Abe Burmeister

Abe Burmeister (born in NYC) is the founder and creative director of Outlier. Beginning with a single pair of pants in 2008 and growing into an international direct-to-consumer brand focused on making high-quality, technically-minded clothing of all stripes. Prior to starting Outlier, he cofounded a digital animation studio and ran Abstractdynamics.org, an early blogging network focused on music and radical cultural theory, where he hosted the likes of pop critic Sasha Frere-Jones (Herb 37), philosopher Reza Negarestani and the late political theorist Mark Fisher. In 2001, realizing all this work was done on a laptop/cellphone, he reduced his life's possessions down to a single carry-on bag. Cycling to work, he would inevitably shred his clothes, which was the aha moment for the brand. He got obsessed with creating a better pair of pants that both looked and performed better, ahead of most major brands moving into “active wear” in general. In 2008 the barista at his local coffee shop connected him to future co-founder Tyler Clemens who was working on similar issues with shirts. Within months they had incorporated and began bootstrapping Outlier into existence.