Jeff Hamilton breaks down Kobe's ICONIC jacket photo & drops gems on fashion world

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2:04CarMax has options for almost every price range, including more than 25 ,000 cars priced under$25 ,000. So, hey, want to get started? Just head to CarMax.com for details and get pre-qualified today. Want to drive? CarMax. That moment was frozen in my mind forever. And of course, everybody showed up and that just became the most iconic picture of fashion sports history.

2:44Yeah, yeah, what up, y 'all? This is your boy Joe Crack the Don. You know who it is, your boy Jada. You know what it is, the Joe and Jada Show. Every show legendary, every show iconic. And we stick to our word. You know what I mean? No matter what it is, music, fashion, sports, lifestyle. When you think of our guests today, you think of that fly shit. You know what I mean? Think of the early 90s, late 80s. I think of Mark 125. I think of Genesis. I think of Surgeon all around the city. looking. You know what I mean? Sometimes I would find it. Sometimes I would come up short. When you just think of fly, you think of the NBA and you think of all major league sports and you think of winners because you see his logos and his leathers whenever there's winning involved.

3:40Ladies and gentlemen, make some noise for our guest, Jeff Hamilton.

3:49Great to be here. Welcome to the couch, my friend. Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be with two legends like you guys. What is that? What kind of leather is that? This is my corporate look. This is my crocodile jacket. Corpish look. My black leather crocodile. So this is the most elite level of leather. It's a crocodile leather, right? Correct? You can't go bigger than that. That's the most expensive, yeah. You don't have to even put designs on it. Though I actually did a jacket for Pharrell that had all Crocodile and designs on it. A Virginia Beach one. That was a different level. You know, as I'm looking at you, right?

4:31Good friend. I'm thinking of Kobe Bryant, right? That Kobe Bryant jacket that he wore when he won the chip. How did you get that to him? And how did that even happen? It was a fierce process. You know, the whole thing started with Michael. So in Michael Jordan, in 91, when he won the first championship, I said, you know, I really want to make him a championship jacket. This way when he wins it, you know, everybody has a t-shirt and the hat. But nobody thought about the jacket. So I said, let me just have the jacket because on the jacket, you really could tell the whole story. And also you get kind of the idea of getting the trophy or the ring without having to wait five months to get the ring.

5:17So you get kind of a moment of instant gratification when you win and you get the jacket. And so it happened slowly with Michael. And Michael expected every year when he champs, as soon as he pulled up to the locker room, I was right there with the jacket and put it on. and it just went viral in Chicago in the 90s. That's all people wanted. They wanted my championship jackets. And Kobe being such a student of the game and such a student of Michael just took it to a different level. So in 2001, he won the first championship with the Lakers, his first championship. He had it. We had the moments, the locker room.

5:58But the second year in Philly, it became so iconic because and Jedha, as you did the pose when you did the verses, I mean, that pose became iconic. There was a moment in time that was frozen, him being a kid from Philly and loving the Sixers, growing up with his dad playing for the Sixers and being booed the whole night and still winning. And also knowing that his parents were not in the sense, you know, looking at him winning, which is the biggest moment of his life. a back-to-back championship. And so he had that meditative moment. And so he wanted to isolate himself and he took the trophy and went to the showers, locked himself out and nobody knew where he was.

6:45So I knew better to follow the great Andy Bernstein, the Hall of Fame photographer, because he had all his team looking for the trophy. And we walked into the room and there was only three people, just all three. and he was there like dreaming. And that moment was frozen in my mind forever. And of course, everybody showed up and that just became the most iconic picture of fashion sports history. You know, I think everybody's trying to emulate that picture. And I think it's had rappers make the album cover like that. Who did that? Anuel. Anuel did it. Who? Anuel. Anuel did it. Yeah. Wow. Like the cover of the...

7:29Patrick Mahomes, Leo Messi, Caitlin Clark, LeBron did it with the 2020 Championship. So it's been... And I've been also pushing it in a way. I mean, you did it with the versus. So the idea is that it became... It's a symbol also of winning, but also reflecting and embracing the moment and taking a pause and not being in the champagne and the whole thing. You can do that after, but that moment was you isolate all the hard work that you put in for a year and the hard labor to get to win the championship and then just take a few seconds to enjoy it. So you was in retail in New York, right? Did you always just have your jackets or you decided I'm going to make my own, the Jeff Hamilton?

8:23When I moved to America in 1980, I moved with a wife and two kids. I married when I was 19. I was 24. I just turned 70. And I came with$6 ,000. And my dream was to become an accountant. And I love numbers. And I was, I mean, I was a smart kid because I was a nerd. So I was a good student. And one thing, but I also was a hustler. I wanted to make money. I really was chasing money. I care about wanting to come as an immigrant and try to, I came with no papers, illegal. try to find my way. I stumbled upon some people that were starting a new brand. And I said, I didn't have any experience of design.

9:05Never designed a thing in my life. Didn't know about patterns, didn't know about management of a business. And I got the rights to do the menswear for a new brand that just came out in the market. And that was Guest Jeans. So I was the first licensee of Guest Jeans for men. I founded the company that was doing it. and at the time with 20 grand that I started in 1983, took the company to$75 million in two years. But I was a kid, I was in my 20s. I mean, I was just, I didn't even know how to handle it. I barely spoke English. I mean, thank God I spoke Spanish because that was my first language being born in Morocco and French and I managed my way through to doing it.

9:46And I really just really was not a plan of me to do it like I'm doing it constantly right now to stay in the culture and do things because I'm passionate about it and really not chasing the money. At the time, it was all about, I need to just make a difference. And all the haters, including family members, that saw me leaving France with the kids and with my babies at the time. And my son is 48. It's not like kids. And going out and succeeding was a sweet kind of moment for me just to do it. You know, I see you work hard. I work hard, right? And I admire other people that work hard. And now, you know, you're up there in age.

10:32But one day I see you in L.A. One day I see you in Miami. One day I see you in France. One day I see you in this. And I'm like, man, this guy, you really are the true definition of a hustler and working hard. What motivates you now to work that hard? I often say that the main reason why I'm where I am right now is because of the failures. You know, the dark times were the best time in my life. When I suffered not long ago, I mean, when I lost everything, a few years back, after all those things and the marriages and divorces and, you know, the partners screwing up and you reflect on those moments and you understand that all we can do is do the best thing that we can do.

11:18Every day I wake up, we have the will, power that God gave us for us to work as hard as we want to do. Never take anything for granted. Being respectful to people. Being as good as you can. And also, we're lucky. I mean, we're blessed to know that we wake up every morning doing the things that we are getting paid to do what we love. I mean, if Michael Jordan was not worth a few billion dollars and it was not Michael Jordan, he'll be in his backyard shooting baskets. Because that's what we do. I'm shooting baskets every day myself. And I'm happy every morning that I do. And I don't care if it's one jacket, when we make a few hundred dollars, or it's going to be a thousand jackets.

11:58I work and I dress everything with the same way. I don't care if I'm dealing with a big celebrity or I'm dealing with a buzzword. I treat everybody the same and with respect and integrity. Do you get more respect now than when you was doing it earlier? Much more, yeah. I took it for granted. I mean, that's why pretty much also I lost everything is because I took it for granted. I thought that was the man. I mean, I thought I'm in my 20s. I'm making six, seven million dollars a year. You know, I'm doing seven million, five million dollars in sales. And I'm like with Billy Idol and I'm with Guns N' Roses.

12:36And I'm here with Andrew Dice Clay. And I'm here with, you know, James Caan. And I think I'm believing my own bullshit. Then at that point, you know, then somebody like God comes in and taps you on the shoulder and say, well, wake up, you know. You're nothing. You're just simply a channel of the energy that I'm giving you. So follow the rules. And when you're young, you don't know. You don't have the experience. And we made mistakes. But learning from your mistakes are the good signs. And you start appreciating that. Let your darkest moments bring you most clarity. You'll learn who's really your friends.

13:14Absolutely. Who really got your back. who, like you said, you know, God gives you these lessons and you got to absorb it. You got to say, oh, I got to change this or that or step my game up. But not everybody does it. You know, you get the fall and you get up and people don't learn the lesson. And many times I fell and got up and I made the same mistakes and fell back again. But there's a moment there was a shift when I was 64 years old to make a comeback. actually when you and I met at Wally's in LA and I reached out to you on Instagram, I said I want to meet you, I want to see you and there was a shift there that I felt like it was I'm changing it, I'm learning from my mistakes and I want to be better I want to be and I understand that there was up to that point I never saw myself having a place in the culture which I respected from day one I stayed consistent from day one and I stayed in one lane.

14:18I never went for the big money and the big sellouts of different things. And even when I did NASCAR, which was anti-culture in a way, like because it was such not, you wouldn't think that the kids in the street would wear a NASCAR stuff. I brought it to the streets and where it became, everybody was wearing the M &Ms and the Tides and the Dallin Hart stuff. And people had no idea that Dallin Hart was bigger than Michael Jordan at the time. You know, as far as a certain segment of the population. And that realization for me to understand when I started coming in, in like five, six years ago and going to ASAP Yams, ASAP Yams, like they in Brooklyn at Barclay Center and young kids, 17 years old, that were not even born when Kobe at that moment.

15:11And I say, what's up, legend? Such an honor to meet you. me? For what? I mean, I only did it for the money at the time. And I started appreciating more that. And it was an ego stuff. And when people come and ask me for a picture, they think I make them happy. They don't understand that they're making me happy. They're basically a validation of all the hard work and passion I put behind it. They give me the seal of approval, the stand-up approval seal of approval for all of what we do. That's how I feel. When I see Jeff Hamilton, I feel like Jeff Hamilton. You know what I'm saying? That's just me.

15:45You know what I'm saying? It's like a Rollie. His jackets was like a Rollie. It's like you made it when you got a Javon. Oh, yeah. You feel like that was a trophy. Because you said Genesis and this, you had to have money to walk in Genesis and buy real leather. Like, they was levels. You had Jewman, you had the Lansi, and then you get to Genesis, then you get to another level. Who are some of the designers that you seen come up and you had no clue they were going to get big, like that and you was like, wow. I mean, the easiest one is, this is the first belt that Chromeheart ever made. First one ever.

16:22That's the first. Top five. I mean, I probably, this is like, I mean, I've been offered stupid money for that. Yeah, yeah. You know, Richard, when I had guest jeans, I mean, he was a salesman that was selling me leather. So because I came out at the time in the 80s, when I came, I wanted to make the denim, so I wanted to do something different. So I made the denim jeans with the leather parts of part of it. I did the jackets with the leather on it, which nobody had done. So I was buying crazy, crazy quantities of leather. And then he was a rep. And I loved him because he was like riding on his Harley and coming to the office with the long hair.

16:59My hair was long. We were all rock and rollers. And I'd rather give him the business than give him the business to the guys from back East. The white dudes that were all square with a suit and tie. And it was just like, I felt it. And, you know, just mind you, I'm like 25 years old and I'm running out 400 employees working and I'm learning every day on the business. Because like I said, I didn't know how to design. I became a designer by necessity because I didn't like the way that the people were doing it. So I went to my closet and I started pulling stuff out and try styling myself. And I said, I don't want to do that.

17:32I like that pocket. I want to do that pocket on that jean. And I started creating stuff. And then, of course, organically it became more an urban brand for me. You know, I never, even though the guests wanted to be more department stores, Saks, Bloomingdale's, you know, Neiman Marcus. Myself, I started selling stuff in Detroit, in the malls, where there was all the guys with the fur coats and the jewelry way before. Detroit players. Yeah, real players. I mean, and then we just started getting that. And it just became viral. And we had no Instagram. We had no advertising. Everything just came from word of mouth.

18:11And because we're the first one to do like fashion, crazy sizes and stuff like that. So Chrome Hearts is probably the biggest one that I saw around. And they were well-deserved because I mean, it's beautiful what they've done and the hype that they've done. I mean, but it was like guys like True Religion. They were for me. I mean, Seven Jeans, they work for me. Citizens of Humanity, they work for me. I've worked with the guys from J Brand. I mean, all those guys at one point in time, they all have touched all those guys, you know, like even the gallery department. I mean, he was my sales rep when I was buying, you know, Ralph Lauren, who is my favorite designer, by the way.

18:56Still is my favorite designer, is Ralph Lauren. And for me, it's like the goat of goats when it comes to fashion. I'd like to think that I had my imprint a little bit all along the way with a lot of designers. There's always a point of reference that I have. I mean, this is a 45-year career that I've had and still working 15 hours a day, seven days a week. And I'll go out. I mean, on Instagram, it looks like I'm having fun, which I am. I'm having fun. I'm having fun working. But, you know, there's a grinding. There's a grind behind everything. There is like Monday morning, I'll be at 8 o 'clock on my computer.

19:33I close my door. I won't leave my office till 6 p.m. And I'll do everything from still accounting, still production, still paywalls, still negotiating deals, licensing deals, selling.

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23:55What's something you got coming out that's big? The biggest thing I have, I think, is probably the World Cup. You know, the World Cup. So I have a global rise for the World Cup. So that's pretty big. We won the World Cup jackets, man. We need an insight. He's going to get you. He got you. Let me tell you, Jeff Hamilton always picks up my car. You right about it. No, no, he always picks up my car. What's up, brother? What's going on? I'm like, yo, where you at? He said, I'm in Italy right now. But what do you need, Joe? I said, y 'all, I need a white jacket. It's coming your way, Joe. Don't worry about it.

24:32I mean, always accessible, always a hard grind. I tell people, when you're not around, it has nothing to do with you. I could be driving in my car and I think about you. because I'm 55 and we all hustle he works hard too because you can't make excuses them bills come no matter what so but often I just think and I think of you I've never seen nobody your age work as hard as you I just have never seen it yet I feel like I'm 30 years old I act like I'm 30 years old I just enjoy every second like if I I don't move differently than if I was 30 years old The other thing I don't do is that I won't ride motorcycles.

25:15I won't really exercise. I eat right. I walk. You know, I'm just, I'm very careful. You might not get married again, right? I just, you know. No. For sure we're not getting married. No, for sure we're getting married. Don't give up half of the World Cup, man. Come on. I'm not. I have a great relationship. Stop. You got to learn from your mistakes, your lessons. I have a great relationship with my ex-wife. I have a great relationship with my ex-wife. You got to learn from the lesson. don't do that please I'm I'm I'm blessed with my grandkids and just you know it's a blessing for me to to be the sage of my life so you're originally from Morocco I'm Jewish born in Morocco so I'm an official African American so but I I moved to to Paris when I was 11 years old I moved to America when I was 24 so you don't know the little guy from Makadesh it's the little man this small yeah from Makadesh Marrakech Marrakech French Montana knows him it's a little guy I don't know him you know we gotta bring this guy if he can get a visa or something yo I gotta bring him I pay for it let's find a little guy I wanna fly somebody's carry on there's a little man you ever seen this I met one little man like that in Abu Dhabi the Turkish kid you're talking about Asfel Asfel's a little bit tall I'm talking about little man.

26:43Astral's a little man. Those are my guys. In Santo Domingo, they had a guy named Nelson. Little guy like this. He used to party with us. Jump on the table, jump on the chair, jump on... Nah, this shit crazy, man. You met Astral. Astral's the man, but Astral's a little bit bigger than these guys. These guys are like really, you know, French knows the guy. You know what I'm saying? Like on Horror, they have Beetlejuice. no Peter Peter's great yeah he was the greatest right Howard Stern is probably the first original legendary podcaster for sure yeah like he had he was doing whatever the fuck he wanted and guess what it still does I mean it still does and he still goes to the bank regularly like they he gets the bags like nobody I think the girl what's the girl Robin Robin Krimis he make 10 million a year like Robin get the back or more, right?

27:43But, you know, listen, they have the audience. They have the stuff that they do. And, you know, they have the ups and downs. But I've done stuff with him since the 90s when he was not even like syndicated everywhere. So first time he called me and I had made a jacket for Slash for Guns N' Roses. So I want you to make me the same exact jacket. But instead of having the top hat and the hair and the guns, I want to do my long hair, a skeleton of my face and I want two microphones. And he came in and he came into my hotel and I delivered the check and he put the big checkbook. Remember how we had the three-part checkbooks?