Comune Staff Marches Off the Job
Nearly the entire executive and design staff of skate and lifestyle-brand Comune abruptly quit the 3-year-old Costa Mesa, Calif.–based label in a protest over the brand’s direction, company sources said.
The resignation of Frank Delgadillo, brand founder and president, and nine other top staff members was made public June 17 when Julie Shumaker, Comune’s vice president of marketing, sent a mass email to retailers, manufacturers and friends of the brand. She said a brand investor had made a hostile takeover and sought to change the direction of the brand.
“Comune was never designed to be a mass-market brand,” she wrote in an emotional message.
The brand’s designers and executives disagreed with its partner, Los Angeles-based Komex International Inc., over the reported hiring of a new sales team, Comune sources said. Delgadillo declined to be interviewed for this story. John Inn, the co-owner of Komex, which manufacturers juniors label Bubblegum USA, declined to talk about the transition until next week.
The staff also was angered over Komex’s intent to cut the label’s sponsorship of a skate team, said Mike Quinones, Comune’s creative director, who left the company with Delgadillo. “We came to the industry with skate roots. I’d rather leave the brand than stick around and watch it turn into something we wouldn’t recognize,” he said. Comune designer Jake McCabe and a distribution staffer, Howie Marchbanks, remained with the brand.
Delgadillo will embark on a new fashion project in the near future, Comune sources said. Shumaker’s letter said the Comune staffers who resigned will “transition as a cohesive team.” The other team members leaving Comune are Mark Logan, brand manager; Matt Davis, vice president of sales; Clifford Lidell, graphic designer; Keri Banach, designer; Billy Garner, marketing coordinator; Sean Ciminesi, West Coast sales; and Cory Heenan, East Coast sales.
Delgadillo started the Comune label in 2008 shortly after he resigned from his position as president of Irvine, Calif.-based Ambiguous Clothing, a label he launched in 1996 out of his Chapman University dorm room. Again, Delgadillo had a difference of opinion with the direction of that company. This time, his dispute was with Ambiguous’ licensee holder, Ray’s Apparel, on the direction of the brand. While Ambiguous continues to find success, 25 people left that label after Delgadillo resigned. “Frank has more loyalty than any person I’ve met,” Quinones said.
Comune has been selling at a number of well-known stores such as Pacific Sunwear, Jack’s Surfboards and American Rag, Last September, it started a diffusion line called Sandinista for Pacific Sunwear that had a more economic price point than Comune’s.--Andrew Asch
