In The Studio : Nick Girlando
New York native Nick Girlando has a lot going on. Fashion, photography, business....you name it, Nick's in it. We were able to catch him just long enough to pick his brain on his agency Outset Collective, his passion for photography and his plans for the future.
Tell us a bit about yourself. Where do you come from, what do you do for a living, what defines you?
I'm 29 years old, born in Brooklyn, raised in Queens and currently living in Midtown. I'm the Co-Founder of a sales agency called Outset Collective and I'm also a free lance photographer, skateboarder and obsessive sneaker collector. I think what defines me is my constant passion to work and be part of things that I love and genuinely enjoy doing. Whether it be working in fashion, sales or photography, I'm obsessive with seeing my vision come to fruition. I could've settled and taken a regular job but I always wanted more than that. I'm way too curious, antsy and passionate about things to be stuck in a box.
How did you discover your eye for photography? What do you look for when capturing an image?
I discovered photography through skateboarding initially. We would travel all the time to skate these different place and I always wanted to capture a lot of the moments that went a long with it. Whether it be the actually skating, eating, a sunset or stopping along the road to capture something cool. For the longest time I was obsessed with symmetry, architecture, and landscapes. When I'd see a building or cityscape with sharp lines and balance it would almost create a calmness for me and a quick escape from whatever else was going on around me at that moment. I still love to shoot landscapes, but lately I've been shooting a lot of content for brands including look books, catalogs and social media content. My eye is slowly getting more mature along with my personal taste to the point where I appreciate shooting interior design, a lot of film overlays, portraiture, and so on - so hopefully you'll see more of that soon from me.
Vision and aspirations behind Outset Collective?
The vision behind Outset Collective was to be one of the few Sales Agencies in the US that can sell just about anything in many different aspects of fashion and lifestyle goods. We could walk into a skate shop and sell decks or we could walk into Barneys and play that role selling something higher end. Not many agencies have the ability to be chameleons and sell any type of brand to any type of store, so we set out to achieve just that. We'll never forget our roots of being skateboarders and living that lifestyle, but we find passion in working with stores we genuinely enjoy shopping at and hanging out in right now. It's a great feeling once you have those relationships.
What gets you the most excited in working in brand development?
The thing that gets me most excited about working in brand development is that you get to do more than just sales. You get to work on everything from product, to general direction of the brand, as well as many aspects of marketing which is where I get pretty excited. I love connecting brands to the end consumer through events, social media campaigns, influencer marketing etc. And photography of course - I love being able to shoot for the brands we work with.
Nick in 2028 will be...?
Nick in 2028 will be a photographer, sales agent & brand owner. I hope to own a cafe / restaurant as well, because I do think there's a future in combining fashion and food through social media and local marketing. I think there is a huge opportunity in NYC for something like that to be really dope. I see it happening throughout the city in small ways, and think that world will only get bigger. Wholesale and Fashion are in a really weird place right now and it will probably get more challenging as time moves on, so its always good to have other outlets.
