That’s some messed up stuff and ironic both of you guys had memorable moments at Supreme involving the company car haha. Following the Supreme days, did you learn enough to make starting up Acapulco Gold a relative breeze, or was there some unforeseen difficulties?

GH: Let me tell you this, what you think you know is never enough.  There is always something new to learn.  It comes down to who you are as a person and how you can handle situations as they rise.  For example, if production comes in and something is not right do you return the whole shipment, get a discount or do nothing?  These things happen every single time and from every single contractor.  Just because someone made you something nice last time and you reorder the same thing doesn’t mean that the second delivery will be the exact same.  But for the most part learning what we did at Supreme and the other brands we worked at gave us an education.

AG: Learning a trade from the bottom up is crazy with and everyday brought a new headache.  We were able to get a lot of those headaches out  the way early so we developed the discipline to correct ourselves whenever we foul up.  And you fuck up a lot, but then again none of this would be any fun if it wasn’t like that.  Having grown up in a very crazed environment I learned early that it’s all about hustling.  Whether you hustle on the streets or you hustle your ass off to make your ideas happen it all comes from the same instinct, a sense of desperation.

I see that you have a few different diffusion lines aside from Acapulco Gold including Bricks, High Post and Instant Winner. Was this something important to you in creating separate themes and directions? Could you give a little run-down of each line and what they represent to you?

GH: Each separate brand is just a different aspect of how we design.  When you sit down to design a brand not everything that you design ends up in the final line.  That does not mean that the excluded designs are not good it just means that they did not fit into the line or the season that you sat down to design. Why would you let those designs go to waste?

AG: I think it was always important for us to show our varied ideas to people.  They always start out as concepts and after a while we see where things go.  This probably sounds like a recipe for failure, but this is the way we’ve always created things.  After a while you start to see a bigger picture develop with your ideas and then you can start categorizing them etc.  When an idea is good, it’s hard to let it go to waste. So we don’t.

It seems for a lot of brands, the Internet is a touchy subject for branding. For example the likes of Visvim just launched their website while it took awhile for Supreme to enter into Internet commerce. With the launch of Run My Game, what sort of things inspired this pretty comprehensive one-stop commerce and media site?

AG:  I think now everyone has to concede to the power of the web. 10 years ago this wasn’t the case because the technology wasn’t there and I also think it’s in people’s nature to stay within they’re comfort zone. Back then, that zone was a lot bigger with fewer companies in the mix.  But in the chase to maintain our  ”cool” I think some lose sight of the fact that we only thought we were “cool” because no one else knew what we knew.  That’s over now, everyone knows, and now it’s about showing people your shit in the best, most creative way possible.  To engage them in your ideas and your plans.  That’s what Run My Game is as well as being our online store front.  We’re pleased with how it turned out.

GH: What a better way to showcase you brand than to present it in a way that you intended it to be shown.  We wanted a website that was all in one.  Let’s say I go to a website because I am interested in something that someone is doing.  I end up on a blog, cool.  Then there is a company website, even better.  Now I want to buy something from this brand because I like what I see.  For this to happen I am taken to a 3rd website to the online store or I am shown a list of different online stores where I can buy the product that I liked.  After all this I need to get back to the original blog and see if that what I am buying is what I found on the online store.  Who has time for this horse shit?  So I told myself when I make my website I want it to be as easy as possible to navigate, to read news, to buy products and to see all of the new videos.  Runmygame.com is what I wanted it to be, easy to use.

It’s true, the fine balance of “being cool” and moving only a handful of product has all but changed these days. You’d be stupid not to capitalize on the massive audience now made available to you thanks to the Internet. We recently saw an upcoming project you’re doing with Vans on a shoe. Could you speak a bit in detail regarding how the project came about and what was your approach to the design?

AG: Vans has a long history, and I first bought a pair of them in 1988 when the classic was big in the city.  My friends from Brooklyn were wearing them with the preppy style that we were starting to rock.  I wore the shit out of those shoes one summer and they remain one my favorite shoes of all time.  So present day, when my friend Chris from Vans calls me up and tells me I’ll have the opportunity to design a Moda Hi shoe along with Geoff, it all came back around, that same feeling and I was psyched.  We wanted to come up with something dope and I’m happy with what we developed.

GH: Billy Rohan and Acapulco Gold have been putting on a few skate contests this summer and last summer here in New York.  Maybe you have heard about them, they are called The King of Spring, Rooftop Rampage and the Halloween Hellraiser.  You can watch the videos of each contest over at the video section on runmygame.com.  One of our main sponsors for the events has been Vans.  If you are gonna have a skate contest why would you not have Vans there. Since we have been making some noise in NY with these contest and Vans wanted to do an East vs. West shoe collab they called us up and asked us if we wanted in on the design.  Who better than Acapulco Gold to ask for a shoe concept.  We did the shoe design and also a t-shirt that goes along with it. Both items are coming out in the Spring of 2010 through Vans.