The brand creating your favourite brand accessories.
While High Life Tech's name may be lowkey, their portfolio and credentials speak for themselves. Having made over 5 million products and worked with over 3,000 brands with household names including Half Evil, Hypland, Bela Cartes and more.
Starting from humble beginnings in 2019 in New York, High Life Tech initially started out creating phone cases where he middlemanned for brands. From there he ventured out to other adjacent merch like accessories before venturing out to mainly jewellery. They then built upon their empire by purchasing a factory and opening their product offering to include not only jewellery but also belts, home decor, cardholders, plushies and more.
They now set their sights on getting a showroom and expanding beyond just fashion with the world's most iconic brands on their mind.
For those that don’t know, explain what you actually do.
Hello, my name is Brendan Lebitsch, founder of High Life Tech. If you always wondered who the manufacturer behind the jewelry and accessories for some of the largest streetwear brands is, it is us. Trusted by more than 3,000 brands, we are a full-service manufacturer of jewelry, leather goods and more. With our in house manufacturing, low minimums of 25 to 50 pieces, and wide variety of customization options, we work with brands of all sizes to turn their design idea into a physical product.
Talk us through the start and how all High Life Tech came about.
High Life Tech was founded in 2019 in New York as a phone case drop shipping company. The name actually came from one of my friends when we were at a sporting event. It kinda just stuck and the rest is history. When I started the company, I was trying to sell individual phone cases to family, friends, and local businesses. Within a short period of time, realizing the competitiveness of the market, I decided to shift entirely to bulk orders. I would spend every single night copying and pasting the same message to brand after brand about who we were and what we do. Any orders we got initially were middlemanned through Alibaba (now that is not the case, we own our own factory and workshop). Within the early months, after seeing some success in phone cases, I added more products such as lanyards, popsockets, and rubber keychains. The next product we added was metal keychains. Once we got into metal, brands started asking us to produce jewelry.
We really found our niche in manufacturing custom jewelry. Of course, we added belts and cardholders eventually, but the majority of our business is around jewelry. Today, we have more than 25 customizable products that are made completely from scratch
As mentioned previously, a lot of people think of us as a middleman for brands. That was the case until 2 years ago. 2 years ago, due to demand, we purchased our own factory in Asia to coincide with our office in the US. We produce and assemble in both countries now with a team of around 15 employees. This was a strategic move in order to handle demand as well as expand our international presence.
Lastly, one thing different about us than other manufacturers is our vertical integration. We have in house manufacturing, 2D and 3D designers on staff, and free product shot photography included with nearly every order. In addition, all our pricing is by per piece. We do not charge all those setup fees, drawing fees, and mould fees. We make it simple and provide value as we know running a brand can be expensive.
What’s been your favourite piece to make of all time?
Granted we’ve worked with over 3,000 brands and created over 5 million products, if I had to choose, my favourite piece would be the Crystal River Barbed Wire Hanger. When we first showcased the idea, a lot of people commented how it would rip your clothes. We knew we would get those comments. However, unless you were super careless, the barbed wire marks were strategically placed to never touch a shirt. I really liked the idea because it takes something that hasn’t seen innovation in years and adds a unique twist (no pun intended) to it.
Do you exclusively work with smaller brands? If so why and do you intend to broaden to a wider clientele?
Since inception, it has been our mission to allow brands, regardless of size, the ability to create their own branded products. That is the reason why our average MOQ is 25 to 50. We remain committed to levelling the playing field so that the days of larger brands having cooler things just because of their budgets come to an end. The small brands are the reason we have been able to create so many different projects and are the reason we get noticed by bigger brands. We don’t treat people different by the size of their brand either. We treat each client the same and make the same concessions we would to large brands as we do small brands. We work with brands of all sizes. Some of our biggest clients include Half Evil, Hypland, and Vees Clothing. However, we have worked with hundreds of smaller brands like VLonely, Our Mind Studios, Selah Clothing, Death By Jewelry, JalonisDead, and more. While we enjoy working with the big brands, seeing smaller brand owners bring their ideas to life, sell out their ideas, or go viral means much more. Seeing brands grow with us is the best part about what we do.
What are your favourite pieces to design?
My favorite pieces to manufacture are any casted jewelry pieces. There are so many steps to the process that makes it fascinating. We start by turning a sketch or digital design into a 3D CAD file. From there, the CAD is used to make a copper mold which is then used to make the wax molds which are then used to pour the steel on the casting trees and into the casting furnace. After, the metal is cut off the trees, hand polished, plated, and finished. It is such a tedious process but super rewarding seeing the creation from start to finish.
What has been the most intricate piece to make?
The most intricate piece we made was the Thumb Tac bracelet by a designer known as Leo Gulko. The reason this piece was so intricate is it made of 9 casted stainless steel thumbtacks that are interlocked with a hidden mechanism and has a hidden clasp. Each part of the bracelet had to be bent and assembled by hand. It is comprised of a lot of moving parts to allow its functionality.
What’s the next step in you guys' vision?
While we have a private workshop and office in NY, we are looking at getting a little showroom soon. We want to make it a showroom / popup space where we can host brands events while letting brands come in person to discuss their projects.
Secondly, expansion outside streetwear/fashion. We love the industry and will continue to pioneer the creation of jewelry and accessories but we also want to get into some more branded products for larger companies. It would be cool to team up with some of the worlds most iconic brands to make some products. We had the opportunity to team up with companies like Call of Duty and Liquid Death but the circumstances just didnt align. We hope to build that out more.
Lastly, Home Décor: one thing I am excited about are creating more functional pieces as well as home décor. We recently started doing carabiners which have been a lot of fun. In the past, we have made chairs for Ransom, a book holder for Liquid Lagoon, and the Graveyard Ash Tray for Bones.
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