Golf has its own culture and language. but to get it out of its bubble, you have to take it to the street. This is what we do when we practice street golf. Maxime Chéramy understood this through his professional experiences. By literally carrying the linguistic richness of sport, talks start. After all, that’s how the non-GPS golfer’s watch Etiqus was born. One of the founder’s friends asked him if he was a diver when he saw his replacement watch. The founder of the golf watches replied: “No, I am a golfer”. So will wearing a piece of clothing expressing “Fore”, “Amen Corner” or “Waggle” spark a conversation with a curious person and make him discover golf other than through private clubs and its elitist image? Meet Maxime from GLANG Golf.
Before we start let’s agree on the brand’s name. How do you pronounce GLANG?
GLANG is the combination of two English terms “GOLF” and “SLANG”. As our ambition is international, we were looking for a name that could be easily recognizable both in its pronunciation and in its sound and especially Anglo-Saxon sounding.
Maxime, who are you and what is your background?
My name is Maxime Chéramy, I am 30 years old, I am French and of German origin. I am a big fan of sport in general. I discovered golf at the age of 11 and like many of us I was hooked. From then on, I started training a lot with the crazy ambition of one day becoming a professional. A dream that unfortunately ended due to an injury that kept me away from the pitch for 1 year.
My first ambition having gone up in smoke, I began to take an interest in all sectors of activity revolving around the world of golf, specialized stores, golf structures, events, brands of ready to wear and of course material suppliers.
On reflection, I took on the challenge of one day working for a major golf brand and more specifically for a hardware manufacturer.
So I started a business school course (INSEEC) in Bordeaux with marketing as a major major and with a specialty in product marketing and communication. In fact, over the course of my research and my studies, I discovered a very particular attraction for the product. I was and still am, fascinated by the usefulness, the function, the attributes of a product and more particularly all the different ways of communicating about it.
After 5 years of internships and jobs, I ended up being recruited by Taylor Made as Head of Fitting and Product Training for Southern Europe (France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal and Italy). After 3 years and 300,000 kilometers on the clock, my desire to create and above all to develop our practice prompted me to attempt the entrepreneurial adventure.
Launching a new brand is not easy. Who is helping you at the moment?
I am currently alone in this project with the invaluable help of my brother who is a computer engineer and who therefore helps me enormously on all the web part of the project and also from a circle of close friends who m help enormously on the overall reflection of the project.
But my ambition for this project does not end there. The will in the short to medium term (3 to 5 years) to develop the company by investing in human resources and means of production through external investors.
GLANG is a unique name. How did you get the idea and why?
I have seen as a golf player and fitter that there are very strong social and belonging markers in the golfer such as equipment and clothing . I was also able to observe that apart from the technical side, golf clothing is very similar from one brand to another and that above all they remained very conventional and had very little change in terms of cut or image. they convey and in particular outside the enclosure of a golf course. It was therefore initially on these two factors, the conventional aspect and the image conveyed outside golf courses, that I began to think about “what does not exist that could change the perception of golf outside of golf both among the initiate and the uninitiated and who, conversely, would break the codes established within a golf course? This is the question that started the GLANG adventure.
A second question that I also wanted to answer was to understand why all other sports are present outside their respective borders but not golf? The aim was therefore to create something that could tell the whole world that our sport is fantastic and that it too deserves to be heard and seen by all.
Maxime Chéramy – Founder of GLANG
The brainstorming was therefore to find a concept that could combine both the richness of our sport (social diversity, cultural diversity, age diversity, environmental diversity, technical and mental diversity) with the values of the generations to which I identify myself, namely a very marked side on belonging to a community, to a reason for being or to a cause. All mixed in a Pop, Hip Hop, urban, street, sport and lifestyle culture which is the brand universe in which GLANG is part.
I follow through my thoughts, focusing my attention on the following theme: what is one of the fundamental components of our sport that would be obvious and easily transposed into our everyday life? This is when the language , the jargon or even the slang that we use in our sport became obvious, just like the name GLANG (Golf + Slang = GLANG) . Indeed, we have the chance to evolve in a sport whose linguistic richness is incomparable to any of our sport . I therefore listed all the words or expressions that we use in golf to create unique embroideries to affix on clothes respecting the brand universe in which GLANG is part of the style or the cut, associated to high-end materials and in tune with the times to be in line with the prestigious component that our sport represents.
This therefore represents the first part of the project that we were proud to present to you on July 14, 2020 during the launch of our website www.glanggolf.com. But our project does not end there, our ambition is much greater. Indeed, the desire for development that we have for this short-medium term project aims to meet 6 clothing needs that a golfer may meet, namely:
- A GLANG – LIFESTYLE collection which will be dedicated to everyday life and which is our raison d’être. To which is added the GLANG – LIMITED EDITION collection, which will be a collection with hand-made embroidery to bring a touch of authenticity to our brand. These two collections will be the first two to be presented on launch day ( Editor’s note: July 14th ).
- A GLANG – GOLF collection which will be dedicated to the practice of golf but with the main values of being able to be worn on golf as well as in everyday life and which respects our brand identity namely Pop, Hip Hop and urban cultures, street, sport and lifestyle which will break the established rules (in the respect of the etiquette of course).
- A GLANG – ATHLETIC collection. We wish to develop a whole collection of clothing for the practice of sport (fitness, bodybuilding, running, yoga, Pilates) This is one of the many heritages that Tiger has brought to the world of golf that we want to highlight, encourage and by -below in which we believe deeply. That is to say, he was one of the pioneers, just after Gary Player, to demonstrate that golf is a sport which requires extraordinary physical skills which requires preparation and that therefore any golfer is and must be seen as a full-fledged athlete
- A GLANG – HORIZON / LOUNGE WEAR Collection. This is a collection of clothing that we want to develop and offer to all golfers who swallow the kilometers in the car, who spend endless hours at the airport, not to mention travel, to their favorite golf destinations or for those who like to prepare before a game or rest after a game in comfortable clothes. A collection that will therefore want to be comfortable, cozy and chill.
- A GLANG – ACCESSORIES collection. A complete range of accessories, handmade, which meet the needs of a golfer on the course (wood cover, pouch, glove, towel, …) as well as outside (shoe bag, pencil case toiletries, travel bag).
- A G-FAITH collection by GLANG. This collection represents the raison d’être of GLANG. This is indeed one of the reasons why I decided to create the brand, because I wanted to be able to contribute to the fight against ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), more commonly called the disease of Charcot from which my father is affected. It is therefore here, much more than a brand that I wish to create but rather a raison d’être, a direction, a course, a goal that gives us the courage to fight on a daily basis. As for what G-FAITH will actually represent, I keep the surprise warm for now.
We can therefore summarize that the ultimate goal of GLANG is to create a universe which first and foremost is part of a process of democratizing golf, that is to say, in its cultural influence. By that I mean the fact of making discover our sport outside the borders of golf. And in a second plan, our goal is to come to shake up the codes established in the practice of golf by proposing clothes which are ‘inspires other universes or cultures that make up the richness and diversity of the world in which we live.
Can you tell us more about the logo?
The logo is a graphic representation of the three primary trajectories that we find in golf namely the draw, the straight ball and the fade . These three trajectories fit into a double circle being the graphic representation of a golf hole in perspective (view from above). We wanted a golf hole because the name GLANG is also the sound representation of a ball that goes into a hole and hits the plastic of the hole. The general brief was to find a very graphic logo that could be appreciated by non golfers and on the other hand have a strong symbolic character for practitioners.
Can you tell us more about the clothing line that will be part of the launch?
At launch, we will offer 57 products under the GLANG – LIFESTYLE collection (38 for men and 19 for women) and 14 products under the GLANG – LIMITED EDITION collection (9 for men and 5 for women).
These two collections will represent a total of 33 different embroideries (19 machine embroideries and 14 hand embroideries)
We will also present 7 caps in an urban and street wear style that corresponds to our brand image .
In addition, we will offer an e-gift card for all customers who wish to give a gift and leave the choice to the lucky recipient of the latter.
Finally, we are working hard on the charitable part of our brand, G-FAITH, which I hope will be available by the end of the year.
We are currently working on 12 new embroideries with the aim of expanding our GLANG – LIFESTYLE range by early September.
Where can I find GLAND golf clothing?
Only on our website www.glanggolf.com
Will we be able to buy the products from any country in Europe?
Absolutely, we will be delivering throughout Europe and in the very near future to North America. Indeed, we use a service provider specializing in delivery solutions to companies and in particular to e-merchants, which will allow us to offer our products in a large part of the world and those at competitive prices.
Are the products made in Europe?
All of the clothes we offer are made by a Belgian company that makes all of our clothes in Bangladesh. These are 100% organic clothes that meet OEKO, GOTS, OCS Blended, OCS 100, GRS and VEGAN standards. Our partner is also recognized as an exemplary member of the Fair Wear Foundation, which defends a responsible social, economic and environmental approach.
Finally, all the embroidery and labels are designed, manufactured and made in France, in – Bordeaux, in our partner workshop.
Now that you know all about GLANG Golf go check it out. In the meantime I give you an appointment very soon for a detailed review of a few models to find out if the quality is at level of the promises.
