Is Ader Error the world's coolest brand?

If there is one brand that is taking over Instagram, it is Ader Error. Literally. With three Instagram handles and a combined following of over 600,000, it's all too obvious that this is a brand you should be paying attention to, and for good reason.

Born and bred in Seoul, South Korea, Ader Error is undoubtedly one of its greatest exports sitting alongside the likes of K-pop and kimchi. So what's so great about it? Firstly, Ader Error is breaking a mould that, while working for a lot of other brands, isn't necessary for it. Rather than use celebrity endorsement and famous faces in its campaigns, the brand relies entirely upon quality product and social media to make sales. And it works.

There's no paid influencer projects, no sponsored posts. Instead, there are just three brand-focused Insta pages. And they're genius. Its handles are dedicated to different things. One is for campaigns and store launches, one is for product launches and one – our personal favourite – is dedicated to showing customers how to style Error's clothes, while sharing your looks.

Error, born in 2014, offers serious yet playful unisex clothing. The products are grown-up, almost office-worthy (suiting is Eighties-inspired and fantastically boxy), but there are still flashes of humour by way of socks that read “your life is a joke” and “not yet” scrawled across unzipped flies. And while most creative directors are as famous as the brand they head up these days, very little is known of the Error design team. In fact, they go only by nicknames such as “Kevin”.

Off the back of its first collaboration with Puma, which saw a sell-out collection of duvet coats, futuristic kicks and oversized beanies, we spoke to the brand's (unnamed) head of branding and marketing.

GQ: How would you describe Ader Error?

Ader Error: We started this brand to communicate with people. We started as a fashion company but we don't want to just be a fashion brand. We aim to be techy, lifestyle and that little something more – a new type of business.

How would you describe Ader Error in three words?

Actually, I can describe it in one word: fine. F is for fun, I is immediate, N is new and E is easy. We make content look easy and very new.

How do you see Ader Error moving forward?

When we started, we wanted to express retro ideas with some futuristic factor. We know what people want to know and experience. For us, and many around us, the past is the present's future, so technically we are living in a future world, so now is the past but also now is the future. Confusing, but basically the future of Ader Error is this. The future of Ader Error is the past.

Tell me a little more about Ader Error's Instagram accounts

So we have quite a lot of Instagram accounts. Our main account, just @ader_error, is mainly for our all brand content, including all the collections, collaboration projects and notices for our art and pop-up events. Our second account is @adererror_official and is mainly for our own collections and products. Then we have @aderstyling too, which aims to make it easy for people to access our brand through our casual styling tips.

Why do you think that the brand is so popular on Instagram?

Well, I think, first of all, the reason why we are so popular is because what we do, we do well.

We're very creative and we always want to do something very new, but with the inspiration that surrounds us. We try to make interiors and normal things new so that when people view our content they can find normal things that also are a bit weird at the same time. People can connect with the brand so easily. Then, of course, trends are very important for us. For example, unisex clothing and oversized fits. When we launched our brand we had already studied this social flow and we already made the kind of strategy for different social channels, especially Instagram. We just sort of knew what people wanted.

What do you think Ader Error does that stands out from other brands?

I think people notice that we are not just another Korean brand. The most important thing for our brand is to focus on our brand's own identity and we haven’t received any donations or help from third-party companies. We do everything in-house. Of course, we do collaborations with other artists and a lot of agencies, but all the content from our brand is from our own crew.

Why did Ader Error collaborate with Puma?

About ten years ago people were forgetting about Puma. I don’t know why, but maybe compared to Puma, brands like Nike and Adidas were all moving very fast. We felt Puma had its own strong history. For example, through our collaboration we found that they had a rich computer history (shown through the campaigns and trainer designs) and we wanted to turn the computer into something new to fit into today's trends. We wanted to make something fresh enough to make people go, “Oh, what is this?” So from our side it was a very interesting project to be on. It’s the first project that Puma's global team proposed to a Korean brand for a collaboration. There have been no other cases like this, so of course we said yes.

Do you have a favourite piece in the collaboration?

Definitely the trainers. As I said, we tried to make them look futuristic with a green and yellow colourway and this back heel piece which feels very futuristic. It’s also the first time that our brand designed sneakers, so it’s very new for us.

Do you have any collaborations coming?

Yes, for 2019 we have a collaboration with Eastpak and Alpha Industries.

Do you think that you will open more stores?

We only have one store in Seoul, but we have plans to open two or three more stores in Korea and maybe if it is possible in 2020, a new store opening in the USA or Europe.

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