Acre Presents: Nolan Daniel White
Acre: Can you introduce yourself?
Acre: I think everyone's most familiar with you because of your content on IG. What else like goes on behind the scenes for you?
Nolan: Besides what everybody sees online, I do some consulting work on my own and a little bit with Aaron Levine. He's got his consulting business he's been running since around the start of the pandemic and that just got to a point where he was kind of brimming over. I've been with him for the past 2 years, working on any project that he needs help with, building decks, just bouncing ideas off each other. I help him workshop stuff and if it comes to execution I assist where I can. It’s been an amazing experience.
He is the best guy in the world. I love him to death. He's like a big brother. Aside from that I have a couple of clients on my own that I do some social media consulting with. I help them with finding their voice and coming up with strategy - stuff like that. Just lending my personal insights to what they do. I'm also in the process of starting a newsletter right now - sort of a pseudo newsletter blog, which is just going to be a continuation and a deeper dive into what I currently talk about.
I've been thinking a lot about the fundamentals of the platforms that I'm on, namely, Instagram reels and TikTok. There's a benefit to how surface level you have to stay because you have to constantly be appealing to everyone and to people who may not be part of your niche. I think it is a good exercise in keeping your head on your shoulders - it keeps things accessible. But then on the other hand, when you want to go into something that's really weird, really niche, or just experimental or philosophical or whatever the hell, you're dissuaded from doing so. Or you have to, you know, really, really tread lightly when approaching that. I've found that to be a little stifling as of late, I've wanted that outlet to go further in depth.
And whereas you're not appealing to an algorithm with a newsletter, you own your output. You know that your shit is ending up in people's inboxes. I've had people tell me “I love your stuff. You haven't come like where have you been? You haven't come up on my feed in 3 months?” To which I reply I've been posting every other day, but clearly my stuff just isn't getting pushed to them. So for those that wanna opt in, that wanna go deeper, that wanna get into the weird shit, the newsletter will be a good outlet. So yeah, I'm working on the newsletter right now. I'm hoping to have it out in the next couple of weeks and it's going to be called red all over spelled RED.
Acre: Aside from the ability to tap in from wherever - what keeps you in Montreal, and what led you to choose Montreal?
Nolan: I was making that decision around 2 years ago now when I was finishing up university. I was living in this town called Kingston, about halfway between Ottawa and Toronto, a university town, very similar to Boston.
It was cool historically, but just a little sleepy besides the whole university environment. There was definitely a part of me that was thinking maybe I should try and do New York - try and get a visa, try and weasel my way in somewhere. But that kind of shaped up to be too expensive, probably too early. So the question just became okay, where in Canada am I gonna go?
So in terms of centers, Your only options are Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and on a technicality maybe Calgary. Besides that, there's places like Edmonton and Victoria, but even those are small sleepy cities. Really it was between the big three.
Toronto and Vancouver are fucking insanely expensive. Everybody's an asshole in Vancouver. And it's really rainy - though it's really pretty. But if you're not like a gorp-core granola geek there is nothing for you. Toronto is like if you took Tribeca and then vomited it all over like a 50 kilometer square. There are a lot of really, really talented people and amazing creatives, but I wouldn't say there's like a really synchronous scene there. It's just big and gray. It’s also very car centric. And like I said before, it's really expensive.
So all of that just kind of landed me in Montreal. When I signed a lease up here and I hadn't ever been. I hadn't seen the place I was moving into. I hadn't been to Montreal since I was 10 years old. I knew one person from Montreal that I just talked with online. I just had a feeling I was going to like this place. It's a really cool place. It's a little under the radar. It’s mostly people from Canada that know of it. Anybody that's been here raves about it.
There's an international airport, you can get to where you need to go, there's some decent retail, there's some decent vintage, there's a lot of really cool artists, there's a fantastic nightlife scene, arguably in my opinion the best in New York or in North America. And people are just like cool and laissez-faire.
There's a kind of a European approach to work-life balance. And it's the only city in Canada where you can pop open a bottle of wine in a park and just kind of like, you know, people will wrap up work at 4. Their bosses will tell them to take off early when it's sunny out in the summer. And yeah, it's very serendipitous, I guess.
Acre: What's the closest comparable American city to Montreal?
Nolan: I'd say there's elements of New York for sure. Like in terms of the scene. But I would say less competitive. I would say there's elements of Detroit for sure in terms of its grittiness, I think, and the scrappiness of it. There's a lot of good tenant laws and protection laws - a lot of people have affordable housing and stuff like that. So because you don't need to do that much to make ends meet here compared to other Canadian cities, I think a lot of people are more willing to share the love.
Acre: In a time where we have access to anything at any part of the day, what makes a store, physical retail, interesting to you?
Nolan: Good question. I think the presentation and the people are hand-in-hand 1 and 2. Like you said, even in niche circles now, you can still find 2 or 3 stores in a city that stock very similar items. But the thing that's always set them apart is when you walk in and the people are cool and they talk to you. When nobody's looking down their nose at you. When you don't need a membership card, so to speak, you don't need to be wearing the right thing or whatever, when the people are just cool.
Another thing that stands out to me is, say if the person who owns the shop or manages or curates or buys or whatever is super into clothes, but they're also really into high-fi gear or coffee or tea or cooking or whatever that they're like pulling a bit of that in and drawing comparisons on those commonalities, you know, like finding the little middle of the Venn diagram between niches and just putting them together. I always find that really interesting because you get to see those through lines illustrated physically. And I think that is such an important part of the retail experience - going in and seeing and feeling these intangible aspects of tangible items and being able to pick up on those themes, whether it's consciously or subconsciously and getting some inspiration at how you might integrate these items into your life or how it might just inspire the use of shit you already have.
I don't think a lot of places train their staff in this way anymore, But hearing their honest opinion goes a long way. If someone asks for an opinion, the whole, again, like kind of going back to like the snobbery looking down the nose and you know you have to be part of this club. If I'm just trying something on and or I've said oh yeah I'm just kind of browsing or whatever, and then someone comes up and says “no I bet that looks like shit on you” then it's like okay fuck you - but like if I'm like “what do you think of this” And they give me an honest opinion - that’s really cool. Even if I don’t agree with the reasons they gave, it's still nice to have them.
I think that's a really important thing, especially at places where you might be a returning customer where they know you and your tastes. That's a big thing. Something like that still exists in the upper upper echelons. It still exists for people that have personal shoppers or a dedicated salesperson because they're blowing 20 racks a month at Celine or some shit. But you know, like in terms of that introduction and again, as like an authority and an educator, I think that's a good point of entry for a lot of people, and also like an art, again, when it comes to delivering an opinion in a way that is going to be palatable and not like scare people away but still that's gonna be honest and truthful.
Acre: What gets Nolan through checkout these days? What gets you from, I don't know, Instagram, through the story link, through the website, through the cart, through checkout? What was the last item that you saw that you had to have?
Nolan: Honestly, I'm going back to basics a lot. It's almost never e-comm anymore for me. Almost never.
I’m at the point now where I have everything I could ever need - now I'm just supplementing those pieces for better versions. I've got all the washes of denim in the fits I need and shit like that. But I'm still hunting for that perfect pair. You know, same thing with the leather jacket and whatever, like everything serves a function now. But now I'm going after like the white whales, the stuff that is going to be the forever pieces. I need to be in person for those - I need to try them on.
Acre: What were some of your earliest style influences?
Nolan: So start off like sneakers, Supreme, Bape, like, you know, streetwear. That and then I dipped a bit into the archive world. Like the Rick Dunks or the Issey Miyake bomber - some of Raf shit and whatever. But that to me, when I reflect on it now, was just kind of an evolution of the virtue signaling that was the streetwear thing. Oh, look how cool I am. I know about this thing. It wasn't really that true to me. It was more just kind of chasing the validation of it. I think I didn't really deeply fuck with it that much.
One of my all time biggest influences is my family friend Ray. He and his husband live in New York - no kids, like I think mid 50s now, just like so obviously like tons of disposable income. And Ray is just like the flyest dude ever. And he definitely inspired my style. He's very into Thom Brown, you know, Brunello Cuccinelli, like cropped trousers - he just knows how to put it together. I was like, “I want to do that.”
Throwing Fits was also a big introduction for me into the kind of contemporary menswear space. I think the big thing there for me was dressing with a sense of humor. Larry was a big inspiration for me.
Acre: Alright - last question. Any words of advice you would give to someone making their first stomach-turning watch purchase?
Nolan: I would say first, if you're going vintage, I would recommend that you do your research - really just try and absorb as much information as you can. Also to buy from a trusted dealer. Going on any kind of website and just trying to find something yourself from a private seller can be risky. So if you are gonna do that, learn everything inside and out - make sure you know what original parts look like, make sure you know what a re-lumed dial looks like, anything like that. Aside from that I would also say, set your budget, stick with it, and stay in the middle of it.
Budget is such a real thing. If you're going “I want a Rolex and I've got $2,500 to spend,” you'll find a Rolex for $2,500 - but It's not going to be a great one unless you know, maybe you come across a stupendous deal or something like that. But generally, if you know you want something, I’d either get the less expensive version of it and get a good example of it or save up more money. That, I think, is the biggest piece of advice because it's a mistake I've made. It's a mistake most people make. You go “well just $500 more dollars, I could get into the cheapest version of this category.”
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