HIDDEN.RSRCH Interview: Phillip T. Annand

The Madbury Club founder reflects on the past, present, and future.

The year was 2016. Somewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy, a signal beamed into the sky and radiated through the airwaves. The origin of the signal could be traced back to a 2000-square-foot warehouse space in Brooklyn, New York. This signal, a simple Instagram post, represented a landmark moment for a small creative agency and a humble message to the world; The Intergalactic Madbury Club had officially established their base of operations—which they called M158. 

The dysfunctional studio experiment known as The Madbury Club was founded in 2010 and consisted of a motley crew of friends, drop-ins, and drop-outs, united under the shared goal of avoiding a normal job by any means necessary. These guys were different. And not in a contrived or unnatural way. They had an indelible sense of authenticity that was effortlessly conveyed and apparent in their work. Over the years, Madbury would go on to consult for a wide array of brands, lending their distinct style to industry titans like Nike, Gap, and Microsoft. All while still finding the time to collaborate on a capsule collection with their local bodega. In addition to their consultative work, Madbury made their own apparel and products, which quickly garnered what could only be described as the epitome of a cult-like following. This resulted in the majority of their sporadic clothing drops selling out in a matter of minutes. 

Today The Madbury Club ceases to exist, but the goal they set out to accomplish was achieved. They mastered the esoteric art of making a living by doing things they would otherwise have done for free, never taking themselves too seriously in the process. When the dust settled, they went out the same way they came in; on their own terms. At the helm of this operation was the enigmatic Phillip T. Annand. An irreverent yet affable artist, director, builder of things, and wizard hailing from Lawrenceville, New Jersey.

After speaking with Phil for some time, one thing became crystal clear: He possesses an innate desire to create things. The gears in his mind seem to be constantly turning, conjuring up new and unusual ways to challenge banality and explore the outer limits of existence. It’s not an easy task to define Phil’s place within the boundaries of art or culture. This is probably because most of his ventures transcend those boundaries. The late Virgil Abloh—a man rightfully hailed as a legend and an eternal source of inspiration—once aptly labeled Phil an “Early North Star.” Above all, he’s an artist. An absurdly good one. And by all accounts, he’s been quiet lately; absent from social media and instead opting to watch from afar. Despite this lack of forward facing engagement, Phil is still working. Working on conceptual art and designs for his own fledgling projects. Working on bizarre and extraordinary sculptures. And perhaps most importantly, working on building a home for his family.

Who are you?

I’m Phil, Phillip Toussaint Annand, PTA HAITI 3000, as necessary.  I've been some form of artist, designer, manager, director etc for all of my adult life. Since I was a child I have always loved building worlds. Lots and lots of elaborate, small worlds… sometimes big, mostly always unfinished…

What have you been working on lately?

I moved from New York to LA in 2018 and I bought a really old house. A hand-built house that hadn’t been worked on or updated since the 1950s. So I’ve spent the majority of the past 5 years working on our home. This kind of turned into an all-consuming project of its own, something that isn’t forward facing or a brand. The majority of my 20s were spent in a streetwear, rap, or design space, and the last 5 years have been really family focused. It’s been an interesting change, the process of family building, physical construction, and growth at home has as much, or more, depth and nuance as anything else I’ve ever worked on, and lots of similar challenges. 

Have you considered creating a new brand or project?

I feel like most of the things I’ve done have sort of happened in this gradual, natural way and had a really organic build. They were just things that I was into, and when they were all collected, they resulted in different projects. I’ve been trying to let that same process take hold again and not rush anything or strategically put together another project. 

When I first moved to LA, I was planning to open a store called HeavyFormWorks. Being fresh off of ending Madbury, I was running on such an energetic high – I had spent the last 10 years of my life working nonstop and not getting much sleep – so at the time I felt like I needed to jump right into the next thing. I found a small space behind a non-descript door in Chinatown, LA and spent a couple months building out this store and making product. I was planning to open shop and let it grow, and about a week after I posted the project  on Instagram, the pandemic lockdowns went into effect. What was once a store, has now turned into a studio and a fairly pure chaos zone for experimentation.  I’ve never really posted or shared anything from from HeavyForm besides snippets here and there. Now, years later, some of the stuff I was building and working on during that time is starting to rise up. It didn’t go how I thought it was gonna go, but it still went. 

Has your newfound fatherhood changed your perspective on life?

Its one of those things in life that is so profound and enormous that most of the cliches are true. I don’t think its possible to be aware of how much your heart and awareness can expand until you have a child. Having someone who is entirely dependent on you and learning to navigate that everyday has been incredible and exhausting. It has easily been the most awe-inspiring chapter I’ve ever been a part of. My wife Jess, is just a hardcore badass beyond measure and has balanced an impossible amount of things at once. My daughter is a year and a half old, her name is Story. I wish I could elaborate  in better language how much she has changed how I see things but it’s all still too new and too real to explain, I can’t quite capture it yet.  The majority of the last year and a half has been spent trying to find magic with this little girl every day and not sleeping very much. So I’m delirious but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Have you been working on any art projects recently?

I’ve been working on more traditional fine art and just did a show at Franchise Gallery in LA a few months ago. It was an exhibition of some sculptures, larger collage work… mixed media. I dropped out of art school and spent all of my childhood in art camps, so that has always been a world I’ve tried to wrap my mind around and figure out where I feel comfortable participating. 

Can you share any lessons or insights you’ve gained throughout your career?

The first thing that comes to mind is how important timing and windows of opportunities are in relation to ideas. I think the culture we live in celebrates this mythic ideal that artists, designers, directors and creatives in general just have this magic wand that can bring ideas to fruition. As I get a little bit older, I have a different awareness of the passage of time and how important it is for windows of opportunity to line up with good ideas. With Madbury, we just happened to be in our early twenties when Instagram came out. We happened to be streetwear kids and sneaker kids at a pinnacle moment of the internet, right before it sort of got completely blown out. The world was a little smaller. You could put something out and someone like Virgil could see it and respond to it on twitter. These days, there are so many layers of bullshit and sheer volume of content going on that getting exposure has become nearly impossible or often not worth the sacrifices it will take to get it. I’m proud of the work that me and all of my friends did during that time, and I’m also incredibly grateful for the window of opportunity we had. 

How do you think technology has influenced the way brands communicate with their audiences?

I think generationally, this cycle happens: technology and new platforms rise, introducing new means of communication and access. In the beginning, everyone is scrambling to figure out how to optimize and use those means of communication to pretty much perform the same essential functions. The t-shirts don’t change that much – the idea of putting your name on something – the product doesn’t change a whole lot. But the way that brands allow people to access the information changes drastically. Its already changed drastically a few times in my lifetime. 

When I was a teenager I used to take the train from Jersey into Soho and go to Stussy, Supreme, and Bape etc. It was like you would walk into these stores and each of them was a different world.  I remember Ellington, Meech, Erick, Juice, (AKA The Flatbush Zombies) and I walking into Stussy and there would be like 10 new shirts, which were perfectly folded up on the display shelves, so you couldn’t even see the full graphic. You’re physically standing in front of a rack of shirts within a sphere that a brand intentionally created… and everyone would choose which ones they liked, not even knowing the origin of the graphics necessarily, or what references the designers were pulling from... you just had to sort of experience the ether of the shops and follow along whatever path you felt. Older heads in the shop or maybe somebody on a forum would kind of be gatekeeping information in a positive way, subtly pointing you in one direction or another as you learned more or hung around long enough to prove you cared.

Somehow today you have to figure out how to distill all of that nuance and ether within the confines and structure of an Instagram account or maybe a 90 second campaign video? Algorithmic warfare. Content psychosis. The stores still exist but they serve a different purpose now. That’s a radical shift in format. Everybody experiences brands and the majority of life through their phones. Like most people I don’t think I realized how intensely that was happening as I was living it.

Can you reflect on your time with The Madbury Club and how that contrasts from where you are today?

The biggest change is simply working on my own with much less infrastructure.  For me that means much more time spent getting lost down wormholes, forgetting and remembering, blasting off cliffs to nowhere, and probably finishing a lot less work. 

It’s important to say that Madbury was a group of people that changed over 8 years. It was a really special team and a special group of people who are all doing really incredible things now. Everybody is spread across the world, better than ever, waging good wars of art, words, design and more.

Ellington, Vinny, Bryan, Matty, Darryl, Hyun, Tone, Chris, Billy, Rand, Amanda, Kayla (TEAM MADBURY 4 EVER <3)

That was 8 years of full-fledged team effort. For anyone who hasn’t done that, or has, or is at the beginning of that journey; there is so much to learn from working with a team. It’s amazing to see the heights you can reach when you have a group of people focused on something. 

What are you excited about in the near or distant future?

I’ve spent the last five years unlearning things, developing pirate tactics, trying to figure out which of my instincts are the ones worth following. I’m excited to do that for the rest of my life. 

I’m excited about the holographic infinite potential of High Wizard. 

I’m building worlds at HeavyFormWorks. As for the distant future, I’m hoping the world my daughter grows up in is a good one and I’m excited to see how that’s going to take shape. I hope it involves aliens. 

The Heavy Form Works RSRCH Tee is available now.