From CBD Soda To Street Style, Recess Releases ‘Realitywear’ With Three New Flavors

When Recess launched its line of CBD-infused sparkling waters in late 2018, its millennial-focused, digital marketing was meticulously planned with a successful execution earning praise in the New York Times and AdWeek. Now 18 months later, the beverage company stands out among a crowded category and is taking its commitment to the creative community a step further in the form of a clothing and accessories line with a new immersive website. 

Recess’s original tagline, “an antidote to modern times,” holds even more meaning today as the New York City-based startup has used the past three months in quarantine to develop its first new launch since the beginning. Dubbed Realitywear, the collection is joined by three fresh Recess flavors: coconut lime, blood orange and blackberry. 

“A global pandemic was not the modern times we had in mind, but the whole theory of Recess is that the world’s increasingly going crazy and it’s unsettling and we all need to take a recess throughout the day,” Recess founder and CEO Benjamin Witte shared with me during a recent Zoom interview.

Witte, who left a seven year stretch in Silicon Valley after recognizing he wanted to be an entrepreneur himself, built the Recess brand before he had even anything to bottle. After noticing CBD bubbling up on natural food store shelves in San Francisco, Witte — a self-described “wired, hyper, anxious, stressed out millennial” — started using CBD regularly and instantly started feeling better.

“I noticed I was more balanced, more even-keeled. And as a result, I felt more productive and more creative,” said Witte. “So about three years ago, I started to look at the CBD space and saw most CBD companies are just marketing CBD. I didn’t see anyone marketing the feeling that it enabled. And when you go look at other categories, especially in beverage, it’s the brand that wins.”

Witte argues that Recess is not a CBD brand, rather, a beverage company with a mission to provide a way to help those who drink it feel “calm, cool and collected.” The initial lineup of all-natural sparkling waters featured three flavors (pomegranate hibiscus, peach ginger and blackberry chai) with each can formulated with filtered water, ten milligrams of full-spectrum hemp extract (versus the more commonly used and less-effective CBD isolate), and three other adaptogenic ingredients: American ginseng to improve memory, lemon balm to boost vitality and L-theanine to reduce stress.

“We have a category forming with functional wellness beverages that probably within a ten-year period, is going to become bigger than energy drinks. And our business plan is to be the Red Bull of that category,” added Witte. 

To help him achieve his ambitious goal, Witte, who also sits on the Board of Directors for the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, tapped some of the top beverage executives in the world including Mike Sharman (Chief Sales Officer), Laurie Breton (Chief Supply Chain Officer) and Simon Goode (Chief Operating Officer). Collectively, the newly formed Recess executive team brings experience ranging from ZICO and Vitamin Water to Bai and Dr Pepper Snapple Group.

But Witte’s vision goes beyond the beverage, with plans for an all-encompassing creative media agency also in the works. The brand is already known for its minimalist aesthetic, odd humor and unique voice on social media, which is led by Day Job, a small full-service digital design studio based in Brooklyn, which also manages Recess’s graphic and web design. IMHO, Recess’s Instagram account is one of the very few left on the platform that maintains an interesting presence and is up for Best Overall Social Presence in The Webby Awards in 2020.

“When you have to make something new for Instagram everyday, you’re forced to get kind of insane sometimes,” explained Day Job co-founder Rion Harmon. “We would mockup fake products like ‘reality spray’ or start assigning personalities to the different flavors. These kinds of breakthroughs have allowed us to continue to add permanent layers to the world of Recess over time.”

Day Job co-founder Spencer Madsen added, “We think the future of brands are exactly that, richly layered narrative worlds that reward people who continue to interact with it. The further you explore the brand world, the more interesting it becomes.”

Recess’s first extension for its 60,000 (and counting) cult followers is Realitywear, a line of branded streetwear and “objects” like iPhone cases, notebooks and a blanket plus, frequent limited-edition collaboration drops (the first is with the artist-run label Extra Vitamins). Evidence to the company’s dedication to the creative community, 100% of the profits from the Recess x Extra Vitamins collaboration will be donated to the Freelancers Relief Fund.

“The idea [for Realitywear] is given that we focused on creatives, our strategy is to create every day ourselves. We think it’s the act of what we create — up until now it’s been just through our Instagram — has gained a respect from the people we’re speaking to,” said Witte. “The beverage is who we are, but it’s the brand and experience that we’re innovating on.”

WITTE’S PICKS

Recess founder and CEO Benjamin Witte shares the inspiration behind three of his favorite Realitywear designs, dreamt up with his own internal creative team in quarantine. 

Realitywear: Secret Code Tee

“I like when things have layers or Easter eggs, so our morse-code-inspired t-shirt was an instant yes for me. It says ‘an antidote to modern times’ on the front, something you wouldn’t get from passing someone on the street. Only the person wearing it knows what it means (and anyone else they let in on the secret).”

Realitywear: Windows Crewneck

“There’s always been a bit of nostalgia in the Recess brand DNA, little moments of reflection about simpler times. One of the ways we’ve brought that to life visually is through these old school Mac OS windows with simple, flat graphics. This piece is kind of a greatest hits of those.”

Realitywear: Cool Your Horses Tee

“One of my favorite parts of the Recess brand is our tongue-in-cheek voice and our ability to find new, unexpected connections between words and visuals. Here, we’re mashing up two idioms (‘cool your jets’ and ‘hold your horses’) and then imagining what that might look like. We try not to take ourselves too seriously.”