When we started What Youth we had a few sayings that we like to think kept us alive. They usually helped us describe just what the hell it was we thought we were doing. Radical Class, Youth on the Run, Bummer Mag and Late Nights, Early Mornings. It was a way to describe what it takes to start something new, on your own, while everyone around you warns against it and handbrakes your ideas. Whether it’s staying up late working in the garage or out in the streets brainstorming, then being able to get up at dawn and go for a surf then get back to work. It takes a hell of a lot of this to make something go. This saying embodies a spirit of do whatever it takes, despite what you are told is possible, and we always try to live like this. Wring everything we can out of the day and night.

That being said, there are several good examples throughout history of people being told they can’t do things and then by sheer perseverance and a lot of late nights and early mornings they get there. One that always stuck out to us was two bicycle building brothers from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina named Orville and Wilbur. They set out to conquer the skies, something that had been attempted and failed more times than we even know. But they didn’t listen. They stayed up late after working on bikes all day, got up early and worked on their dream before their jobs. And the rest is history and modern aviation.

That’s why we put together this Late Nights, Early Morning kit together. It comes with an all purpose tin mug, fit for Bourbon or wine in the evening (preferably outdoors), and then coffee in the morning. It comes with a drawing of the Wright Brothers first plane in flight from that historical day on December 17, 1903. It comes with a shirt to get dirty in the garage in and a box of matches to keep the midnight oil burning. The ’30s style boxer on the matches is to remind us to never stop fighting for what we want to make, even when you hear there’s no such thing as flying.

Get a “Late Night, Early Mornings” Kit here. And check out the original artwork by Scott Chenoweth that inspired it below.