“I first met Michael Kopelman in 1999/2000. I had started to travel to London for work and would always drop through his shop Hideout on Upper James St which along with Slam City, Fly London (also owned by Michael K) and Bond International were the must visit London retail spots when in town.   Hideout boasted one of the best (and most eclectic) brand lists of its time - GoodEnough, Gimme V, A Bathing Ape, Supreme, Neighborhood, Let It Ride, and many many more. I think Russell from Silas passed on his office phone number, so I cold called him from one of those London phone boxes. Surprisingly he invited me to visit his office up near Old Street Tube. I was shown into his office and told Michael would be in soon. I quite clearly remember Michael had a BAPE couch in his office (probably the first time I had seen one) and wasn’t sure if you were allowed to sit on it or not…so I just stood there haha… Michael and Hideout were a big influence on what would become Supply a couple years later. Supply opened with Gimme V as part of our original brand list and we’re stoked 16 years later it’s still part of Supply’s brand list today.”

- Shawn Yates [founder/owner of Supply]

In a world where the term 'OG' is often overused, Michael Kopelman of Gimme 5 truly deserves the description. From Stüssy to A Bathing Ape to Foot Patrol, he has had a hand in many of the most popular brands we know today. We sat down to have a quick chat about Gimme 5 and its history below...

How did the idea of Gimme 5 come about?

I was into clothing , appropriating some of my dad’s & brother's gear and buying all kinds of stuff as soon as I could get the funds to pay for it. When I got made redundant at the end of the 80’s, I was already DJ’ing and clubbing around London - visits to NYC, meeting Shawn Stussy, Jules, Paul & Lysa, and visiting Japan helped me to see that there was an opportunity to start something.

The name is unique, how did you come up with it?

At that time “Gimme5” was a popular greeting - slang which went together with a hand slap/fist bump and I thought it would be a unique name for a friendly company.

The logo reminds me of something from a Spaghetti Western or an exploitation film poster. Were these genre’s influential to the Gimme5 brand?

One of my favourite tees from back in the day was a Clint Eastwood from Dirty Harry - however I took the logo from Marvel comics’ Fantastic Four.

The references to music have always been present throughout the designs over the years to the present. Why is music important?

I suppose it’s always been important in my life marking specific times, connecting, sharing and discovering - the goose bumps we get from listening to a beautiful piece of music and the artists are equally important too. The visuals - seeing the acts perform or the cover artwork.

Over the years, the brand has collaborated with some influential artists like Kostas Seremetis, Massive Attack and Sk8thing. How do you decide who to collaborate with?

These collabs came about out of shared mutual interests and friends. The culture which is so broad today, was tiny when I started and so you met people because we were all into the same things.

Hit and Run/Hideout store was very influential; it was part of the first wave of stores stocking a wide range of brands from around the world catering toward subculture. Do you remember the first set of labels you carried when it opened?

We had Good Enough , Bathing Ape , Supreme , Let it Ride , Neighbourhood, WTAPS, Undercover

Hit and Run/Hideout was also the first to stock a lot of these notable Japanese labels, before they were known outside of Japan. What made you decide to sell these brands to the UK market and how did these relationships come about?

These are my friends - no one, anywhere, had these labels at this time. I wanted to present them in my store.

Has the importance or role of clothing for you changed over the years ?

I still love clothing for style or function, but not for fashion.

Thank you Michael.

The Young Ones collection from Gimme 5 is now available in store & online.

Images taken from BEINGHUNTED. archives and GIMME 5 

Archive photos of Hit & Run from Michael Kopelman

Foreward by Shawn Yates

Interview by Anthony Kwang