
At the start it was a simple case of working to a few golden rules. If a product doesn't come into the UK we wouldn't talk about it. The blogosphere back then was crazy for writing about product as soon as they possibly could. The industry was trying to figure out the shift from print to online in terms of PR, brand and advertising, and how to give magazines the info their long lead times require far in advance but also working with the online writers who would publish whatever they could get their hands on right away. We wanted to focus on what's happening right now not in six or eight months time. We still hold to only writing about current season products.

It's been crazy seeing streetwear infiltrate the likes of Style.com and The Business of Fashion right?
Now there are a huge number of start-up brands. You can make a lot of money out of streetwear now. I went into Selfridges recently not having been there for a long time and there's a whole streetwear section, not just Obey and Carhartt but the likes of Trapstar too, if you'd have worn those brands in Selfridges a couple of years ago you would have been followed around by their security. That much change in that short a time is crazy. There were a lot of stores and brands that ended up closing just before streetwear kicked off again it was too much of a struggle. Nike have probably had a big part to play in spotting the change and nurturing it, it is sneaker culture that opened streetwear up.

It seemed like streetwear also benefited from that wave of rappers starting with Pharrell and Kanye to the current generation who seemed to embrace style.
Very true, you're right saying that it was this generation of hip-hop people like A$AP Rocky who command a huge amount of power in terms of shifting culture, are changing the fashion industry and the high-end can't ignore it. Streetwear is not just kids messing around, the customer has a lot of money to spend.

What gets the most hits on the site?
Anything Huarache based. Around 2010 it seemed like a whole new set of people got into Nike with the Blazer, right to the point where anyone who was into sneakers denounced the Blazer those guys moved onto the Air Max One and then the Huarache..

Tips for setting up a street wear blog?
Think long and hard about what it's going to be about and if there's space for what you want to do. Is what you're putting out there needed? For example what we did wasn't really new, it's just that slight UK tweak was. Also be ambitious, the name The Daily Street makes things seem bigger right away. There was a certain amount of smoke and mirrors when we launched, online if a site is designed well and looks like it has been there for a while and operates like it has people will just assume it is established. Act big until you become big. We didn't tell people our figures for at least two years, the industry are after stats, hold off. We had to build relationships get to know people, it's where a large chunk of your power comes from as a site. It's important to meet face to face, business is a network of relationships, we wanted to get to know the industry, it's why we set it up, we wanted to be a part of something rather than just talk about it. Don't expect instant success, if you're looking to quit your job this is not the quick route for that. Don't be scared to go talk to people especially people you look up to. When you meet people like—legendary Nike designer—Tinker Hatfield it turns out most of them are pretty nice or at least interesting to get along with, it's just how you approach them.

Does TDS pay your rent now? Did that mean working with brands?
It does pay my rent, but we're always looking to expand the business model without affecting what we stand for as a site, we've set ourselves strict rules and morals that have since meant we've had to turn down decent money from brands we didn't want to align with. Big brands will happily push you into doing something they can monetize, and in the chase for traffic you become very beige with no loyal audience. We had to make a decision early on, quality of content over quantity of traffic. Viral traffic doesn't care what site it's on. Quality traffic chooses to come straight to The Daily Street every morning reaching that audience means having more impact. Luckily especially in the streetwear sector they understand there's bigger numbers out there but our audience is equally as important.

But you like brands, right?
We all naturally have a real interest in marketing, the building of brands and creative ideas. When you're into streetwear you're often as into the brand as the style, so mapping what a brand has been doing for the last ten years or might do in the future comes naturally. It's like I've been prepping for this job since I was 15 without knowing it, meeting up with your mates and discussing Nike's new campaigns isn't normal, but it's what we did. Delay, build a strong brand name, focus on what you're doing until the brands respect what you do, your opinion and come knocking on your door. Be confident, it's important to have something to say if a brand comes to you for an opinion, if you agree with everything they say you might as well not be there. If you think a brand is going down the wrong route it's your job to tell them.

You think The Daily Street working as a team has it's advantages?
Yeah. It's important to arm yourself with people whose strengths are your weaknesses. We didn't want to be saying something is good because 'I' say it is, we wanted the authority of an organisation. A team is really really important, there's a million roles behind TDS, you're not going to be able to handle them all yourself.

Why did you do the mixtapes?
It was for selfish reasons, I'm a DJ and wanted to do a mix series, I really liked FACT magazine's mix series and wanted to do our own but for up and coming artists. From a business perspective it was content that would be reposted and a reach out to the music market.

Events have become a huge part of building a viable media brand and a way to get paid, how important are they to TDS?
If I'm being honest it's early days with events, we threw a big summer party last year and we are looking to do more. It's important to be active offline, with a good event you're building a real life network and fanbase around the business, bringing people in and allowing them to feel like they're involved.

Finally if there's a young T-shirt maker out there say, how do they catch TDS eye?
As much as it should be product first, the first thing I actually see is your email, then what you've sent me and then the product, that's how it happens chronologically. First, it's your approach, it's the first thing in all honesty that's noticed. Understand it's about building relationships especially with publications, making friends is the most powerful move you can make. Next is presentation, if you want to get noticed be creative and present what you're doing well, really bad photos of your product laying on the floor is not going to help sell anything. The third thing is make a good product be honest with yourself, check in with people you know will be honest, a lot of start-up brands you can tell have sycophantic mates who say everything is amazing. Then they'll send an email to someone like us and I have to juggle with whether or not we should reply honestly or not at all. If I feel people can benefit I often say stuff like I think you need to do this, this, and this, but keep me updated with your progression. For example Koreless hit me up saying he liked our mixtape series, I instantly loved his music but he only had a few unsigned tracks to his name, he'd only just started a Soundcloud, I knew he was a huge talent so I wrote back and said maybe in a few months. We kept a regular open dialogue to time it right for both us and him. The music was just amazing but if I had put his mix up straight away our reader wouldn't have really got how good Koreless is, so by delaying for six months the impact was greater. Now he’s killing it. It’s great to see.