Inspiration Behind the Meltdown Collection

Although not our first collection, the Meltdown Collection has undeniably been the biggest driver of Venture Syndicate’s success to date. It has helped us solidify ourselves as an apparel brand and has led to our first sets of what I call “random sales” (sales that do not stem from my network, expos, etc.). In today’s post I wanted to talk about the inspiration behind the Meltdown Collection and give you guys an inside look into what goes into coming up with a new apparel line.

So, for those of you who do not know, the Meltdown Collection is our most recent apparel launch which dropped in Summer ’22. You can check it out here to get a visual of what I am talking about. Being an apparel brand based in snowboarding roots, designing a line of apparel for the summer is not super easy (as you can imagine) - it required Sarah and I to get a little creative.

Right off the bat we knew that we wanted to do oversized graphic tees. We felt that this style of tee was perfect for the vibe of Venture Syndicate and our customers. Oversized tees are a streetwear staple, making them an ideal option for those days spent in urban environments. Additionally, being made of heavyweight material and their oversized design, they are a great option to throw over a long sleeve or hoodie to bring some added style once we start heading towards the mountains. We also knew that these shirts had to be colorful in order to really make a statement. This ultimately led us to land on the Grape and Glacier tees we know and love today. Of course we also had to throw a black tee in there. Black is just a staple; not much else I can say about that.

Now that we settled on the shirt style it was time to figure out the actual design. During one of our brainstorming sessions we eventually landed on the idea of playing with the dreaded end of the snowboard season. You know, where all the snow melts away and we must retire our boards for the summer, and it kind of feels like the world is ending? Although not our favorite time of year, we thought this was the perfect way for us to blend our snowboarding roots with a summer apparel collection. Now it was just up to our designers to get to work (shoutout Emmie for this one!).

I won’t get into the details of how our design team works their magic behind the scenes. However, I think that we can all agree that they absolutely crushed it on this one. I have gotten a ton of incredible feedback on the design of the Meltdown Collection. It makes me tremendously proud of the Venture Syndicate team and the things we are creating. Needless to say, no matter what we accomplish in the future, the Meltdown Collection is always going to have a special place in my heart. Now we just need to find a way to top it. Stay tuned….

As always, dare to venture.

Jaime