39. Jonathan Oe: Revolutionizing Compression Garment and Boosting Athletic Performance and Confidence with Leorêver

What if compression garments could not only enhance your athletic performance but also boost your confidence and self-assurance in everyday life? Join us as we sit down with Jonathan Oe, the visionary designer and owner of Leorêver, a luxury activewear brand that's revolutionizing the world of compression garments for men and women.

Discover how Jonathan's journey took him from growing up in Venice, California, to working with the LA Lakers and The Chargers and eventually launching his own fashion brand. We dive deep into the benefits and real-world applications of Leorêver's products, from reducing fatigue and improving blood circulation to empowering professionals in demanding professions like the CIA and FBI. Jonathan also shares inspiring stories of athletes whose performance skyrocketed after incorporating his compression garments into their routines.

But our conversation doesn't stop at athletics. We also explore Jonathan's design philosophy and the creative process behind his captivating Monte Carlo and Roma collections, as well as how he's breaking down stigmas and pushing boundaries in the fashion industry. Get ready to be inspired by Jonathan Oe's incredible story and the transformative power of Leorêver compression garments. 

Jonathan's Email: jonathan@leorever.com

LEORÊVER COMPRESSION AND ACTIVEWEAR
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Chapters

• 0:04 The Dreaming Lion
• 12:23 Fashion Design and Body Sculpting Journey
• 24:06 Finding Purpose Through Hard Work
• 29:55 From Gilda Marx to Sports Apparel
• 40:39 The Benefits of Athlete-Made Compression Products
• 47:19 Compression Tights for Work and Sports
• 54:29 Athlete Sponsorship and Product Promotion
• 58:00 Patience and the Art of Timing
• 1:07:16 Achieving Greatness Through Inspiration and Work
• 1:20:40 Fashion, Confidence, and the Anti-Pandemic Cure

Transcript

Klara: 0:04

music. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Grand Slam Journey podcast, where I, together with my guests, discuss various topics related to finding our passion and purpose, maximizing our potential, sports, life after sports, and transitioning from one chapter of our lives to the next, growing our leadership in whatever we decide to put our minds into For me personally, areas of business and technology. I'm your host, clara Egocsova, and today I bring you a conversation with Jonathan Oi. Jonathan's story is the one of the Dreaming Lion. What it means is he's the creator and designer of the brand Leoreve. That stands for the Dreaming Lion. This conversation is a story of a man's search for meaning through scissors, celebrity athletes and thousands of miles of fabric.

Klara: 1:36

Jonathan shared his experience growing up in Venice, california, and his journey in the fashion industry, including the creation of his brand, leoreve. We discussed his brand's focus on empowering athletes and its commitment to direct to consumer sales. Jonathan talked about the journey that led him to where he is today, which included his involvement with the basketball team LA Lakers and football team The Chargers, and how it led to the beginning of his compression wear business. Jonathan shared his journey to success and the lessons he learned along the way. We talked about the importance of hard work, finding a sense of purpose and manifesting success. We dive into discussing various benefits of his company's compression tights for athletes and professionals. He shared six stories of athletes who have regained confidence and improved their performance after wearing the tights, including tennis player Marcos Andrés Guiron and basketball player Robert Ori. Jonathan highlighted the product's ability to reduce fatigue and improve blood circulation, making it useful for professionals who work long hours on their feet. We discussed the importance of patience and timing in business and how Jonathan deals with his restless nature. We explored the challenges of pursuing ideas that may not be accepted by world and how to give ourselves permission to focus on other things. Jonathan shared his admiration for Monet the painter, and how his commitment and sacrifice led to his greatness. He emphasized the need to master different levels of your craft and the importance of internalizing knowledge to excel in our field.

Klara: 3:39

Jonathan's design philosophy centers around creating clothing that enhances body lines and boosts self-confidence. He shared insights into his Monte Carlo and Roma collections, highlighting the materials and structures used in each. The Monte Carlo collection is designed for tennis players and features smooth, breathable fabric and a high neck to keep out the wind. The Roma collection is made from a micro model and has a structured, tapered look inspired by 1940s movie Overall, jonathan's goal is to help people feel more confident and self-assured in their daily lives through his clothing and designs. If you enjoyed this conversation, i want to ask you to please share it with someone who you believe may enjoy it as well. Please submit a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and don't forget to subscribe to the show so you don't miss the next episode. And now I bring you Jonathan Oi and the Leorewe brand. Enjoy the listen. Thank you, jonathan, for accepting my invitation. I'm super thrilled to have you on the Grinslam Journey Podcast. Happy Friday.

Jonathan: 5:04

Thank you, happy Friday to you. It's good to be here.

Klara: 5:06

Where are you dialing from? Are you in Huntington Beach?

Jonathan: 5:08

No, i'm actually in Las Vegas, so I have a really beautiful home that I bought here, and I bought it partly as a nice place to spend time, but also as a film set. So for our Leorewe videos we shoot most of those here where I live, and it's in Ashtain, henderson and the hills above Las Vegas, so we do a lot of our video work here. So for that reason too, it's been really good.

Klara: 5:36

And that's a short trip from, i guess, la, between Huntington Beach. Do you drive or do you fly back and forth?

Jonathan: 5:43

It depends what my schedule looks like. If I have a lot of things to carry and I have time, i'll drive it, which is about four hours, and sometimes I'll fly back and forth, which can be a lot easier, depending on what my schedule looks like.

Klara: 5:55

Yeah, and what the lines at the airport? actually four hours kind of ride on the edge where you've got to guess between driving versus getting to the airport on time, and all of it can be challenging, especially if you're flying from the LAX airport, which is a disaster itself.

Jonathan: 6:12

I actually found a way around that. Though There's private airlines where you can skip all that too, i tend to use a private airline where I don't have to deal with all the security and stuff, so that actually works out better.

Klara: 6:22

And way smarter. I'm sure you save so much time with going through the screening. That's the most annoying process always.

Jonathan: 6:29

Yeah, it really is. It makes it more convenient but less stressful, which I think is the big factor there.

Klara: 6:37

Yeah, and time is of essence, i think, for everyone in keeping creative and no stress mind, especially for all you do. I'm sure it's important 100%. So to definitely all of that. People may know about the Laureve brand, but they may and may not know you. But I always love giving my guests a chance to introduce themselves. So please introduce yourself, jonathan, to the listeners.

Jonathan: 7:02

My name is Jonathan Oi. I'm the designer and creator and the owner of Laureve. Laureve started out as a men's compression and luxury active wear brand And of course, we still have that going. And then we've added on a female component to the brand this year, which is going pretty quickly. Not that I'm surprised about it, because it's a really good product, but it was really sort of marketing issues that kept us from launching the women's line in the beginning. But going back to who I am, i kind of grew up in the women's bodywear industry with Gilda Marx, as you know, and then I got into running and owning my own athletic uniform and custom clothing company, which kind of morphed into a couple of different brands. Eventually, laureve started in 2017. We've been going with that for about six years now and, through the pandemic and everything, i've got a small group of very committed customers and it's been a really fun ride And we're going to go into a lot of details about all that stuff today. But that's kind of who I am.

Klara: 8:09

Yes, thank you. Fun fact, i am wearing pair of your Laureve shorts for our interview. I figured it's great to feel good and powerful on the court but also off the court, and I figured what a better opportunity to use them then for my interview with the creator of them. So, thank you.

Jonathan: 8:28

Well, thank you, and I'm wearing my pieces as well.

Klara: 8:31

And I look forward to getting more now that you have women's line alive. But I do want to go back a little bit more into your upbringing. I'm a strong believer that early on, our early life and experiences shaped a lot of who we are as humans and our belief system and sort of our passion. How is it to grow up in America in that time as a Japanese? We all, i'm sure, read the books and heard a lot about the history at that time. But just curious if you could share a little bit more about your experience. I saw on your website a line that you grew up in California and was shaped a lot by gangs and surfers and artists. I'm so curious.

Jonathan: 9:21

My grandparents migrated from Japan through Hawaii for a few years and then to California I was like in the 1880s or 90s, so it was a long time ago And then my parents were born in the United States And of course I was as well. But I grew up in a little 1000 square foot house in Venice, california and super blue collar neighborhood. I remember being five years old. My mom handed me a sack lunch. I was five years old and walking to school. It was like you know, maybe a third of a mile or half mile or something. It's so strange how things have changed. We couldn't imagine kids now like walking to school in their five. But that's just how we did things. I'm sure she was worried And then she was quite happy when I got home then at the end of the day.

Jonathan: 10:06

But that was kind of how people were brought up back then as being very responsible and having to go out there and work through everything on your own, and that's what made you stronger and better people, more resilient. I think about my parents' generation and just how resilient and tough they were and how they were able to work through things And there wasn't a lot of bitching, moaning and complaining. They just got to working when. Adam, i really do respect that era of people And I would like to think that that's a lot of who I am. I'm not a big talker on social media and stuff. I don't really like to talk about myself too much. I just rather just keep working hard for my customers and my athletes and doing the best that we can. So that kind of attitude just permeates through our whole company Because, as you know, we're a company of about 30 people and we do all of our own design, manufacturing and selling direct to consumer through our website. That whole attitude that I grew up with really permeates through our whole company.

Jonathan: 11:07

But going back to when I was a kid, being really young, that was my experience. Then, of course, going to high school. Venice was such a naturally integrated area. I didn't really have an idea about what racism was or whatever. We had gangs and surfers and artists and all kinds of people at my school And we didn't make a big deal about anything. Everybody just kind of accepted each other and got along with each other as best they could And we didn't really talk about it. All those other things didn't really get exposed to me until I moved out of that area and kind of went on with my life. But Venice High School, that was a great place to be And I would never wish that I would have been anywhere else.

Klara: 11:47

What do you have the most fond memories about?

Jonathan: 11:50

Oh wow, i mean there was a lot of good stuff. The movie Grease was filmed at my high school. Oh yeah, i remember going to baseball practice in the summertime and there's Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta and all those people dancing up in our bleachers and stuff in the lunch area.

Klara: 12:05

Such a great movie and so timeless. It really was.

Jonathan: 12:09

That wasn't necessarily what my high school experience was, but I remember watching that going on and I wouldn't trade growing up anywhere else. It was a great way to experience my childhood and my adolescence.

Klara: 12:23

So it seems like you were quite early on driven towards fashion, or attracted to fashion, would you say it was shaped or influenced, partly having the variety of people around you and the freedom of artists, or what drew you to fashion early on in your life.

Jonathan: 12:42

To be honest with you, when I was in high school I had no idea really what I wanted to do. In fact, even when I was in college, i didn't really have an idea either. So I ended up going to business school and then, interestingly enough, i became a CPA. That was my first job.

Klara: 12:56

Wow.

Jonathan: 12:57

I never really thought that I was going to end up doing clothing or design.

Jonathan: 13:02

I just didn't know I had any talent at those things, but one that was my first experience of really understanding about clothing or getting an idea about something. That was different was everybody wore suits back then And I splurged my first check that I earned and bought this really nice suit by Zegna And it was so different from anything I'd ever experienced, the way that when I put it on, the way that it felt, the way that it fit, the way that it changed, the way that I felt about myself, i kind of looked at myself differently. There was a feeling of elegance and structure. That kind of stuck in my mind, those first realizations that I had when I bought that first suit that I bought when I came out of college and got my first job Actually my first job after I graduated, because I've been working since I was 14, which would be against the law now, but it wasn't back then That, interestingly enough, carried forward in my life and became something much, much bigger, but that was my first experience with it.

Klara: 14:09

Is that when you realized it? was it just the first step? How did that path to fashion and uncovering the passion evolved?

Jonathan: 14:18

So it's funny because things in my life have taken so much longer. There's some people that, like Donna Karen you know her father was a tailor, so she grew up in that business But there's a lot of people like myself, like Coco Chanel. It was a really long, hard road and she had different challenges that she faced, i would say much bigger than mine. But my path to get to where I wanted to go. First of all I didn't really know where I wanted to go. It took me time to kind of get that vision of what I wanted to become and what I wanted to create, and then to the point where I am now. I wish I was where I am now, like 20 years ago, where I still had so much more creative time. But the problem with life is we run out of time.

Jonathan: 15:05

You know we have these things we want to accomplish, things we want to do, but we run out of time because life is just limited the amount of time. So from that point where I experienced that and then you know, i ended up working in public accounting for a couple years and then quitting because I realized that's not where I wanted to be. Then I went to Japan and spent two or three years just kind of searching for myself. Really I didn't get into the clothing industry till I was 29, about 29, 30. When I was 30, i ran into Bob Marks who ran this leotard company called Gildomarks with his wife. I could say easily there were the. Those guys in Danskin were the two leaders in the industry when it came to aerobic leotards and dance leotards And you could find their product in every major department store, every major sporting goods store. And so he hired me to build a division for Gildomarks in Japan. And I knew nothing about compression where I knew nothing about the women's leotard industry or clothing industry at the time. But he felt that I had all the other tools in terms of the management skills and he felt that I could translate their message and what they did into another culture And so he hired me and I could tell you that there's so much of what I still do to this day from what I learned from Bob and Gilda. They really influenced my life. They were my first real teachers.

Jonathan: 16:36

Up until that time I was just kind of on my own, but they're my first real teachers, so it's sort of like a distant way. I became part of their family, which was really, really cool, and Bob and I became pretty close at the time. But when I started doing that, i got introduced to this idea about the compression word business, where women would put on because they didn't have men's products, it was just a female one. A woman would point on a leotard and Bob would tell me you know, she's gonna look 5% slimmer. So what happens is they put this on, they look 5% slimmer. They instantly feel More confident, more self-confident, and I thought you know that's really amazing. Of course that's a life empowering thing, because Once you get that instant push in your self-confidence, then you're gonna train a little harder, you're gonna be happier, you're gonna have better relationships with your family and friends and your whoever that special partner is in your life. Those are all very, very positive things. So I saw those things happening with that business that I was bringing into Japan and the people that I talked to that wore the Products and I go, oh, this is a real thing. I almost felt like it was a self-help industry as much as it was a Fashion or a movement. It was really about the individual feeling better about who they were, and And so for me, that's what drew me into that business and Over that course of time I really started to understand in my mind, ask myself questions about What makes people look attractive and what makes people, from a compression and from a body sculpting point of view, what is attractive to the eye.

Jonathan: 18:16

When I looked at a lot of things I never thought of before. You could look at statues and sculptures in the way that you know, like Phil Angelos structured his statues, and you know there's proportions and things like that that are pleasing to the eye and There's other proportions that are not. So when it comes down to my design perspective, it really came down from that whole initial experience from the suit, about how I felt when I put that on. It was a feeling of elegance, it was a feeling of structure and sculpture, that initial feeling that I had when I put on my first real suit to Then what, reconnecting those ideas with what I was seeing at Gilda marks, with the women, those kind of things connected at that point. And then I started developing sort of my sense of what I thought was attractive and Then start pursuing that. Because this idea of silhouettes, we can go back and talk about Gilda marks a little bit later.

Jonathan: 19:15

But you know, as I moved on to my next business and I started designing athletic uniforms, like basketball uniforms and football pants and all these things I was teaching myself to create and make patterns for, there was always this underlying idea of function and structure and Silhouette.

Jonathan: 19:39

To me those were the things that made a successful garment. I think I have a really good sense of like color and what are good prints and you know I have a really good sense of how it works together. But for me that's not nearly as important as structure and Body lines. Body lines is the most critical thing and if you go through all the collections that I have, starting with the compression, the body lines of what I create are very structured and very consistent And I think that's what draws a lot of people into the line if it fits them. There's some people that it won't fit, but if you're the body type that I designed for, there's nothing else like our product. There's nothing else, and people tell me all the time about how much they love it and how many Compliments they get from the things that they wear that I designed. That's the root of where all those ideas and Vision of what I do came from.

Klara: 20:35

What I wanted you, as there's actually a few things You mentioned. Do you met Bob? Was it really certain to bid his encounter, or did you seek out that opportunity at that point when you met them first?

Jonathan: 20:48

Well, it's very interesting the way that I met Bob Was. I was in Tokyo at the time. I already had my own business that I had created that touched on sports accessories, and I met Bob in Tokyo at a. It was a JETRO. There's JETRO still exists. It's Japan export trade something or other organization.

Jonathan: 21:11

And so they organized this thing to try to marry up American companies that want to do business in Japan, and so somehow I got matched up with him as Somebody that could possibly help him. What he originally was looking for was really a, a, a Japanese trading company to To bring the guild of products over from the US to Japan and then Distribute them throughout the country, and I would start out as an interpreter for him. So I was sitting down with these big Japanese trade companies and then Bob on the other side of the table And I'm sitting on Bob's side. I was interpreting for him, trying to get him some sort of good Arrangement with these companies. You know, sitting on one side table, bob, and there's a Japanese person on the other side From a big company, or usually two or three of these people Like he would tell me something and and then I have to tell it to them, but I know that they're not going to take it the right ways. I was changing the story a little bit and then telling him, so he, like he knew that I was doing this right and We got to the end of the period, he said you know, i really don't want to hire those other companies.

Jonathan: 22:27

They don't understand. Because he goes I know what you're doing. You're trying to smooth things over, to culturally make things work. You, because I understand that there's a difference in cultures here, because I really don't want to bring on those guys. What I want to do is hire you to do this for us.

Jonathan: 22:42

I go oh, yeah, okay, um, i love to get involved with it. Because I learned so much about just over the like three days Just interpreting for him That I thought, yeah, that sounds like something I really want to do. And so he pulled out his yellow pad of paper and it's funny because I Go through tons of yellow pads of paper So he pulled out his yellow pad of paper and he just basically drew up our contract. That was how I started with him and that went on like six years until they sold the company, which was heartbreaking because I really loved. I really loved working for him and Gilda and And if that had continued I would have never started my own thing because I was so happy just working for them. They're just tremendous people, but that's how that all started. I don't that answered your question or not.

Klara: 23:31

Yeah, no, that's great. It kind of made me think about creating your own path and sometimes, how much is it randomness versus serendipity, versus having something in your mind that you were kind of thinking about or, you know, creating? I guess manifesting is the right word. Looking back at it, how much do you think that moment was perhaps something that You somewhat manifested, or just being at the right time at the right place? Jonathan?

Jonathan: 24:03

Oh, i think that I manifested it. So I really believe that People expect a life to deliver something to them. People think that good things should just happen for them, and I don't subscribe to that. What I think is that Whatever it is that you decide to do with your life because you know we have different big portions that we've got You know our relationships and we've got our work to me Those are the two most important things. Everything else kind of just We can go out and have a good time or whatever it is.

Jonathan: 24:42

But I think working really hard on our Relationships and our work if we just focus in on those two things and I would even put our work ahead of the relationships because through our work determines a lot about the circle of people that we come in contact with. And I don't care whether you're a professional athlete or whether you're an entertainer or Whether you're a plumber, whether you're an electrician or whether you're a sewer or whether You're somebody that does masonry work or build fences or homes or whatever it is, or does tile work, i don't care what it is. Giving yourself over a hundred percent to that task, that is what creates our sense of purpose, and our sense of purpose is where we find, ultimately, where our happiness is. Living without a sense of purpose like did you expect something to happen to you, or you expect to get a thing, you know, a check in the mail from the government That's not a sense of purpose, that's a sense of hopelessness.

Jonathan: 25:54

So from a very early age I worked really, really hard at whatever I did and And some of those things worked out well. Most of the things probably didn't, but I think I tried so hard and so many things and failed At so many things that eventually you find the thing that actually fits and works. And Out of all those successes and failures I found Bob and Gilda and I became the person that they needed. So had I not gone through all those efforts of succeeding and failing and Finding what I liked, what I didn't like, and even if I didn't like it, i worked through it? That was the person that they needed. They needed me to be that person because I was so sourceful and I never gave up. So I was dragging around 70 pound suitcases full of leotards up and down these stairs in the subway in Tokyo And it's like 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity like who's gonna do that now?

Klara: 26:50

right.

Jonathan: 26:51

I mean, you just don't find people that are willing to go that far and do those things. But that was me, that was who I was, and so for me was like that's what I was supposed to be doing. And I found my sense of purpose there and, like I said, i mean I think some people are so concerned about they want to be the boss, they want to be this and, as I said, i was so happy If they were to not sold the company. Maybe I would still be with them if that company had continued. I really loved what I did. I love the family, i love the culture they created and But anyway I had to leave and that led to me Doing my next things and I wish I could tell you the ten years after I left was fun and all this other stuff, but they were excruciatingly difficult.

Jonathan: 27:35

So Another period of time I really had to work through. So I started to find success. But those years that I worked through learning how to make patterns and running my own business Most people don't survive that and I barely survived it. But it took me that long to really become proficient and Trying to find the right word Competent, that's the word it took me ten years to really be competent and proficient and confident in what I was doing and commit to it and And just push forward regardless of what happened. It was a long, long difficult road.

Klara: 28:21

How much of it is, jonathan, i guess, finding giving your own trust in yourself and Going back even to what you mentioned, developing your own Skills and strengths that, going back to what you mentioned, you had a sense about patterns and Sense and colors, i'm guessing. Going from selling layout parts and growing the business in Japan To actually being the creator and designer and learning yourself to sew in the patterns, it's like a night and day. It's a very different Thing. So it seems like you kind of uncovered, oh wow, this is interesting. I'm really interested in a fashion and helping to change human lives and how they feel about themselves with it. I feel like I really want to start now on my own and create it.

Klara: 29:13

Which, to me again, when you and I were Conversing, i asked like five questions like what do you mean? You just taught yourself how to do it just by trial and error, right? nowadays It seems like there is a course for anything and everything, right, how to, or videos or manuals, but you pretty much did it, what I would consider kind of the old-school way You just figure out. I'm gonna put in my best effort and start doing it.

Jonathan: 29:39

Yeah.

Klara: 29:40

What are some of the takeaways you had through that journey, or some of the things you would really want to mention as learnings? within those years that you mentioned were really Difficult to learn how to become competent when.

Jonathan: 29:55

I moved back to the States, i had to basically shut down all the guild of business. That took about a year. And then I moved back to the States and I I really wanted to learn how to make clothing basically from scratch, and So in order to do that I bought a little tiny cut-and-sew factory in Glendale, california, which is a little bit north of downtown. They had a long history of doing sports uniforms and they were on their second owner. They were going out of business. He had three sewers and some old patterns for uniforms that he had done for local high schools and Kids leagues and things like that. But he also did a lot of high-level college work And it was the first owner whose name was Barney Tirenin.

Jonathan: 30:40

Barney did the original LA Laker uniform patterns and Manufacturing of those uniforms that the Lakers wore when they moved to Los Angeles from Minneapolis. So They were not making the uniforms anymore But they were doing like the lettering, the alterations, things like that. You know that went to the team. So I inherited that little tiny amount of business. It wasn't very much, it was like maybe five thousand dollars of business a year. That's not going to keep you alive, but I did establish a relationship with the team. That eventually became the beginning of my compression work business, when they started calling on me to create compression sleeves for Kobe and Compression shirts for metal world peace with special devices and protective things in the shoulders, and then eventually compression tights for Jeremy Lynn, lary Nance Jr and D'Angelo Russell, which became the beginning of our tights line. So it led to that part of our business.

Jonathan: 31:38

But that came much, much later. But during that time I mean just being involved with the team and it was a family business. It's much different now. It's more it's like a big corporation kind of thing. But up until 2017 It was really just the bus family that managed all that. It was really fun to be involved with them from 2001 to 2017. At 2017 I was done. It was time to move on, but those are really good years.

Klara: 32:05

What was the difference between, i guess, dealing with more of that women's line on the leotard to now going to Then with professional basketball players and even Kobe I guess it was there at the time. Just curious, what was it like to be around those personalities? Because they can be some big sports personalities and behind the scenes stories, jonathan, you would want to share.

Jonathan: 32:27

What was a couple things. So the first thing is being around the team. It's almost kind of like being in a high school locker room, you know, like for a lot of the players are not really forced to change very much. You know, they're kind of extending their adolescence. Right, you're laughing, because I'm sure in tennis There's some of that.

Klara: 32:45

Yes.

Jonathan: 32:46

Being around professional athletes. I wouldn't say that was the most exciting part of my life. They were just a bunch of dudes, wasn't like some austere teenage, you know. You know, it wasn't like that. There's the bunch of dudes and I was just, you know, one of the guys had helped them get ready for their games. It was a job as my own company that I was running, but I was doing all this work for the team. There were some exciting stories about racing things down the Staples Center for a good saw and things like that pregame. I mean there was a lot of exciting stuff too and knowing when all those trades were gonna happen before it got announced. You know in part of all that inner circle of the team. It's really, really exciting.

Jonathan: 33:27

But going back to your other question about going from the women's leotard industry and then now, how do I Take what I learned and translate that into doing basketball shorts or whatever football uniforms, whatever that is, I Had to reinterpret what I was thinking. So at the time when I Started getting involved in making basketball uniforms for college teams and high school teams and travel teams in Southern California, i had to really think about what is it that they wanted to experience. So, for example, that was the time when the guys were wearing these really humongous shorts, right, i mean, they have shorts that come down to their knees. It was like a whole different way of wearing a short. But I had to think, okay, well, what is it that? a basketball player or a guy wearing the shorts, what is it they want to experience? How do they want to feel when they're wearing that short? They don't want to just be bagging loose, bagging loose. There's no benefit of that. And so what I thought was I need to structure the short so that there's a lot of room in it but it also moves. Like a light dress, like if you're to watch a 1940s movie of a couple dancing and the woman's dress is like she spins around, the dress kind of twirls, right I go, that's what I need to do for these guys wearing the basketball shorts. I needed to think like that, right, and so I reinterpreted how to create this big short, and it turned out to be like super successful. Like I sold a lot of high school and travel teams and college teams as well on our basketball uniforms because I made a really good short. The guys loved it And, you know, i would see photos of the guys dunking in the shorts or whatever, and I realized, oh yeah, i really pulled off what I said I was going to set out to do.

Jonathan: 35:18

And then, of course, i could talk about football uniforms and things like that too. But I think you need to have an idea of what you want the experience to be for the person wearing it before you start sitting down with papers and scissors and start cutting patterns. And that was kind of just how I worked. You know, regardless of what I was making whether it was a girl softball pant or whether it was a pair of compression tights or whether it's like what I'm wearing now you know the Roma collection There was an idea in my mind of what I wanted the person wearing it to experience. And then, based upon that feeling and the emotion I wanted to create, now I could go ahead and start creating structure to that piece. And then I would cut a sample in my size I'm a small and I would put it on. I go, hmm, how does that feel? And then I go okay, i think it needs to change here and change there. And then I would recut the sample and put it on again And then I would just keep going through this process until I had it the way that I liked it And then I would roll forward and start grading to the other sizes, going from small to medium to large, extra large, and then again putting it on other people and asking them how they felt in it and looking at it and seeing where I need to make alterations.

Jonathan: 36:36

Now we go back and trim patterns again. It's a long process. It could be six months to make a really good pattern, and for some things, like my girl softball pant, it was a series of years. I created the first set of patterns from youth, small to adult, double X back in 2000, the end of 2010. But then I would say the patterns weren't really done until 2015 because it was a constant thing like oh, the extra small, small, medium or grape on my large and extra large and double X.

Jonathan: 37:09

It's a different body type that we need to fit different. So I have to create the pattern in a different way to make those women feel beautiful as well. The bigger people feel beautiful too, give them the same sort of streamlining. But I need to do certain things to achieve that, and so that's why that pattern, the set of patterns took about five or six years to really complete. It's kind of like, like I'm a big fan of Monet I know you had a question about who inspires me And I go back to talk a lot about him. He would have paintings that like there was a painting that took him, you know, maybe 10 years to complete. He just never completed it because maybe he wasn't ready to complete it. Things can only be completed when they're ready to be completed And they can't always be completed when you want them to be completed. And that was the sense with that set of patterns.

Jonathan: 38:01

And there's other sets of patterns, like with our women's compression type. That is just off the charts. Amazing. She's wearing them. She's wearing the first version that I did. That was back 2014. I did the first version of our women's types.

Jonathan: 38:16

I shelved that project for many years and I opted to actually go after the men's market and compression types because I felt that that market had not been served properly. And now that we've got the men's going and I have the women that have been asking me like why aren't you going to make product for us? So then I circled back and brought out those old patterns from boy nine years ago, and then I updated them to make them more contemporary, which, in this set of circumstances, i raised the waistband about an inch to just make it more modern, because back in 2014, the low waist was so popular, so that was a great set of tights. I loved everything, because we did a lot of test fittings, it fit great. But to bring it into the 2023 era, i raised the waistband an inch and now the perfect people love them. The ladies love them.

Klara: 39:09

Yeah.

Jonathan: 39:11

Again, that's a pattern that took me nine years to complete.

Klara: 39:12

Yeah, i do have to admit I love wearing them. and to think about your compression gear, and I don't know if this is, i guess, the intended purpose. maybe I'll just put you in a spot. It doesn't seem like compression because I've had a lot of different compression gear before. you know two ex-hues, just an amputee skin. There's a number of different compression types of companies. as an athlete, i've always tried to see is it going to help me recover, et cetera. But when I wear yours, i can wear them all day long. I don't feel like they're super tight, they're very comfy And at the same time I just feel different when I wear them. So maybe this goes back to how you even come up with that feeling, because you mentioned the creative process. you want to come up with how you want people to feel, and does the feeling originate from you or do you actually interview others? How much is it like the collaborative approach of you coming out with the initial feeling and back and forth iteration?

Jonathan: 40:17

It really starts with me and putting the product on and what do I feel? So, going to your point, the things that are different about our compression types is this concept that I coined, called balanced compression. So balanced compression is important. The majority of things that you buy at retail, they're made for the retailer. They're made for him to make money or the store to make money. So they need to bring in product that costs virtually very little in manufacture so that the big brand can minimize their cost, and then they're going to wholesale it to the big stores at half, whatever the suggested retail price is, and then the store needs to sell it. They actually need it to blow out to make you come back and buy another pair. So that's how the product for retail that people buy. That's how it's designed for those purposes.

Jonathan: 41:20

The product that we manufacture is made for the athlete, so there's no difference, like when you're wearing the compression types. Of course it's our female pattern, but it's made exactly the same way that I made the product for the Los Angeles Lakers, for the LA Chargers football team, for various individual players throughout the NFL And now, of course, in tennis and now in pickleball, for all the pros that wear the product. So it's made exactly the same way. It's not made for the retailer, it's made for you. So that's the biggest difference. And now, when I go backwards and explain that this idea of balanced compression, first of all the fabrics are. They've got more strength and it's a different gauge of fabric.

Jonathan: 42:11

At the same time there's product that's over compression, where you know like real good balanced compression, what it does is it improves your blood circulation, reduces inflammation, it gives you support and structure. But over compression is going to actually constrict your movement, make you really uncomfortable and not wear the product. So of course there's no benefit in that And if you're over constricted it could also change the way that you move And that could get you injured as well. So that's not good. And of course, under compression, using product that you think is compression, but there's no support at all.

Jonathan: 42:52

That's not going to help with injury prevention either, because underneath our skin we have something called fascia that holds. The fascia holds all of our muscles, our ligaments, our organs. It holds them all in place, but it's a very thin, thin layer of tissue. But my balanced compression, what that does? it mirrors the fascia in terms of flexibility and it provides additional structure to hold your muscles, your ligaments, your organs, to help hold everything in place. So that right there, when you think about it, if I can keep things in the right place, there's less chance I'm going to get injured right.

Jonathan: 43:31

So there's that feeling of it, and the other thing that's so interesting about that here again and again and again is how soothing the product is to wear.

Jonathan: 43:41

And I think it's a physical and psychological thing, because I think your body senses that it has this additional layer of fascia that is just the right level of strength, is just the right shape, and I think that creates a sense of psychological not fulfillment, but a sense of peace and confidence, right, and that leads to you being feeling more comfortable. So I think that's a big part of it.

Klara: 44:12

And sorry, just to jump in, i would also add safety, because actually, from my own perspective, i experience wearing them and, as an athlete, one of the things you always most worry about is getting injured, and especially when you have things you're getting on the court and you're already feeling sore here or you know you have a specific area that is more of a travel area. We tend to get to know our bodies quite well through the aerothic endeavors, right, just almost giving your mind just a little bit more peace, that whatever you're wearing is actually supportive and the body So, as you mentioned. I can't explain it very well, i just got a good feeling.

Klara: 44:55

It's such a relief for your mind to wear. It's always somewhere in the back of your mind, subconscious, that you are in pain, even if you don't want to think about it. having played through a number of injuries, the more you can tune out that feeling and your mind is not thinking about it, the more you can focus on the performance and what you actually have to do in the moment the strategy chasing the ball, being in the right position and focusing on the game, instead of worrying about your own body suffering or being able to live through that experience. Sorry, i just wanted to insert, i guess, my own life commentary of how that helps me personally.

Jonathan: 45:38

Yeah, you know it's interesting because the first athlete and tennis that we sponsored was Marcos Guidon, who was coming off double labrum hip surgery, trying to come back from that and get back on the tour and play again. It was frightening for him. He actually found us online and then talked to his agent. His agent contacted me So we sent him some tights and he fell in love with the tights and worn for two and a half years. So we were a big part of that his confidence to get back on the court and to trust his body again.

Klara: 46:19

Yeah.

Jonathan: 46:20

And over the time. now you know now he's a lot healthier, right, but we were a big part of that And I hear that from so many athletes, old and young. Robert Ori, the legendary guy with the Lakers he wears my tights when he plays pick up basketball. He says, man, i wish I would have known you when I was with, when I was with the Lakers back and when I, if I would have worn your tights, i could have played five more years.

Jonathan: 46:44

You know, he told me that And I hear so many similar comments from people from all different sports about how much those tights have done for them. There's a young lady we sent tights to. Her name is, you're going to probably know, marquette Vaughn DeRosca or something like that. I have to look up what her name is. But anyway, we sent her tights because she had lower body issues. So her agent asked me to send her some tights. So we sent those over to her. We shipped them out a couple of weeks ago, so I'll have to get to see what her feedback is on that, but I think they're going to help her as well.

Jonathan: 47:19

So this whole idea of the confidence that gives you and feeling safer, more confident in your body, that's a big part of it. But there's another thing. There's another thing too, and that is fatigue. Fatigue is cumulative. If you have fatigue on day one because you played a three hour match, that fatigue carries over into day two And day three. You're still going to be. How functional you're going to be.

Jonathan: 47:50

I think tennis and with pickleball you get to have five matches. The matches are shorter, but you could have five matches in one day, and so this idea of the compression and improving your blood circulation, reducing inflammation, taking stress off of your hips and your legs, if I could do that from the moment you step on the court in that first match, you're going to feel better by the end of that first day. And how good you feel at the end of the first day that's going to carry into the second day, right? If you can do that for an athlete, professional or amateur, they're going to be in better shape to win. Yeah, the later they go into that tournament. So I know that that's true.

Jonathan: 48:37

But we also have guys that do like I have an orthopedic surgeon. He buys my product religiously. He lives in Nashville. These surgeons are on their feet for 10 hours a day, sometimes doing surgeries, right, so he wears them in surgery and so for him It's like being a marathon athlete, right? Yes, they really are athletes. These guys are superhuman. So we have guys that Worm for that. I have guys in Alaska that are working oil fields. They hoarder like 10 pairs at a time, you know, yes, so I can imagine.

Klara: 49:11

Yeah, so just to touch base on there's probably a whole bunch of use cases. I just recently moved. Moving is one of the most demanding things and there's some freedom on figuring out. I work out, i can still carry all of my stuff and I have a different admiration for people who do this for living Every day, because it just requires a different amount of strength. But I can imagine there's a whole bunch of professions outside of athletes That have similarly, or perhaps even more so, demanding Jobs. Physically kind of the real blue color drops. I think those obviously may need all the kind of support or lifting boxes, construction, right. I can think of probably a whole bunch of different positions and Industries where this could be a important part of getting your job done safer.

Jonathan: 50:02

Yeah, that's very interesting. We have a little core of customers In Virginia like around where the cia quarters and fbi I mean I think I have a lot of these guys out, you know, cia and fbi wearing my compression tights Yes, i do all the different things that they're doing out there. The application is very wide ranging And it's been hard. You know, like for men this whole. There's sort of a stigma about men wearing tights. Of course we know that mba, nfl guys, they all wear compression tights as underwear right Underneath their basketball get-ups and Football uniforms. But there's always been sort of a stigma and we had kind of a weird thing going on where there's a lot of Guys like bashing guys that that wear tights, you know, and I just kind of stayed out of it. Whatever you guys want to talk about, you know, if that's your thing, that's fine.

Klara: 50:54

But if you look at, some of the disappearing. Isn't it throne? It's it getting more, more and more accepted? or is it just my view, because I've been in, you know, in athletics. So from my side I was like, well, women can wear tights, why couldn't Men wear tights like? to me It's just kind of normal part. So I feel like it's it'll be more acceptable Perhaps now, isn't it?

Jonathan: 51:14

I think the noise, the noise is starting to drop. We still get a few comments here and there, but the noise is starting to drop. Is the guys that are making the comments realize that? you know, i don't think I'm so right about that. I think maybe I'm wrong about that And I think you know it's this idea of them correcting themselves now as time goes on. Hey, that guy was right. Like The guys on the Tennessee Titan NFL team, they're wearing tights. You know, like the NBA guys are all wearing tights, like they're starting to figure out that they were wrong, got it, you know. So I think the noise is starting to drop down. But we are the driving force of that because we pushed the issue And so, because we pushed the issue to get it accepted, that's why the noise is dropping.

Jonathan: 52:03

And now we have a bunch of tennis pros with the usp ta that wear the product, love the product, talk about the product. We're starting to see our sales for our men's thigh tights Gradually start to move upwards. We're moving into pickleball really hard. We have a few top athletes there wearing the product And we're starting to see interest there, and so It's very interesting. Although we're such a small company, we're kind of driving this whole issue about men with the compression tights, and it's kind of fun to be that driving force. It's not quite as exhausting as it was in the beginning, but I think we're starting to see some traction there and, i think, also on the lady side.

Jonathan: 52:47

What's interesting is, like I said back in 2014, when I released the product, it was under a different name, but when I originally released it, like I didn't really know how to market it I knew we had a good product, but I really didn't know how to market it. That's why I pulled it back. And now what I'm finding is that The women are seeing and hearing about how great the men's product are, And now they want the product for themselves, and so I think that was the thing that we needed to have happen where women wanted and asked us for the product. It wasn't me pushing on them, it was them really wanting it and pushing me To get it to them. That's what we're finding now is that's actually me being pushed to get it to them. We said the other way around, so we're in a really exciting spot for both our men's and our women's business.

Klara: 53:37

Yeah, and just to touch on, i know you've been super busy traveling and creating new business connections a number of weeks back. What are some of the news I was curious to hear. What are some of the latest updates, jonathan?

Jonathan: 53:51

Just over the last two months There's been so much that happened because I was originally up there. I was there to shoot photos of Michael.

Klara: 54:00

You know she was our first model for the tights and what a pleasure that I know you, i guess, and Michael, my friend, who's now a model for your laureve line, and it's a privilege.

Jonathan: 54:13

He was amazing and it's not unusual because Typically the models that I've had that I photographed in the product, typically they're not real models, typically They're they're athletes That I turned into models. So it was really fun working with Michael. She had no experience. She was really self-conscious, trying to kind of like pull her out of her shell And then just see how beautiful she was on film.

Klara: 54:39

She's naturally beautiful. I think she looks beautiful, and even when she goes to bed or she wakes up first five minutes in the morning, she just doesn't know it about herself. No, she doesn't She really doesn't.

Jonathan: 54:49

She really doesn't. She's sort of embarrassed, i think, by it as well. But to be able to pull that out of her and For her to get some sort of comfort with it was really, really fun and the results are fantastic from that photo shoot. But Since that time we started sponsoring Female athletes on the pickleball side and we have, i would say, three really top female players on that side. That two of them I got really good footage of in new york went to billy gene king's tennis center and for a big um aapp women's pickleball event. But I was able to get some really good shots our first Professional female athlete wearing the product on court. So I got that And we have samples going out to a couple female tennis players in europe. Hopefully they'll be wearing it and wimbledon.

Klara: 55:42

Yes, are you going to wimbledon? They will be cool to take some pictures of your product at wimbledon, jonathan.

Jonathan: 55:48

I really want to go but unfortunately I have a big pickleball tournament in newport beach in two weeks. I have to get that. We are the official compression Tights of the app, so I told them we would be there with a booth. It's gonna be fun. I'll be taking more photos there as well.

Jonathan: 56:06

Also, i have a friend of mine. He's taking some of our product for a fellow named nico Barrientos, who's uh, he's a top 40 doubles guy. So we just signed nico. And then we've got another guy named Pablo yamas ruiz that we signed Since I last saw you who's like. We signed him. He was 328 And right after we signed him he jumped up to like 270 and now he's at 220.

Jonathan: 56:31

Like I can't believe it. This Fantastic. He's 20 years old, really handsome young guy, and he's just vaulting up the charts. Now I'm pretty sure he'll be at wimbledon and I'm pretty sure he's coming to new york to try to qualify for the us open. So we've got him and another young kid named aidan mayo, who's 19, i think. He's like at 450. So he's faulting up you know the charts on this side too. So it's really fun to get involved with these guys and and have enthusiasm for these young kids that are Trying out, really excited to make it. Sometimes we run into older athletes and Maybe they're top 100 players for several years, but they don't have the enthusiasm that some of the young kids still have coming up. So I find that really, really fun, since I've met you all. That's happened. Yeah, that's happened. It'll be interesting six months from now. Where will we be? because that's all happened within the last two months.

Klara: 57:27

It sounds like you have more things on your to-do list than you have time for, which is exciting position to be in In this instance, with so much fun things going on.

Jonathan: 57:38

Yeah, i need more hours in the day, but um, but yeah, things are really moving right now.

Klara: 57:45

I want to go back to one more question, jonathan, that I Caught you saying Is you can't really force things to be done at the right time. They just are done When they're ready to be done. How did you find that process and how do you find the patience with it? Because looking at you and just hearing about your upbringing, do we seem like a driver person that wants to progress? How do you find the patience of Learning when to park something? or even in this instance right, you mentioned you park the women's line back in the day, and now it sort of came to you and you revived it, updated it. How do you find the feeling and trust Your god, it's time to park it versus it's time to restart it?

Jonathan: 58:36

Well, first of all, the subject of patience. I have zero patience, like if I had grown up 20 years later, 30 years later, 40 years later. I mean, i would have definitely classified as one of those add adhd kids. That's just what I was. They didn't have a term for.

Jonathan: 58:59

They just said I was restless by was bouncing off, so i'm still that person. The way that I deal with that, though, is that In my business, there's so many things that I have to do, like I've got to run back to california early next week because I have to make a tennis skirt. I've got my female athletes on the pickleball side that we're sponsoring, that they're waiting for me to do my tennis skirt, and there's a couple other one, one, two, i'm waiting two 100% and I've got three other athletes.

Jonathan: 59:40

I'm waiting a sign and they know that I'm waiting to sign them, but they need to have a skirt. So, even though I'm saying I'm going to go back and work on it next week, i've already been working on because in my head I've been working on for about two months. So in my head, like the way that I work on it is The materials and then How am I going to get things to attach to the waistband and when they move and they And you know, you have to Squat down and spread your legs to go get a ball or something What's going to happen to the skirt when that happens? So in my mind I've already worked out solutions and designs. So when I step in with My pencil, paper and scissors, i know where I'm going to start soon as I get there right. So, like, the first thing is knowing Again what you want the athlete to experience and feel, and then number two, reverse engineering, how you're going to create that garment. So until you have that in your head about what that idea is, you really can't even start to draw anything. It has to start there. So that's the biggest challenge when I'm creating a new style or a pattern, or.

Jonathan: 1:00:50

But going back to thinking about this idea, about patience and when to stop something, what I was trying to get to was that There's so many things that I have to work on all the time. There's the skirt. I just got reminded by the usp ta that I have to do an ad. It was supposed to be turned into they they're going to give me till monday. So this weekend I got to do a one page ad layout with photos, like whole layout, send it to him. So it's press ready on monday. I have to have that done. I've got Contracts with athletes that I'm working on. There's so many things that I have to work on. So for me to say, okay, i have to put a pause on this one until, like, sometimes I'll work on a certain project and I'll work past it, and When I say I work past it is that idea is not ready to be accepted yet.

Jonathan: 1:01:45

You know, like that idea that what I want for that thing, the world's not ready to accept that yet, so I have to put that over there. I have to let the world catch up to it. Then, when the world catches up to it, then I can pull it back in and then release it. So I have that too. So, like the jacket that I'm wearing, this is the Roma GT jacket. It's a driving crop jacket version of my Roma jacket the sports coat. So I shot a beautiful commercial with my Porsche and we're driving through some mountain roads. There's a model that I had over from Hungary that was visiting Beautiful video And we shot it, like you know, at the end of the winter time.

Jonathan: 1:02:30

But now, like I can't release the video until time catches up to it, which is the fall, because I want to release it as we go into the fall season. So everybody, like my video guy well, listen, we want to you can't release the video because we have to let time catch up to when I want to release the product. That's how things are. It's like you know you'll create things, but maybe you can't break those things out until when you're ready. Maybe you've got a secret shot that you've been working on in tennis, but you don't want to expose that too early in the tournament so that people can scout that right.

Jonathan: 1:03:02

You have to wait for the right time to break that shot out, let's say, or whatever that strategy is. You don't want to disclose those things too early, so we have to let time dictate when we release certain projects or certain things that we've been working on. We can't always just take something and push, push, push, push, push and outrun what the world's willing to accept. I kind of look at things like that and instead of trying to be patient, i just focus my attention somewhere else and work hard on that. I'm always working hard on something, so it's never me having to wait and twiddle my thumbs and become patient.

Klara: 1:03:42

But I guess sometimes the realization, if you're working on that and knowing the world is not ready for it, i think that can be a painful feeling or restless feeling. How do you give yourself the permission or how do you realize I can focus my attention elsewhere but I need to part this. Is that also a skill that? has it been kind of trained, like your experience and, i guess, wisdom? now doing this for so many years? How have you been able to mature it? or is that a sense that you've had since early on?

Jonathan: 1:04:17

perhaps you're upbringing You know it's funny because, as you were talking about that, there was a parable that came to my mind For some reason. There's a parallel there and I can't figure out what it is. But when I was in my 20s and I was living in Japan, sort of searching for myself, there was a story that a friend told me about this Buddhist monk. This Buddhist monk had one of his students as disciples and they're drinking tea. The monk is telling his disciple about this cup and he says you know this cup, you know that I hold in my hands. It's such a precious thing because, number one, it's functional, like I pour my tea into it every day and I drink my tea out of it. Now it's full of all these little cracks that have popped up into this cup over the last 20 years.

Jonathan: 1:05:23

The realization that the cup is already broken and gone. That makes the cup that much more important to me and precious to me, is the word right. So this idea that the cup is already broken, like our life, is already over. This is just a little blip in time. Like our lives, are that cup right? So this idea of patience in the whole scope of everything else, about having life move at its own pace and understanding that we find ourselves inside of. That, i think, is the bigger picture that you know, things are not the way that we always want them to be at that moment, but at the same time we may look back and say what I wanted at that time. If that would have happened, that probably would have been a very bad thing, so it was good that I just let it lay and let time, just clear out all the ripples in the water and just let the ripples just go away on their own and not press that so hard and just not stress over that and just go work on something else And the things that we want to happen. Like I said, we find meaning in having a purpose, but that purpose can change. The things that we work on change. I find purpose in working in patterns, but I also find purpose in working in our ads, taking photos and editing them and getting on a podcast with you and talking to you, going out to an event and meeting people. It just so happens that my job encompasses all those things, right, plus 20 other things, but my job encompasses all those things were like 20 years ago it didn't not to that degree, i was just in the lab trying to make things and learn how to make things, so what I deal with now is very different.

Jonathan: 1:07:16

One of your questions was is there a person that I looked up to when I was young and in my 20s? Vincent van Gogh was my big inspiration, right. But now that I'm older, my hero is Monet the painter. With Monet the painter, when I was young I couldn't understand his greatness the way that I see it now, because I don't know how much you know about his life and everything, but he painted until he was in his 80s. He was legally blind. You know World War I. There was bombs being dropped around his home and he kept painting. He was working on these murals of his garden that were 10 feet high and like 20 feet long. It was a series of these paintings. They're now in the Orangier in Paris. I went to go see them. They have these two circular rooms that you sit in the middle or stand in the middle and you can look around, and it's basically supposed to be like you're in his garden, right.

Jonathan: 1:08:18

And so that was what he was working on when he was in his 80s And I don't know how he did it. I just don't know how he did it like getting on a ladder and painting these things when you can, like his physical condition, you could barely stand, you could barely see And then also arranging through his good friend in the French government to have a permanent home for those paintings and the negotiations that went on for years. But the thing about Monet is that he tried to commit suicide when he was younger because he struggled so hard to feed his family with his painting and he had a really successful father and sort of leaving that behind to struggle with the painting and ultimately really trying to support his family. So I understand I've been through all that. You know, i've been through all that. I've gone through bankruptcy and failed and I've been through all those things And so I relate to that story and ultimately the greatness of Monet is not just as the beautiful paintings that he created, but it was his art was also in the understanding of reality, like to be able to paint this garden.

Jonathan: 1:09:29

First of all, he had to get the garden made. You have to have a certain amount of resources to do that, like I have to create resources to create the garden, to create the paintings of the reflections in the water at different times of the day, different times of the year, different seasons. I have to be able to make money to do those things, to create the art that I want to leave behind, which is the paintings in the wrongs, which are all these other studies that he did. So he's my hero, not just because of his amazing skill, but also his understanding, his acceptance and his ability to understand that the business part is also part of the art.

Jonathan: 1:10:12

We cannot survive as an artist, and some people say, oh, you're an artist, you're a designer. Yeah, that is true, i am those things. But part of the art is and I can't tell you I've mastered it but part of the art, too is financially being able to keep the project going. Yes, because people like the product, they find meaning and value and they like how it makes them feel, how it makes them look. So all those things were wrapped up in Monet's greatness, and I would like to think that I'm in my own way, i'm trying to follow my hero and leave behind my own art, but also that it has to be rooted in this reality of the world where it is at that moment. To me, that's what makes him so great, and I would like to think that somewhere in there I can follow his lead on that.

Klara: 1:11:11

I love that And just from my perspective hearing you and trying to interpret what you've said, when you mentioned even at the beginning you wish you were in this spot you are at earlier, but to me it's. everything you have done was a needed piece of a puzzle that you're drawing on now. even looking back at your beginnings with Bob and Gilda, learning the business side that is certainly important aspect of your business now because without that you can't continue to make the great products that people love and use. So it seems like it all goes together. and working with Lakers and the professional athletes football players, softball players It seems like you really learn to understand different clothing lines and purpose and sort of the patterns for different sizes and how to design something that can be functional for different types of athletes. So it seems like you're all putting it together into your endeavor and now the brand and everything you're trying to create. Is that accurate, jonathan?

Jonathan: 1:12:25

Oh yeah, it's definitely accurate. You have to really really work hard to be good at something, right, you know? and I'm not going to sit here and say, oh, i'm as good as I can be, like I could still be better. I could still be a lot better in a lot of ways, in a lot of different parts of my business and my art, and there's new things that I'm working on. I kind of need to get into prints. I really never pursued prints, but because we have this new sublimation process that allows us to do prints, we probably will be getting more into prints.

Jonathan: 1:13:01

It's just the time, you know, the time for me to work on the prints. I need more time to work on it. It's hard for me to just disengage Oh gee, we're going to hang up and I'm going to work on the print. I need time to disengage from mentally all the other stuff and then put a date between of nothing and then start. You know, because you got to empty yourself before you could fill yourself up against for something like that. There's some things I can move seamlessly from one thing to the other, but something like prints. I need time to like, disengage and then reengage. It would probably take me a week to kind of really just get into that project and get that moving. But I just don't have the time right now. But I think with this generation now, like they want to be able to have whatever they want like instantly. You know, they want to be able to go on YouTube and now I'm an expert at this video that I just saw And to be great at something to be really, really great, it takes a lifetime of work and a lifetime of effort to fully internalize what it is that you're trying to do with that. Right, and that's the thing. It's one thing to copy something you see in a YouTube video. It's another thing to be able to internalize everything, why that is a certain way right, and to not just be able to bake a certain cake but to really understand, maybe, baking theory from the way that my mom used to do it over years and years and years.

Jonathan: 1:14:32

Greatness comes from mastering all these levels, like, if you look at someone like Djokovic, he's so great, not just at this and that, or he could add that technique or this technique. He's so great at so many layers, from fitness to the way that he moves, the way that he eats, the way that he sleeps, the way that all these there's so many layers, and then there's the tennis on top of it. Right, he has mastered so many levels. How do you compete with that? You can sit there and look at a video of him hitting a ball and try to copy it, but it's not the same. Yes, he's mastered so many levels and that's greatness. That is greatness. It's different from watching someone who plays good in a match, where it's him, whether he's playing good or bad, you still see greatness. Right, and I think when you really want to be great at something, you have to put your whole heart behind it and just give yourself over to it.

Jonathan: 1:15:30

And finding greatness is not a straight line from A to B. It's just not Like this is where you want to get to. But I found that to get to that point, i had to go here, then I had to go backwards, and then I had to go there, and then here, then backwards again. Then you're almost there, but then you had to go there. It's like it's never straight line, because on that search to get to that destination, you have to keep finding pieces to get you there. Maybe you have to go to the North Pole to get a certain piece so that you can put that in your toolbox to get there, and then you need another piece over here to get to there.

Jonathan: 1:16:08

So just getting to that point of where I wanted to get to, like maybe 20 or 30 years ago, is taken so long because I keep having to go find other pieces to add to my toolbox to get there. That's why I learned how to be a photographer, because I couldn't find people who take photos the way that I wanted them done And I had to learn how to photo edit. I had to learn how to do all these things to get me closer to where I want to be. That's just how life is, and you have to have that commitment to be relentless to get to where you want to be if that's really what you want. And if you don't really want it, that bad. There's nothing wrong with that. There really isn't. You could find meaning in building your garden or spending time with your family, or there's so many ways that we find meaning in your life. In my situation, it was my work. But let's face it, when you work the way that I work, there's a lot of lonely times too. That's part of the acceptance. You spend time, a lot of time on your own, working on things that you have to, but that's part of the acceptance.

Jonathan: 1:17:11

Monet he spent hours and hours and years and years and by himself, painting. He wasn't out partying and doing all that stuff and joined his celebrity. He wasn't out partying in Paris, he was painting, waking up at dawn and going out there when it's freezing cold and painting again. So you know, i mean there has to be an acceptance that this is what I want and this is what I'm willing to sacrifice to do those things. But I don't look at it as a sacrifice because this is something that I want to do. So it's an old school way of looking at life, but I think anybody who wants to be great at something you have to have that.

Klara: 1:17:51

Yeah, i would just old school way, i sort of agree and sort of disagree. I think it resonates with every single athlete. I think one of the things you know I consider myself a fill athlete, in a way that I've never achieved the dreams I've had for myself. But more than a decade later I'm still uncovering all the things that my tennis journey has taught me and how it may be better, including understanding that without sacrifice and without putting in your best effort and believing yourself, there's nothing that you can succeed at Or, i think, any sort of entrepreneurship that I've seen my parents becoming a business owner and I grew up with my grandparents because they were until late nights building the business.

Klara: 1:18:37

So I think it goes to any sort of scale or success or real achievement. I think is built on large amount of days and times and practice and commitments and, i guess, sacrifices or costs that are associated with it, and sometimes they're not seen as sacrifices, sometimes it's just part of the journey and you're either willing to put in the effort or not. But I wanted to touch base on one more thing, even in relation to this discussion and Monet is your creative process, because the creative process may be more of my podcasting, but as an athlete, i see this purely practice and perseverance and training and creating this intuition as far as which ball I want to hit, from which situation. Your style of creativity is a little bit new to me, so I'm curious how you go around it, even creating new lines or new pieces of clothing, and maybe even the feeling that you want people to have when they wear it. What's your manual or tips?

Jonathan: 1:19:43

I kind of touched on a little bit. When I'm creating a product, it starts in my mind about what I want the wearer to experience. So, for example, you know the compression really really well. So of course that's more about structure and making you feel like you have structure. So one thing that's interesting about the tights I know there's other compression lines that have lines that cross over muscles and things like that. Well, my feeling was always that when it comes to the structure of compression wear, our knees only bend in one plane. So you know, if you look at the seams, the way that they're cut, they're just on the sides of the legs And I don't have any interest in ever doing weird kind of lines, like you know seams going here and there because we don't want our knees to bend outside of those planes. We want to keep them in those planes, right, that's one structure thing about that I could talk about.

Jonathan: 1:20:40

So we've got the Monte Carlo collection, which is our tennis on-court collection. Where we've got the Monte Carlo short, there's the mock turtle neck sort of collar there, you know, to keep the wind out, and then the pants that go with it. So I designed that one to be an on-court piece. And so when you look at the materials the technical term for that fabric is an interlock. It's really really smooth. It's very, very silky, soft. It's a polyester microfiber so it breathes. It's got a little bit of thickness to it but because it's the microfiber breathes so it's insignificant that it's a little bit thicker. It's still very light and breathable and cool. So I used that. I paired that fabric with the high neck to keep the wind out of here, and you know, of course I made the jacket and put it up and made oh, i got to make it a little smaller so I don't get so much draft down there. And then it's got zippers on the pockets, with mesh line pockets, you know, so that there's no bulk in the pocket. It stays lightweight. You can still put a ball in there if you're playing. That's our on-court collection. Still has all the tapering through the jacket.

Jonathan: 1:21:49

And then I've got this collection, the Roma, which I really wear all the time. I wear the jackets, i wear the pants, which are more like slacks. This one's made from MicroModel. It's a breathable, natural fiber made from the cellulose of a beach tree. It's so comfy. It's odorless because it's a natural fiber. It's not petroleum based, so there's no odor to it. It's a great business jacket and pant, and this one, again, it's very structured and tapered.

Jonathan: 1:22:20

I wanted it to look like. When I first thought of it in my mind I saw a movie called From Here to Eternity and Bert Lancaster's Waring an Army Coat. This is like a 1940s movie and he has this army jacket and it was cut like in this very short crop style that I'm wearing And he takes it off, he hangs it on his locker and I watched that scene like 10 times And I go, yeah, that's kind of what I'm thinking, you know something like that, how it fits him. And so then I revisited it and I created I already had the Roma collection, which was the long sports coat, but that became the model for the Roma GT because I had that 1940s tapered look to it And he was a very fit guy at the time who looks like my customers. So that became what I'm wearing right now.

Jonathan: 1:23:11

So we see things over time because fashion is very cyclical and moves in cycles And the cycle that I'm in right now I don't know if it was really on trend or not, but this idea of fitted clothing that made people look more athletic and fit and beautiful body lines and created self-confidence for these people. That's always the internal kernel of everything that I make. Like a person, a man in a beautiful black suit, very fitted There's no greater fashion statement than that, right, A beautiful tuxedo and a well-built guy or a woman in a beautiful black dress. That's very simple. There's no greater fashion statement than that, in my opinion. So those are my basic concepts and regards of whether that piece for the woman or the man is going to be in black or gray or red, or whether someday it's in prints, it's always going to be about body lines and constructing body lines for people to make them more self-confident, improve their self-image and be more confident about how they move through their lives. So if I can help that person do that, then I'm doing my job.

Klara: 1:24:31

Yes, thank you, and I somehow, just naturally, as I'm listening to you now, standing grounded in my load of shorts and feeling strong and confident throughout this almost two-hour podcast. I thank you, jonathan, for your creativity and bringing this amazing compression gear to us and many more humans and athletes to make us better humans. Looking at the world, there's a lot of chaos going on, so I strongly believe your clothing and giving us more confidence. I think it's great. As an athlete, i always try to borrow any tips from my athletic career and apply them to now my corporate business world. And definitely anything I can wear or things that make me feel good or shoes that make me feel good and confident for important meetings is one way that I take this into my business corporate. Clara, looking at all that's going on in the world, what would you want to invite people to be doing more of or less of?

Jonathan: 1:25:35

It's so interesting. This is a very timely question. So the whole pandemic it's so interesting to see how that's affected people Like, for example, i was in New York And New York is as busy now as it's ever been, but everybody that visits there they're not friendly like they used to be. And I was in Hawaii a couple weeks before that And I said to the bartender, i said you know, is it my imagination? And he said, like you guys are the same that work here. I remember seeing you last time I was here, but like people just aren't friendly. And so he said, yeah, i think it's the pandemic that did it to him. You know they got stuck inside and you know they don't know how to communicate anymore, and so everybody is kind of stuck in the spot right now And I don't think they know how to get out of it.

Jonathan: 1:26:26

I will say this this whole pickleball thing that I got into really because I had the USP and the TTA tennis instructors that were teaching pickleball too, and so it forced me to jump over and take a really hard look at pickleball And what I found was was that pickleball is like this amazing thing that pulls people out of their shell. I think it's the perfect thing the anti-pandemic cure. You know it gets people outside, it gets people talking. There's a sense of community where, just because it's called pickleball, people don't take it seriously And anybody can play, like whether you're young or you're old, you can move or not. If you're old you play doubles, if you're young and healthy you could play singles. right, but there's a amazing sense of community and communication and people make friends doing it.

Jonathan: 1:27:17

And what I could say out of all the activities that I've come across, this is the perfect one to pull us out of this anti-pandemic, this anti-socialization thing that the pandemic put us into. That's a really good exercise to go into And also just to be aware that to get outside of ourselves right, you know, because the pandemic got everybody isolated and afraid of everybody and we just lived in our heads. But to find success and happiness in life we have to get outside of our heads and outside of ourselves. To connect with people, to enjoy nature, you have to get outside of yourself and not be stuck in your head. So get out of your phone and get outside of your head and experience life again like we used to do. That would be my suggestions for us to move past this.

Klara: 1:28:12

Love it And thank you for the comment on pickleball because I just have to say it bluntly, i've heard about this pickleball but I think we all are trying to hold on to the things that we believe made us who we are And I spend so many hours and years on perfecting my tennis game. I don't like this. Pickleball is kind of, i feel, almost like cheating, like I haven't really. I see so many people having fun every time I go to the course. There's so many people playing and laughing And it's really actually the community. Your pickleball comment Maybe, maybe rethink it.

Klara: 1:28:45

I was like maybe I just have to approach it from the fun perspective. Maybe that will invite my fun Clara and social Clara. So maybe that's the mindset I will take with it and just try to go with it. So thank you for the comment And I'll report back to you about my first pickleball experience, jonathan. Hopefully I'll get on the court within a few weeks here and try it. Hopefully this conversation inspired many people who want to try your clothing. I'll add the website to the episode. Show notes that anyone who may want to reach out, perhaps even personal athletes That is the best way to reach you, and how should people find you?

Jonathan: 1:29:24

Go to our website and there you can see everything about us all the products. I do have some products that are not in there yet, but they will be, and if you ever want to reach out to me, it's just my name, jonathan J-O-N-A-T-H-A-N. At LeoRivet-L-E-O-R-E-V-E-Rcom, so you can always catch me that way, and I really appreciate this time with you. It's been a lot of fun.

Klara: 1:29:52

Yes, thank you for your time.

Jonathan: 1:29:53

If you enjoyed this episode.

Klara: 1:29:55

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