We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Hagan Hagmaier a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hagan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s talk legacy – what sort of legacy do you hope to build?
I want my legacy to be tied to the idea of: extraordinary things happen to ordinary people. You can come from nothing and be someone great, as well as you can make ordinary moments in your life worthwhile and meaningful. No situation is mundane. No situation can tear you down for good. To live with “extraordinary” in mind, it all starts with the absolute want to do so. It has to become part of your being.
Having that lasting legacy that makes a significant impact on the world is for me, the highest honor. As a creator, you’re always looking to improve your work and have it expand onto new horizons. This impact of someone else enjoying your creative work and putting their money and mindset towards it, even for the slightest moment, is probably the most satisfying outcome of owning a business. For being in the clothing brand industry, I treat it as my label, my album to be released. Creativity is always going to be the driving force of the business and my legacy as a whole. I love being creative because you create your own “worlds”, each having a unique aesthetic, tone, and message. Whether that be a clothing design, TV episode, book, or any other creative pursuit, you start building your emotions and memories around these creative projects.
For most, there is fear and countless limitations on pursuing a creative ambition that ultimately, kills people’s dreams. Looking at my journey with Sabal Palms, I am so blessed to be able to have my brand, grow it, and have it be so essential to my life. It has transcended into something way bigger than clothing.
This “extraordinary” is not limited to just owning a business, but can apply to all aspects of life. It is a matter of want, to strive to be better. To accept being different and building confidence around what you pursue in life. It’s not about being fearless or hard work necessarily, it’s about figuring out what character you want to be in this story. Have that character arc, those story moments and conflict, and then take something meaningful to you along for a journey. The farther you carry that passion and ambition along the journey, the more it improves your life and the other’s around you. That idea you had at 3:00 in the morning, or the business you started in your garage has now morphed into something greater than ourselves. Even if your ambition fails in the end, by being on the ambitious path, you are already becoming greater. This process grows you as a person and allows you to have the wisdom to pursue other projects.
I want to be the ambassador of “the journey” and accomplish way more than just the success of Sabal Palms. I love that Sabal Palms is my starting point, my initial ambition. Its design and message serve as my guiding force into the world of the creative and extraordinary.
Hagan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Hello everyone, my name is Hagan Hagmaier. I’m 23 years old from Orlando, Florida, and I am the co-founder of Sabal Palms Apparel. Sabal Palms Apparel is a streetwear collective based around the concept of your “journey”. The crescent moon/palm tree logo symbolizes the journey you’re on, “Night and Day”. With growth along the journey, there is a night and day difference in how powerful you have become; what you now mean to the world.
Our clothing is based around oversized streetwear looks used for gym wear and going out. Comfort and fit are highly important to deliver to our customers, along with unconventional design placements and garments. Most importantly however, we want to deliver clothing that has more meaning than anything ever done in the clothing space. For us, clothing is a canvas and a representation of your journey. We want to support all who journey with us. Sabal Palms has been my journey and now I want it to be ours.
With that being said, we are different than any other brand because we allow our followers to “become part of Sabal Palms”. This is how we become a collective, something that transcends clothing. We allow customers to customize their own clothing to be added to the overall brand of Sabal Palms. This is done in two ways. The first is to alter an existing piece of our clothing through changing a color, design, or garment. The second way is to collaborate with us to create an entirely custom piece from scratch. These designs are not for limited sale; they get placed on our website for others’ to purchase. This introduces the satisfying feeling of creating your own clothing, and creates the experience of actually being apart of a clothing brand for the first time. We want our customers to be contributors and add to the depth of the brand. This ties directly back to the idea of representing your own “journey”. This creative part of our brand has gone through many iterations, and a finalized process for this will be coming soon.
We started this brand back in 2016 when I was 17 years old. What I am most proud of is how the ordinary origins of this brand has now become an extraordinary part of my life and my environment. The brand started as the singular crescent/moon palm tree logo that I designed at 3:00 in the morning on July 6th, 2016. That logo was the first thing I worked on for the brand and it has been our logo ever since. We wanted to start this brand based off of the “Sabal Palms stories”, told by my best friend and fellow co-founder Ethan Beaudoin.
Ethan grew up in the Sabal Palm at MetroWest apartment complex. As a kid, he would get into fights at the playground and he would come over to our house and tell us these crazy fight stories. The way in which he told the stories with so much charisma and passion, made it seem like an action TV episode in an ongoing series. As kids, we thought this was the coolest thing ever, and it just captivated us as we laughed and yelled in excitement for the next story. He would tell us these stories late at night when we were all hanging out, and we had such a good time experiencing the story of the “Sabal Palms Brawler.” This became Ethan’s nickname and then eventually, the name of our group: Ethan, my brother and co-founder Jake, and myself. Years went by and every now and again, Ethan would tell us the stories of “Sabal Palms”, revisiting the vitality and origins of our youth.
One day on spring break in 2016, we revisited the apartment complex that is now called Amara at MetroWest. Ethan retold the stories and showed us around one last time. On the way back home to our house as we skated back, we stopped in front of our old elementary school. We started talking about how we can make Sabal Palms mean something more, and have the feeling of our youth and origins continue. Ethan suggested the idea of getting a tattoo that represents Sabal Palms, like something with a palm tree, crescent moon, fist, etc. As he was listing these images, I immediately thought of a logo and that I knew I could design it in Photoshop. That year in school, I just learned how use Photoshop in my Digital Art Imaging class. Also with being into skateboarding, I had a huge interest in clothing and design in general, and so I stopped Jake and Ethan and gave the pitch. “We should make Sabal Palms into a clothing brand: Sabal Palms Apparel”. As I said this, their eyes lit up and we all shook hands on starting this new venture.
For context, we originally met Ethan in our old neighborhood as he lived there for a time, and then moved to “Sabal Palms”. It is hard to explain this, but the first time I ever heard that name “Sabal Palms” when I was 10 years old, I knew that it was gonna mean something to me one day and that I would use it one day. The apartment complex had an aura that was created by these stories and friendship, and that feeling was so special to me. I wanted to extend that feeling into the next phase of my life: my career. I always had an interest in art and a creative mind, so turning Sabal Palms into my own clothing brand and business now became my destiny. I knew Sabal Palms would be this story, this journey, and I wanted the brand to represent this idea.
We have released 7 big collections for the brand that have demonstrated how much the brand has grown, and how much we have grown as people. When I went to college in Fall of 2017 at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, I continued to work on the brand and joined the premier entrepreneurship program they had at the school: the “Runway Program”. I worked with my mentor Professor Vincent Izzi, as we further developed by business and competed in pitching competitions in front of local investors for seed capital.
After graduating, the biggest event of the brand happened as we were invited to exhibit the brand at the AGENDA streetwear trade show at Bally’s in Las Vegas, Nevada in August of 2021. We displayed our brand while connecting with retailers and other brands. We were apart of the first “AGENDA market” for up and coming clothing brands, and were alongside the brands of Soulja Boy and Waka Flocka, just to name some notable people. We had such a good time on this trip and it is the single greatest time I’ve had in my life so far.
We got such a good reception from the people at the show, that it just made the experience magical for me. All of the hard work and criticism of the brand was now being praised and recognized. Unforgettable feeling for me. They loved our logo, our garments, and who we were as people.
This “fight story” we told as kids as now evolved into a fully fledged, streetwear brand at a tradeshow in Vegas. Realizing this, I was so proud of our work and how far we have come. This is what I’m most proud of. Going on this journey from ordinary origins and through determination and belief, making it become something extraordinary.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Resilience is a cornerstone of any journey and is essential to who I am as a person. I experienced the most trouble with my business when I was in college. There was just a lot of going on; a lot of anxiety. Being on your own for the first time, meeting new people, work, school, football: I was doing way too much. My mind was scattered and I was constantly shifting my mindset to the task at hand. This gave me so much anxiety and I developed sleep deprivation. I knew I had to slow down and refocus myself, and the first step was cutting one of those activities out of my life. Even though I had a small business and it’s in its infancy, I knew that that was the most important thing to me. That was my future, that was my passion. The building blocks to living an extraordinary life, different from all others on the college path.
When I was in the entrepreneurship program at Florida Gulf Coast University, I competed in pitching competitions in front of local investors for seed capital. I would put together a business plan, poster, and then practice my pitch for hours. Come the day of the pitch I was nervous, but so excited. When I was doing my pitches, a lot of the time I was defending my idea and getting criticism of the brand. I definitely expected this, but most of these investors were older men who didn’t fully understand streetwear or clothing brands in general. My business was centered around art and culture, unlike the other business that had products for wants and needs, for practical uses or for charity. This made my business different from the rest, but the investors did not see it as worthy.
I never received any seed capital from these investors, which did hurt my motivation a little bit. I started doubting myself and wondering what the future would be. I was so hungry to get that money for my brand and I tried over and over again. I knew my brand was worthy and I quickly became known as the most passionate person in the program because of my resilience. I never let my foot of the gas, and continued to work day and night on my brand. I let passion drive the business forward, dictating my destiny. I started the brand well before the program and it was going to continue way beyond the program.
The criticism and negativity fueled my resilience to continue with the brand. Using my emotions and life experience has always been my edge, and I knew that my business would be bigger than the program, bigger than the criticism. My brand is about the journey and to fully accept this as its message and purpose, the brand had to overcome the challenges and continue to grow and involve.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
One of the lessons I had to unlearn was that just because I started a business, that does not guarantee sales and success. Me being a young entrepreneur with no experience, once I got my website up and running I thought people would just start buying. I was definitely wrong about that, but I’m glad that I had that optimism from the get-go. That optimism has continued to today, and has allowed me to continue with the brand and accept all the adversity in my way.
If I could go back, I could say that I should have taken more time to do research and come up with a business plan, but I’m actually glad that I didn’t. So many people have ideas that never come to fruition, never transform into anything tangible. I’m glad that I just jumped into it and made something out of nothing. I threw all doubts and fears aside because of my passion. The passion that ignited the fire within; the thing that gave me vitality through all of life’s aspects.
The only thing I would change is to make sure that my “passion” never compromised the business success. What I mean by this, is that sometimes a person’s passion can cloud their vision; the essentials rules of the market and the business. Some of my early marketing and designs were only born out of passion, not for practical appreciation and consumption, if that makes any sense. Like it was cool to me and only me. It just looked unprofessional and cringe to everyone else, which hurt the brand image in the beginning.
Looking back on that now I laugh, but I’m still glad it was apart of my journey. Looking at my old work to my work now, it’s “Night and Day”, and it shows the growth and journey of the brand. I don’t regret anything because I’m on the path. When pursuing passion, there is no right or wrong direction: It’s only about you. It’s about what you want and need currently in your journey and seeing how far you can go with an ambition.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sabalpalmsapparel.com/
- Instagram: @sabalpalmsfl
- Facebook: Sabal Palms Apparel