When people hear about our new men’s apparel and lifestyle store, usually the first two questions are:
- How do you pronounce it?
- How did you come up with that name?
So, we thought we’d do a post about it and tell the story:
First, “ULAH” is pronounced “you-luh”, with a long “U”.
How’d we come up with the name? When we first started dreaming about our store concept, we came up with a dozen different names — trying everything from combining our names together, to names that represented something in the fashion industry. Our top choice was connected to denim construction terminology.
The problem we had with that name was that our dream was bigger than denim – and even bigger than an apparel store. We needed something that was more abstract and could transcend categories — so we put it on the back burner for a bit.
While on a quick trip to Denver, we were heading to brunch with a friend of ours one morning. We just happened to quickly drive by a store in the uptown area that had a colorful sign on the store front. It had a long name that I didn’t have time to digest, but for some reason the last four letters of the name caught my attention: U-L-A-H. We later discovered through our Denver friend that the store was called Talulah Jones, a quirky and sophisticated gift store.
“Ulah”… I kept saying it to myself as we continued down the road to our brunch destination. I couldn’t explain it, but it was really resonating. It sounded like a hip and trendy rustic destination that people would want to go to. Maybe that’s why I liked it so much? Our vision for the store and our brand, in fact, was to be trend forward while having a rustic and nostalgic essence to it. The more Joey and I talked about it, the more we liked it — so I started designing the logo.
Not long after, I was on a trip visiting my family in Texas. As I was showing my parents our store concept, my mom quickly chimed in, “do you remember where your grandmother was born, and where your great granddad lived?” “No”, I answered. “Eula, Texas!” she exclaimed. Although the spelling was different, I couldn’t help but believe that somewhere in my sub-conscious, the name “Ulah” was resonating with the almost forgotten memories of that small dusty town I used to visit when I was little. I looked down at my hand where I was wearing my great granddad’s giant hand-crafted turquoise ring that my grandmother gave me years ago — remembering his rustic house with stone walls, full of taxidermy and native American décor — and it just felt meant to be.
Welcome to Ulah!