Inside Musterbrand: How One Company Crafts High-End Clothing for Gamers

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Performance Art

For Musterbrand, the best case scenario is creating an iconic collection and remaining tied to a franchise years down the line. While some clothes are limited editions, many are intended to live alongside the games they're based on. The Witcher and Deus Ex are good examples, as is the ongoing annual Assassin's Creed collections.

"In the case of Deus Ex, we're still selling the first 'Adam Jensen' coat, which is in its fifth year now," says Bergel. "Unlike the traditional fashion industry, where the color this year is blue or brown, the character won't change. If there is some new iteration of the game, then we'll obviously adapt and enhance the collection, but our view and goal is to work with those franchises over three to four years. With Ubisoft, we started in 2011. Same with Deus Ex, where we're releasing items for Mankind Divided. We're trying to live with them for their entire life cycle."

There are games where creating a clothing line requires Musterbrand to be a bit creative. For Halo, your iconic character is the Master Chief. A jacket that simply looks like the Chief's armor would look gaudy, so instead Musterbrand had to create its own mythology for the collection. Instead of being inspired by the Master Chief, the Halo collection is all UNSC military gear. (Shown in the header above.)

Despite the success of certain lines, the business of designing premium gaming clothing is still hit or miss for Musterbrand. Bergel and his team can make an educated guess as to what the fanbase wants, but that guess may not correlate very much to reality.

"With Blizzard, we actually started with World of Warcraft and Diablo III," says Bergel. "We all thought World of Warcraft would be by far the strongest franchise, but the Diablo coat skyrocketed. It's hard to bring something from the Diablo world into the contemporary street wear style, but that was positive. That keeps on selling. With Starcraft, we and the studio thought we hit the design exactly and the sales were rather negative."

"With Starcraft, we and the studio thought we hit the design exactly and the sales were rather negative."

For Assassin's Creed, Musterbrand created some additional scarves, which are actually unrelated to anything in the game. Bergel agrees they were "only a marketing thing", but the scarves have done really well in sales. "Those are now known as Assassin's Creed scarves; we've sold thousands and the customers don't even know that it's ours," he tells me.

One thing Musterbrand won't be touching is new franchises and IP. Since the company takes on the entire risk with a collection, it needs to ensure that a line of clothing will sell. This means betting on proven titles and brands. I point out that Watch_Dogs was a new IP and Bergel agrees that despite the success of the Watch_Dogs collection, that situation will be rare for the company.

"Watch_Dogs was our first new franchise and it worked out very well because we knew the studio," he says. "That's why we committed to that, but we won't do it again. I would be cautious with other franchises. I've got to be very, very convinced that it will work out. I'm trying to think if there's anything we've been offered recently... Overwatch is something we're going to work on which has not been released yet. The beta and earlier stages have been positive and promising."

Premium At a Price

Musterbrand wants its clothing to remain iconic and aspirational. That means some items are limited edition, like the Snake Leather coat. That sold for $500 and was limited to only 300 pieces, but it was worn by Big Boss in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. The in-game connection was strong and Bergel says the jackets were "gone immediately". Fans have asked for a second run to be produced, but Musterbrand is holding strong.

"They asked 'Can you do more?' and we said 'No.' First of all, Kojima is gone. Second, it's limited. And we're going to stick to that. It's about making those things aspirational," he tells me.

If that $500 price tag seems high, you're not alone. Price is always a big hurdle for Musterbrand, who refuses to skimp on quality when making its clothes.

"There's certain levels of quality you can only manufacturer for a certain price," says Bergel. "We will not relent on quality, as that would more or less be the decline of our brand. Based on that, the prices are given. If you want a real nice jacket, it cannot be made and sold for $150. It's absolutely impossible."

"We can make t-shirts and knitwear, but that's not standard. You have to appreciate that the quality is amazing. If you compare us to mid-tier or highstreet brands - Superdry, Diesel - we're probably 20 percent below them in terms of pricing, but the quality is much higher. It's taken a while to educate the consumer that they're not just buying merch. That's our main hurdle, getting that message out."

Expanding to a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Musterbrand is currently selling clothes related to Assassin's Creed, The Witcher, Metal Gear Solid, Mass Effect, Halo, Deus Ex, World of Tanks, World of Warcraft, Portal, Hitman, Diablo III, Counter-Strike, and more. The company also expanded beyond gaming into general pop culture with its new Star Wars collection. For Musterbrand, that was an easy jump to make because their consumers were already asking for similar brands.

"We think it's very complementary. There's a big overlap in the audiences. We've seen that our fans are also requesting films, comic books, music," says Bergel. "We've been approached by various music companies asking, 'Could you do the same for us?' In the end, what we want to go for is a focus on pop culture, regardless of what it is."

"Personally, I think things will blur even further in the next ten years," he explains. "It more about dedicating something to a certain audience and our audience is the fashionable geek. Someone who is very much into entertainment and who is not only about wearing a t-shirt or costume. That's our bent, regardless of if it's a video game, comic, or movie."