Tremaine Emory

29:01And then I started hanging out in the city on my own. I go to the city by myself and grab a village voice and just look at, you know, see what shows were happening at SOBs or wherever. Like I remember like, the parties in the community of Queens would be like, you know, dance hall, soka, or some rap shit. I loved it. I wanted to hear something else. I wanted to hear prints. No one played prints. Right? I wanted to hear all kinds of stuff. And I say prints because I went, I remember I was on first and first. And it was late at night. I was under age. I wasn't 21 yet. And I was walking down first and first.

29:44By myself, took the F train to the first and first stop. And I, this bar, her music went in and like, they're playing, um, Razzbre, Beret. And I could have cried because it was like, I'm getting to hear this song with people that I only been able to hear on my headphones. You know what I mean? Like, you know, I, cats like prints, but we were just deep into, like, even if we weren't listening to it, we'd be hanging out, you know, on the corner or in the neighborhood hanging out. And then someone started citing lyrics from Nas, taking in blood. Then we all, it's like, we come like karaoke sessions, we're all just reciting the lyrics, three verses.

30:29You know what I mean? So, you know, as I hung out in the city, I started to meet people as I started working. And that's why I always tried to get jobs in Manhattan. So then that allowed me to before the job, and after the job, to hang around, but I'm also making money, so I'm supporting my life. So how old are you when you start hanging out in the city by yourself? Probably 16, 17. And about what year is this? Was started in like 97, probably? Describe what the New York scenes like, like what night clubs were there, what was the world like? I would say it was, if you're curious, you'll find fun, cool stuff to do.

31:09Yeah, everything's available, but you wouldn't know, but you got to hunt it down. You got to be curious. You got to be on a search for something more. And when people saw that you're curious and interested, they were fostered that, even strangers. You know, like, even I remember my man, Wilkins, he worked at Union, the store called Union, that I discovered just by walking in the city. When he was working there, I remember he was eating some food from a place called 12 chairs. Anyway, I just met him, he became cool. And he's like, you ever have Boba Good News? I'm like, Boba Good News. And he's like, Boba Good News.

31:50You know, it's Millie Eastern Foods from the spot called 12 chairs. I was like, no, but I love food. So, he's like, yeah, you down. And then, because, you know, Wilkins' Dominican do was, not it, he still is, good friend of mine, from Brooklyn. He knew I was like, you know, a young dude from Queens. He's a bit, a couple of years older than me. So, he knew I didn't know what it was. And it was almost like he's testing me to see, am I curious? Or am I close? Am I open or closed? You know? I might be reading too much into it, but I think I'm right, you know? So, just, that's like a little example of it.

32:26You know, it's just like, if you're curious, doors would open. Then matter, how much money you had, what matter was, were you, were you curious, you know? What did they sell at Union? Clothes. But a lot of the clothing was like, either from Europe, Japan, and then he also showed a lot of independent brands. What people would call streetwear now, which, I was, it was no such word back then. It was just clothing. Yeah. But it was clothing that, again, why related to so much was, it was in real time. So, just the way, same way, the propoltate and stuff, and it was written in, and Elmatic and Hell on Earth, and all those records and all that stuff.

33:14I could see, I was living and seeing what was happening that they were rapping about, and the music felt like, I remember, I went in the Union, the year was 1999, or 2001, between that time, and Wilkins was working there, and I'm looking, it was a shirt with shoddy on it. Now, you go to Urban Outfit as you see a shirt with shoddy on it. But back then, to see a shirt with shoddy on it, and you weren't on a concert, it just, there was, that didn't exist. I was like, wow, it's just cool. Now, love shoddy. I remember Wilkins being like, you like that t -shirt? I'm like, yeah, yeah. And then he's like, and the t -shirt was like, 28 bucks or something, too much money for me at the time.

34:02Quirrell went to a $50 t -shirt now, or something. He took it, well, size you, I'm like a large, and he goes, go grab the large and put it in the bag, and gave it to me, and it was like, you know, make sure you come back and see me though. You know? Now they call that seating. They call that, whatever they call, like giving someone a free, something free that, in hopes that that helps promote your brand. He's just giving it to him because he saw my interest, you know? I never forget there was this other store called Nome de Guerre. I was a legendary store of, also what people would call, Streetwear.

34:35Now, Nome de Guerre was incredible. It was off of Broadway near Atrium, in a basement. My friend Angelo worked there. And the work he did there, actually, later, led to his career at Supreme for many years. But I went there one time, because they had this, this Kurt Cobain T -shirt, and it's a huge picture of Kurt's face. And again, that T -shirt was like 50 bucks. It was too expensive for me. So I was like, in my head, I was like, it's been months, it's been like, it's the spring now, or the winter. That's probably on, so hopefully it's on sale. So I get on the E -Train, take it out. For an hour, all the way to the city.

35:17And I go to Nome de Guerre, and I'm like, hey, you guys got that Kurt Cobain T -shirt? Because it wasn't out. And there was one girl that worked there, and she went to the back, and brought it out, and just gave it to me. So for me, being from, I felt like I'm stealing. Am I going to get in trouble? Because for me, no one was giving you a, a discus sweatshirt at Models. No one was giving you shit for free, or at Hot Wax. Hot Wax, so if you're making out of it, where I used to buy records, and weren't giving you no free records. In my fact, they charge you more, if you wanted to buy the record a week early, or like, they'd have, if the record came out on Tuesday, they'd have it on Thursday, so you get to have it for the weekend and bump it.

35:56And they charge you more, and they charge you 20 bucks instead of 15 bucks. So, like, getting this free stuff, you know what I mean? But again, forget the fact that it was free. It was like, people putting images, copy, words, lyrics, colors, things on clothing, from the life that we were living in real time. So many examples of that, you know? There's, there's a couple of pieces I still have, and one of them is super influential in my work. Like, there's this brand called Sir, Ramboid is guiding Russ. And he did this thing where he did, M65, in a sweatshirt, and one sweatshirt was black Jesus, one sweatshirt was white Jesus, and you could buy whichever one you wanted to buy, whatever, right?

36:43And to me, I was like, fuck, this is like an art concept. This is not just clothing. This is like creating a conversation. It's also even creating a choice. And it's creating a conversation. You get to vote. You get to vote. And then when you wear it, there's, if you get to buy Jesus one, there's a visual reaction, negative, positive, whatever, wearing that, and I bought the black Jesus one. My man, Vito, held it for me. And said, it went on sale. And that's the first thing I've got for union. And I remember wearing that on a train, where I was walking by some Israelites, or this, or that person, old black ladies, white people, but people just were coming on it, right?

37:26Because it wasn't normal to see something like that on clothing, something that had that type of statement on it, you know? It was confrontational. Yeah. And what I found interesting about it was, the statement was not clear. For all we know, Russ could be like, this is a joke. This is common. We don't know. We have no idea. But, because he left it ambiguous, then you get all these reactions for people. It becomes more about the viewer than it becomes about the art. Exactly. The art is the starter of the conversation. Exactly. But it doesn't finish it. And I've, you know, I held on to that piece of sweatshirt.

38:11That shirt went from me, from Jamaica Queens to Green Point and Brooklyn, where I lived before I, and then I moved to London, Mark Jacob's, I was a sales associate there, a start off as a stock guy. They moved me to London, to L .A., back to New York, literally over the course of 20 years, that sweatshirt is one of my towsmen. Because there are certain items I've collected. I have a lot of stuff in general, but there are certain couple items that were like, I keep them for reasons beyond aesthetics, of how it looks in my house or on my body, what it makes me think about. What was your first job in fashion?

38:55My first job was sales associate at J. Crew, in the year 2000. Not far from the Virgin Records, over by 14th Street. I used to race at Spirman Lunch Break, going in there with some amazing.

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40:42Did everyone who worked in the stories that you've mentioned were they all club kids? Damn, that's a good, great question. And yeah, that was the thing. Club kids was like, work retail. Why? Not because you made a lot of money, but you could have that late shift. So you could be out all night, still get some sleep. Because there's the two shifts. So there's a JQ shift where you come in at one and you work like one to eight, or something like that, or like 12 to eight. So that was a part of it. No, loads of club kids work retail. That was always the thing. Even before my era, probably a couple of errors before that.

41:20Yeah, it worked with J Crew, then worked at Berkloff. Good men as a stock guy and sacks. Then went back, worked at Grady's liquor store. And my old and Jimmy Queen's. And then got a job at Kate's Bay, a stock guy, and then I got the job at Mont Jacobs. Which that was the first job of my life that I wanted. The others were jobs to support yourself. And then Mark Jacobs was the start of what you wanted to do. Yeah, that's the first job I wanted that I got. I wanted to work at Union, but Maryette, they went hire me. But yeah, got the job at Mont Jacobs. And I remember I got that job. I knew it would change my life, because I knew it was a place of confluence.

42:11And I knew from reading books that if you hang around, places that have the same values or the things that you're into, and the people that care about the same stuff you care about, hanging around, stuff can happen. Yeah, opportunities arise. Yeah, like minded community. And then it trickled down from Mark, because he's a cool dude. And he's a club kid. He was hanging out at a studio of 54 area. You know, he started off working at retail, freaking him to store uptown. Which is also the same store where he sold his first pieces of clothing was the same store he was a stock guy at. Wow. So, you know, I was obsessed with Mont Jacobs clothing.

42:57And I thought he was a cool character. You know what I mean? I thought he seemed like a cool dude from the tidbits of information. I can get on him from magazines. So, I always go to the Mont Jacobs collection store and like check out the clothing. Yeah, I got lucky. I'm a very cool person. My name is Hadara. She reached out. I've seen her. I first met her. So, here's the thing. I first met her at the store union years before. And then I remember I ran into her. We were talking, she said, sorry, I want to talk with you. But I got to run. I got to go to shop. And I imagine her seeing me might have put me in her mind.

43:35And sent me an email like, hey, would you be interested in interviewing at Mont Jacobs? And my other friend, Adam, had tried to get me a job there. Didn't work. I didn't even get an interview. And then Hadara had just become a manager there, I think, or something. And she got me an interview. And then I had a day at three interviews with Debbie, who was a store manager, Susie, who was the head of HR. And then Robert Duffy, who started the company with Mont Jacobs. He was the president in 1985. And you know, Robert was so deep. He interviewed every person. I was, you know, one person, I was interviewing for the stock position.

44:13Wow. And he was the president of Mont Jacobs. It tells you a lot about the care in the company. If the head of the company meets every single employee, it's an unusual company. Exactly. Yeah. That care reflected in the staffing. And the music, they let us play whatever music we wanted to store, which is unheard of in retail. We're playing Little Wayne mixed tapes, or people playing peaches. Fuck the pain away. You know what I mean? Like, we're playing all kinds of stuff there. It's funny. Now, always the car's arguments, though, within the staff, because people, it was like people were fighting for that iPod time.

44:53You know what I mean? People wanted to put their music on. But it was fun, because I learned so much more. That took my music knowledge to the next level. Just because it was a wide variety of people playing music. Yeah, because it was this amazing blender of a kid who were from New York, or moved to New York. Club kids, art kids. You know, that's the first time I met artists was working at Mark Jacobs. You know, people that had, whether they went to art school or self -taught artists. I mean, my dad's a artist, but I didn't even realize when dad's a artist. I'm like, look, my dad's like, he's just a cameraman.

45:31It's a technical job. He's artists. But far as me and them meeting someone the same age as me, that's the first time I met artists. You know, that was 2006. So I was already in my early 20s. That's the first time I met someone who made stuff that wasn't music. When your kid, you don't meet artists. No. You know, it's interesting. You think it's this weird breed of person that's different. And it's not. We're just not around them. Exactly. And so I was meeting these kids and making art all types of different types of art. I remember my friend. He's still my friend to this day. He was at my wedding.

46:12One of my best friends, James Corrigan. He's from Boston. He was a graffiti writer. Now he's a musician. But we had the Secret Santa. It was just my first year at Mark Jacobs. So he pulled out my name and he bought me the autobiography of Miles Davis. And that changed my life reading that book. I never read a book so fast. And once I got out of New York, I took that book. And that was another one of my Towsons. I took that book with me wherever I went. Even when I traveled for a long time, it was like my Linus blanket. Because Miles is dynamic as you know, a dynamic character. But I learned so much from that book about trusting your gut.

47:02And it was like that book gave me my spidey sense. Because I read the autobiography of Miles Davis when I met certain friends slash mentors. I was like, I got to hang out on this guy. My spidey sense started tingling. This is because this is like when God and Miles met Gil Evans. You know what I mean? This is my version of Gil Evans. I got to hang out with this guy and do stuff with him. So that book, you know, I read through it. Interesting because my dad always told me to read autobiography. He said that, Tramaine, if you want to figure out where to go in life, you should read autobiography.

47:43It's not because it'll tell you what to do. But it'll show you what you just said. These people seem so grandiose and special. They're just humans. They go through same things. Maybe they got lucky. Maybe they seized the opportunity. Whatever it is. But you see like, oh, this isn't as far as I think it is. And not about, and not the fame, not the money. No, doing the art, the art part. You know what I mean? And the fact that you didn't pick the book that it was given to you. It's interesting, you know? It's like the fact that you had tried to get the job at Mark Jacobs and didn't get it when you tried.

48:20Yeah. But then you get a call from a friend like the universe plays a role in all these things that happen where something is going on. It's not like we have to make it happen. It doesn't work that way. Well, that's so much of it's out of our control. No, it's straight up. And you know, that's the thing where I got really fortunate and I was grateful to his day with my parents. And I'll keep always long as I live, go back to them. Because my dad used to, I'd be brushing my teeth in the bathroom. And he'd walk in the bathroom and be like, there's an art to brush your teeth and make. There's an art to everything.

49:00Trust me. I mean, he'd walk out the bathroom. You know? That sounds like a Buddhist monk. Little bit, yeah. And he'd walk out and have me watch Joseph Campbell with him. Wow. Power of myth. Beautiful. Whenever that was on PBS, he never made me do things. He invited you. Invited me. You know, and then we talk about the hero's journey. My dad, have me watch Joseph Campbell when I'm a teenager. And then me as a young man getting the book from James. And then me knowing about the hero's journey. And then I'm like, I see the hero's journey in Miles's life. And then I see that everyone lives the hero's journey.

49:41It's not about if you become this great jazz player. Garbage man, whatever your walk of life is. It's all important. It's all meaningless. Equally meaningless. And we all have a journey. And there's different, like a party here with a journey is, when you meet the mentor. Everyone's going to meet the mentor, whether you want to listen and humble yourself to be an apprentice, that's going to change your journey. It just is. You know what I mean? And for me, there was a couple people, one of my friend A .S .I. You know, her daughter was a mentor too. I learned a lot about art from her. You know, like, I learned a little bit about art from my parents.

50:25And they had like Andy Warhol's diary on their bookshelf next to like James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time. And I read and looked at those books. And then, started hanging out with H. We came friends and started dating after that, through working together with Mark Jacobson. You know, she taught me a lot about art and exposing me to a lot of things that I wasn't exposed to. You know what I mean? And, you know, so she was a friend slash mentor for a time. And then, to this day, you know, my boy A .S .I. He's a friend slash mentor. And I learned so much about music, life, and really, maybe the best thing I learned from A .S .I.

51:08is like willpower, just seeing the things he's gone through and to be where he's at now, you know? So that was another amazing thing too, is like me being given these things and not taking them from a granite. Because I treated Mark Jacobson, Robert, moving me to London to work at the Mark Jacobs collection store. I treated him giving that book from James the same way. Was it your first time in London when you got the job? Yeah, it was the first time out of America I never had a passport. And what was that experience like? Incredible, man. They moved me to London in 2010. I lived there till 2000, almost 2018.

51:45Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah, probably when we first met each other, I was still transversing between London and LA. I see. And I worked from Mark Jacobson from 2006 to 2015. I started off at the England Greenwich Village, West Village Store, ended up in the Mount Street Store. Always on the retail side? Yeah, always on the retail side. And London was great, man. It took my knowledge of culture, it expanded it. It just expanded my world, you know? My world, man. Just learned so much there. You know, and I still employ things I've learned from my time in London and the stuff I make and also just my life.

52:26You know, it's so different because like, okay, America's great, but if you drive or get on a plane for an hour and a half, you're in like Philly. Whereas, which in Philly is a great town, whereas you're going on a plane or drive for an hour and a half and in London, you're in Italy or you're in Paris on your star. So it was affordable and I squeezed the hell out of my weekends and vacations. Just to get on a train and go anywhere fast. And also you got six weeks of vacation. Yeah. Where in America, you start off with like four days or a week. Yeah. You had to earn up and you could top out at two weeks.

53:06Where customary, off -riff in Europe, you get six weeks. But then besides that was meeting A -side. Tell me about A -side, I don't know anything about it. One of my best friends and just he's a musician, producer, DJ, and he's hilarious. And he's just like one of the most well -read people I've ever met in my life. And he's just like a potluck of knowledge and style. You know, you should be some people and they're like, they're all aesthetic. Where A -side is like, yeah, I'm really into punk and Vivian, Westwood and all that stuff. But then also I read, please kill me in all those books and all those things too.

53:56It's not just like the look. It's the thing that made the look that he researches intensely. You know, he owns 10 ,000 records. Like any great DJ owns, I've noticed this thing. Every great DJ owns. That's the thing. You own 10 ,000 of the right records. Yeah, we met at a party and he was smoking a cigar. And I never saw, I smoked cigars. And I never saw people in my age bracket smoke cigars. So that's why I just went up to him and said, oh, I never really, also I was new in London. I'm like, those are Cuban. So you can't really get Cubans in America legally. Where you can in London. I was like, oh, you smoking a Cuban?

54:36He's like, yeah, and then we, he's like, yeah, I just came back. I was visiting Cuba. And he gave me a Cuban cigar. Took my number. And that's how he became friends. And I remember, I remember, yeah, like the first time we hung out came in his place. I was just astounded by the way. His place looked and all the books and records he had. And I remember he gave me, he did a thing with the artist, Crystal Philly. He did a charity thing. So they had some leftover artworks that Chris had done for the charity. I knew Crystal Philly was because of the sensation show in Brooklyn that Giuliani tried to shut down.

55:17Where it was Crystal Philly, Damien Harris, all these artists. And he did the Madonna with the cow done on it. He had a point about going to somebody's place and seeing their record collection and book collection and how you feel like it makes sense for me to be friends with this person. Yeah. Yeah. Like he lives in a way different than many people, but in a way that you would feel comfortable living. Exactly. Exactly. I think you become friends with people that remind you of the positive things from your childhood, but also maybe show you the opportunities that you didn't have or see or knew were possible in your childhood.

55:58So it's the thing in the past and the future. And that's usually the people that I think become your best friends or mentors you become tight with. Yeah. The inside gave me this thing and it was just like, this is 2010. I'm a sales associate at Mark Jacobs. And someone's given me something not just a value, but like meaningful to them. I think. You know, Crystal Philly's amazing artist. And it was like just something people didn't do. You know what I mean? People just didn't just do stuff just to do it. Like there's no angle, you know? And that was interesting to me. And we became friends and then like a year later he was said to me once, Hey, I think if I DJ and you host the parties, it could be good.

56:50Because he said what made him want to do that was one day he came and hang out with me at Mark Jacobs. And a customer came in and he said he's observing she seemed quite like staunch or like quite hurt. And he said by the end of me working with her, he said I totally like, I don't know, this is his opinion, broken her down. And she's like, you can't wait to come see you again. The center third. He's like, I got this guy's a good partner for me in doing stuff. So we started doing parties. And honestly, everything I do now creatively, business wise, the seed of it was besides like other stuff before meeting me.

57:32But also me and him connecting and doing those parties. Through that, doing those parties, I became friends and met and start working with Serge Becker, working with Frank Ocean, became friends with Virgil, Benji B, June and Benji B from Deviation. I met Kai as my first week in London, became friends. So that's what happened in London. I met all these really good people but also culturally astute people. So they were just great decent human beings, but also had this cultural death. My friend Graham Erickson, the list goes on. You know, Martin Rose, Grace Wells -Barner, so many people. London was just like, I really cut my teeth far as jettisoning from working retail.

58:27I worked retail from age 1920 to age 33, 34. You know what I mean? You think it had a positive effect working retail? Did that inform your understanding of the world? Yeah, I think it did. It was great. One of the main things was the bookmark. The bookstore that Mark Jacobs and Robert started. When I worked in the West Village, the bookstore was there and I would hang out there and my lunch breaks and stuff like that. I never worked there as a social shit. And Jim Becker, who was the curator for the bookstore, just had amazing books when I learned so much. You know, a lot of them I didn't buy, I didn't have the money back then.

59:10But I remember all of them and I buy them now. I continuously, I'm like, continuously buying all the books I didn't buy from the bookmark store. When I moved to London, there was a little bookmark section there. In fact, Frank, on that blonde radio, the Iceman episode, he has a freestyle and he sings about that time in London, me and him hanging out. Frank would come to the store and we'd hang out and just be kicking it in front of the books and going through the books and stuff like that. Then after I get off work, he went from me and we'd go hang out at Scott's, the fish restaurant, and eat.

59:53And then sometimes the conversation would continue that we're having in the book section of the Mark Jacobs store. You know, this is back in 2013, 12. When me and him and Matt became cool on the start working with him on Boy's Don't Cry magazine and blonde. Yeah, the working and retail, the best part was those books. That's it. But it also just the people I met.

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1:01:41You feel like you got any understanding of the consumer, or was it not about that? Yeah. I became a pretty good sales associate, but what I think sent me apart from your typical sales associate. And not just me, other people too, Mark Jacobs compared to other stores, the era of retail, which is very different than the era of retail now. I tell a woman, you shouldn't buy that dress, it doesn't. Yeah, it's not for you. That's what I learned. Yeah. And people respect that. Because you're honest, and it's so rare. And you might make less money commission that day, but you end up having a customer.

1:02:20Because you're credible. Yeah, exactly. So, man, I just saw Mark on the design side, him and his team take so many chances, season after season. He had his motifs that he went back to, but he'd do left turns. Would you say fearless creatively? Yeah, I believe so. Fearless. And the show that he were heralded, the show that he was penned, and he just kept it moving. Yeah. You know, I think he didn't bask in the applause. Yep. And he didn't soak in the booze. Yeah. And I learned that from watching him and his team. I saw him use the keys to the house at Louis Vuitton and his own company, Montjicob's, to put forth the things he loved in culture through the clothing to people.

1:03:19So it felt like sharing. I remember the first Montjicob show I went to at the Armory, Sonic U, was just playing in the middle of the show with the malls walking around. Now you see that all the time. But back then, 2006, that wasn't the typical thing for a fashion show. And it was just cool. It's fucking after parties will always be dope. Like, I remember one after party had Diplo and M .I .D .J. and then perform. But it was before they either one of them blew. It was just like right there. And I was always, so I took so many notes. Also having the high low, having, you know, when you put intention into something, so if there's a little plastic coin purse that costs 25 bucks or if it's a chinchilla coin purse that costs 2500, but if you put the intention to it, they're actually worth the same thing.

1:04:16And they cost different prices because of what it costs to make them and mark up and all that stuff. But actually the intention makes them equal. And the customer, you can actually teach the customer that and guide the customer that you can buy this thing and this thing. And neither is better. The quality is in both of them. Yeah. One just has a different material. Exactly. And, you know, I saw Mark do that thing, that high low thing, through different categories and different things. Even like something that's quite customary, now is brands doing collaborations. Then when he was in the first to do it, I think he might have learned, he might have caught that from hanging out in Japan.

1:05:02But, um, was like Mark Jacobs and like collaborations with like Vans or other things. You know, those were huge back in the day, back in like 2005 and before the Vans collab. Just also seeing the thing, my favorite thing to do, and I've learned seeing other artists do it, is putting the right thing in the wrong place. You know, putting the right thing in a place that people wouldn't expect to see it. Changing the context around some. Yeah. Yeah. To make it something new. Make it something new. And you actually don't even know where it will become. You know, so yeah, definitely work in an MJ learn so much.

1:05:41Also, my other gigs too, learn a lot. The customer knows when you're sure of yourself. Even they might not even be able to annunciate that. It's something maybe still conscious, but they know. Ensure yourself is interesting because when you're sure yourself, it's only what you think. It doesn't mean you're right, but you're true to yourself. Yeah, like people ask me, let's say I put out something collection or something, and people are leaving comments they don't like it or do like it. Almost 99 % of the time I don't respond to either. Not saying I'm some stoic and it doesn't affect me, but in the end, I don't control how you feel about it after I make it.

1:06:23Yeah, and you're making the thing you want to make. You're not making it really for them. You're making it for you. Exactly. And they can go for the ride or not. That's up to them. Yeah, exactly, exactly. You know. Has nothing to do with you, really? Yeah. What how they react. Yeah, because art isn't like a boxing match where like, if you knock someone out, it's like even if they didn't want you to win, you knock the person out, you won the fight. Art's more so like when it goes a distance. And the judges are like, who won? Or Ali or Frazier. It's all interpretation. Like Ali, if he didn't knock out George Foreman, maybe he probably would have lost that fight.

1:07:05Probably so. On points. Yeah. Right? Well, he got beat up the whole fight. Fight, yeah. That's what I'm saying. He got beat up the whole, exactly. Yeah. So it's kind of like similar to that with making stuff. And that's why artists should be remiss to not get caught up in the validation index. You know, how do you think you learned that? I've learned that over time. Again. My mom and dad, my mom always does that. Always very grateful and lucky. Always tell me like, do not care what people think. My dad, mom, he said, tell me, filter even what we say and choose what's right for you. Wow. So I have to keep reminding myself that because real wisdom, the world we live in can take you away from that.

1:07:55Definitely. She has to keep, it's a practice. None of these things, these totems that have built in my mind, they're not permanent. They're only permanent if I practice them. Yeah. And it's easy to slip into the mind meld going on outside of ourselves if we're not careful. Yeah. An example of that is someone who reminded me of that was Yassin, formerly known as most dad. We were talking about, I did a collection based off Alvin Ailey. And I worked with the, his estate and licensed images and copy. And Yassin called me and said, yeah, I'm really proud of you. I love this collection you've done.

1:08:39I said, yeah, man, I did it because the world needs to know, people should know about Alvin Ailey as much as they know about Michael Jordan. And then Yassin said, how do you know that was his validation index? World acknowledgment on the level of a Michael Jordan. Maybe he was happy with just the people who were into his art, we're into it and the people that weren't weren't. And he stopped me dead on my tracks. And I was like, yo, you're right. So I don't need to do the collection so that more everyone knows and things for Alvin Ailey is important and see him in the light day needs to be sent out.

1:09:15I actually need to do it because I think he's great. That's it. And that's all you can do. That's it. You know, it's like this is what's interesting to me. Yeah. And once you get into the trying to push the thing it becomes something else. It's something else and it kind of taints it. Absolutely. It's not pure anymore. It's not pure anymore. Yeah. If it has some trying to do some work in the world. Yeah. It's not like that. You can make something and it can take on a political significance in the world. But usually when that happens, it has nothing to do with what your intention was in making it.

1:09:53Yeah. That happens if it's meant to happen. You know, you can't control that because otherwise it feels like it's propaganda. It's something else. Yeah. You know, I design many things, but there's this one piece of design that's quite popular and it's a cotton reef. And there's a loud minority of people who are saying, oh, this is profiting off of a black trauma. And then as people were saying they think it's beautiful, right? And they think this is amazing. But my truth and my intention was it makes me feel good. That's it. Because for me, I'm like, you know, I see in other cultures, like, let's say, like certain cultures, they have like a family crest, a symbol or words.

1:10:37And that crest might have things from where the family comes from. Let's say like, something Celtic and like, they were farmers or they were masons or whatever. That might be in the crest or something like that. So for me, I'm like, everyone in my family's first job was picking cotton. And before that, when we were slaves, we picked cotton. That was one of the things slaves were used to do to pick cotton. And that's the thing that built this country and built capitalism. And then it's like Joseph Campbell, the word religio, religion comes from the word Latin, where religio, which is the return to.

1:11:16And he speaks a lot about the circle, the returning to, even a wedding ring. That's what people were reading rings, the connecting, you know, all that. And it all started connecting to me. And I start making these different art pieces, static art pieces, cotton reef, black Jesus, black magiana, working with the Pan -African flag, flipping polo motifs to put the black gaze on something someone will call white. And I start making all these things. And then, you know, I said, oh, you know, I'll make a clothing line. And I'm going to take these art pieces and apply them to stuff. But that came second.

1:12:04It's started with the art. Yeah, just made the art. Just made the art. But the thing is, did you make the art with an idea of showing it or just to make it? I showed it a couple of times. Like I showed it in London with this artist and so on, has become a good friend, the astigates. He had a thing doing freeze. And I showed the reef. And actually it was a coffin that was covered with the Pan -African flag, which was done by David Hammond in 1990, which was based off. Marcus Garvey's Pan -African flag from 1920. So I made a version of it. I had a coffin built and put the coffin with the flag over it.

1:12:46And then the reef on top of the coffin. And yeah, that's one of my first pieces I made and showed it in London. And then Virgil's mid -career show in Atlanta, our institute. We had a collaborative piece and then I had a piece of work called Demo One that I showed there. And then I actually got a couple of pieces of the clothing stuff in the Met, permanent collections. Wow. But so cool. Yeah. But the clothing came after the art. After. Yeah. Inspired by almost like the merch for the art. Exactly. I made it was making the pieces. And even now, whenever I have a new collection or new thing, I build it in my head on mood boards, sometimes physically as a art project.

1:13:38The whole Didam Tears thing is an art project. And I just felt that clothing was to get the ideas out. I just felt the art world. It's cool and I appreciate it to remove. To remove to limit it. You know, like the last few years they do this thing called Farmers Day. So me and Andy drove down there. Saw a bunch of old friends. You probably have been probably seen it before. You know the rock on Farmers Boulevard, that red, black and green rock. You know it. And I always take legend to your pitches in front of there. They do a barbecue around there. It's a big black party around the rock. They've been doing it last two years.

1:14:19So I went. I missed it the first couple of years. I went with Andy and we're hanging out. My man's smart came and met us. And I was like, let's get some food. And the line was super long to get food from the barbecue. So I was like, hey, we're going to go over about 40 projects to this fish spot. So we're driving along the white wall. And I see a kid wearing these jeans I did. And that was the whole point. The fact that I'm seeing a young man wearing a pair of jeans in my old neighborhood. I couldn't get that. That you made. That I made. I couldn't get that from the art world. I get it on someone's wall.

1:15:03Yeah. It's different. That guy. It's different. That guy that own the art piece. He'd have to transverse all. He'd have to transverse all the worlds. I have transverse. Yeah. To even like maybe be able to afford or even know. Forget the money. It's just about if you know that's the first step to acquiring something. Yes. Or acquiring knowledge. Yes. So yeah, just seeing that young dude on his own. It's also kind of a punk rock idea or hip hop idea as well. Of like taking it out of the conservatory. Yeah. I'm bringing it back to the street. It's like this is where we are. This is ours. It's for us.

1:15:42This is not meant to be an institution. It could be there too. You know when you win them. When something related to hip hop ends up in institution. It's always interesting to me. But that's not why it was made. Yeah. Jay -Z didn't write those lyrics and make those songs to end up at the Brooklyn Library. No. It's cool that it did. It's cool that it did. But that's not what it's about. Yeah. That's not what you're never about that. Yeah. You know, he had to get the stuff out of his head. And he wanted to get out the streets. But he also still wanted to do something that meant something to him.

1:16:15And you know, he had this talent that he developed. It was like if you watch Star Wars. Yeah, you could be born with the force. But you have to develop it. You have to work your ass off. Not even just work your ass off. Become fearless. Yeah. Because the strongest jedi's are the fearless ones. Not the ones you train the most. Yeah. Not the ones who are the fastest or the strongest. The strongest artists are the ones that lack the most amount of fear. Not the ones that went to Yale for painting. I'm not knocking at one of my favorite paintings you went to Yale for painting. I'm not. Jennifer Packer.

1:16:48But I'm saying in the end, what really makes the artist great is how much fear do you lack? And a lot of the fear for artists starts coming in once the success happens. Or if the success doesn't have, it's not something you think about the success or not having the success. Yeah. It can give you the same thing. Yeah. If you don't have the success. Yeah. Either way you react instead of acting. Yeah. So you can be like, okay, I'm making stuff and I'm fearless. It's working. Damn. Should I just keep making the same old, same old stuff? Because I don't want to not keep being successful. You let fear creep in and you're going to get weaker.

1:17:25If you're making stuff and it's not selling or you're not getting the validation or attention you want. Oh, maybe I should start making different stuff. Maybe I should make stuff like the guy like Jeff Coons because he's successful. You're letting fear creep in and you get a weaker. It's the same thing. Nothing. And being fearless doesn't mean you don't feel fear. It's just knowing that you have to walk through it. And knowing that your purpose is to express yourself. That's what it is. It's about self -expression. This is the thing I want to make. Check it out. Yep. And that applies to everything who you partner with.

1:18:06It's all choice. And not letting those choices be tainted by the judgments of the tribe. Or expectations. Expressions of the tribe.

1:18:21When do you first feel like you found your tribe? I think I first felt like hanging out at Union. Other people who were different from everyone else but more like you. Yeah. You hanging out at Union and then my friend Nigel and my friend Dre from my neighborhood. And they're both older than me. Because they definitely saw me. They saw me who saw me. But I remember one of my friends. They're like, yo, you be hanging out in the village and stuff and hanging out downtown. You know there's gay people there. Like super provincial. Like just like, you know, there's gay people down there. I was like, and so.

1:19:05I don't care. Like I have no problem. Issue issues of homosexuals. You know what I mean? I don't even consider them. They're humans. I don't even see, like I don't even delineate. It's interesting the myths that humans create. I just separate this from other animals. Humans is the ability to create myths. So like, I remember my friend was like, man, I don't hang out in the city because the food's more expensive there. I'm like, not everywhere. You know, like there's a place called Lovely Day that I'd go to. I said, I spend less money at Lovely Day than you guys spend at BBQs. And the food's better for me.

1:19:39You know what I mean? And he's like, yeah, they charge more money at the gap out there. I'm like, not my girlfriend, Kenya, she works at the gap. The prices are the same across. But he's creating this myth because of this fear that he has of being out of Jamaica Queens. You know, and that's something I learned about for my parents because they didn't have that fear. You know, my dad told me about one of his fishing buddies. The only time that guy left Malnauwen was when his wife got sick. He said, I don't mess with the city. And I was always just like, I found it really interesting. It's a choice though.

1:20:18Absolutely. People that just stay where they're at when they don't have to. And not see all the things and learn other things. So I say that to say, those were my brothers and my friends. But I met them through circumstances moving there. Because there were other people I could hang out with. So we chose each other. But there was a wall for me because they were afraid to go and experience other things. Whether it be food, music, people. And I wasn't. So that put a limit on how far our friends should go in my opinion. Not how far our friends should go, but just like the time we could spend. I don't.

1:21:06Because I'm not going to not go there because you're trying to make me afraid of hanging out in the village or hanging out and so or hanging out anywhere. So that's why when I went to union, especially when I met guys like Angelo and Wilkins, there were guys from out of burrows. Now all the kids come and hang out, don't tell. I wasn't a thing. We all hung out and met up there. So if you saw someone that dressed like you or looked like you, downtown, you'd like, what's up? Because you know they went, they transverse the same terrain to get there. You literally, far as sitting on a train for an hour.

1:21:51And if you're going to hang out late, you're going to be on that train for an hour and a half or waiting for that train for an hour to get back to Queens. But also psychologically, trans -rushing the terrain of like your tribe, maybe being like, why you go out there? Who do you think you are? You know? So yeah. That was the first time the tribe was hanging out at Union, I think. Me and Katch over there. Tell me the story of denim tears. Well the story goes back to the name came from Inside Joke, just speculating like 2013 or 2014. Me, Virgil, A .S .I. Benji B. Kias and Sam Ross were out at dinner before.

1:22:37There was this place called the addition hotel. So the first hotel they opened I think was that in London. It is guiding, except you, Ann Arduin and amazing legendary London DJ. He ran a night in the basement at the addition. So at that time what we do is, if V was in Paris, I'd hit V like, yo, they'll get your start ticket and pay 200 pounds to DJ. Whatever, right. Whenever you were using Paris or something, then I'd be like, yo, Benji got V coming out. A .S .I .V is coming out. It was doing night. Even we had a crew, it was called US still. So anyway, they give us a free dinner so we're having denim before the gig.

1:23:19I had this pair of 1954 repro, Levi's denim that I bought when I first moved to London. When I first moved to London, I got a, my moving bonus was a month's paycheck. So I bought this really expensive pair of denim with that money. And I wore them every day for years. So eventually got torn and ripped to shit and then I've seen you wear those. I've seen them torn. Yeah, you've seen them. So I posted this thing on Instagram where I would just post images of things and people post selfies, right? And I always thought I was quite funny like you're posting a picture yourself. But cool. So I was trolling.

1:24:02So I'd post things to give the emotion of what I was feeling. But not a picture of me. It'd be different things and I just have to have selfie. So it was always, and it always would be things that only five people understood the joke or the emotion. So I posted those jeans, the back pocket looked like something. So then at the dinner, A .S .I .V and Kaya's or Kaya's, and verse where they brought up that post. And they're like, yeah, you posted the rib denim. And then someone said like your denim was crying or something like that. And then maybe Kaya's or someone or A .S .I .V said, denim tears.

1:24:41I said, oh, that sounds like an R &B group. So we're just cracking jokes. So then the next day, Virgil wrote, he had a blog on style .com where he would recap his travels. So he wrote like, yeah, we had dinner and we had a party with Kaya's Paulson of Young Turks fame. Binge and B of deviation fame. A .S .I .V of Nike marketing. He had this night, he used to do it, and he wrote that. And then he said, and then denim tears of Mark Jacobs fame. He just trolling me. He was joking. And so then from that moment, I just changed my handle. So when we did parties, I put denim tears. So it would be me and A .S .I .V doing parties or Virgil, Pyrexvision, A .S .I .V and denim tears.

1:25:24So I started from that. But then the way my mind works is like, okay, inside joke. And then I said, denim tears, that human experience is kind of like a pair of jeans. You start off brand new. And then the attrition of life makes rips. And physically and psychologically. So then I was like, oh, that's what denim tears means now. So I gave it a different meaning. So then it became a minute like the human condition. And so denim tears to brand is about a part of the human condition, which is the plight and glory of the African diaspora. You know, some of the stories I tell about are about history of cotton.

1:26:07Some of the stories about Alvin Ailey. Some of the stories about winrush. I mean, I designed a collection based off, there's this dude. He had a tiger in his apartment in Harlem. You ever heard that story? No. There's a dude. No. In the mid 2000s, he had a tiger in his apartment in Harlem named Ming. And this guy was a sesuity animal. And he raised the full grown tiger in his apartment. And then it was huge. It was the biggest stories in New York that year. So I'm thinking, I'm like, okay, what I'm going to design the next collection about. So I want to, there's like great imagery I can create off that.

1:26:44But also that's just an interesting story. Like, it's a story of a guy in the hood with a tiger. That's insane. And also amazing. And I talk to the guy, interview them. And I'm designed a whole collection based off that about him and Ming, Tiger of Harlem. So, yeah. So it's like a zany. You know, I was like, I remember someone texting me like, I love the Ming collection. I'm like, yeah, I tell, I tell zany black stories too. You know what I mean? So, because that's a zany ass story. You know, I got a collection come out called Kiss My Grits, which is what my mom used to tell me when I had known her.

1:27:21She would like, kiss my grits. The collection is about black food. About the foods I grew up eating in Harlem, Georgia and New York. Tell me the scale of a collection. How small can it be and how big can it be? It could be like, you know, like my collection I did with Dior. There's probably 50 different items. Maybe not what made it to retail, but like in the show that happened in Egypt. There's probably like 80 items, maybe more. But then there's collections like, I did a collection based off growing up in Jamaica, Queens and the rock. We're stewsy and like that was like the jeans, the jacket, the winter coat, the scully, the belt, the bag, the sweater.

1:28:06Eight items. And through eight items. You just like album. Yeah. You know, so it's like, easiest with 10 songs. You know, but there's a lot in there. But then sometimes there's a double album. Do you have any sense of it's, it happens on an annual basis or it's not like that. It's just when you feel it. So I think because my career started when I was a full blown adult. But I've been thinking about these things since I was a teenager. I'm just rolling out the ideas. Because you have a backlog from. Yeah. And when, you know, probably when that backlog is out, maybe I should not stop doing it or.

1:28:49There's so many stories. There's so many. You should be going to keep coming to. Yeah. You're as curious now as you ever was. Yeah. Why would it stop? Yeah. So, but I'm kind of do a full winter spring summer thing. But I don't wholesale. So you do four collections a year? Do them cheers is only four years old. And then, you know, I got sick a year ago. So that put a monkey rich in it. So it's kind of taken me out of it for almost a year. But life willing. Between three and four collections a year, internal, didn't tear collections and then the collaborations around it. How do you manufacture an Eddie sell if you don't wholesale?

1:29:35A manufacturer all around the world, so make stuff in Japan, make stuff in America, make stuff in China. And those relationships you developed over time? You're only good as your team and I'm not and without my team. There's nothing I've ever done on my own. I have amazing, amazing production director, guy named Daniel. We've been working together for about maybe two and a half, three years. And we'll see his background. Get owned, a brand called Simon Miller. He went to art school for graphic design, got into fashion, owned a brand Simon Miller, left it, sold his shares. He's the cousin of the guy that James Corrigan, who gave me the Miles Davis book.

1:30:20Wow. James said, you know, he said, hey, you know my cousin Daniel's a really amazing, that make him clothing. You know me, I wouldn't recommend anyone else they were of a certain elk. And so with someone like James recommending Daniel, I was like, we got him, we got him eat this guy and then let him. And he's really helped the brand a lot. He's amazing at, he's an artist at making clothing. So he helps take my designs and ideas and references. And he helps me bring them to life. And I wouldn't, you know, do them tears would be different without them. Just like, you know, Eric, film is almost all the stuff we do, stills and video.

1:31:10Got about eight people I work with at this point. And how do you sell it online and at the industry market and online would be your website? Well, yeah, denim tears dot com. Yeah, that's, that's everything is limited run. It's funny. I don't like the word limited and I posted something today that I said limited quality. Anyway, but I make what I can make based off what I feel the demand will be and the funds I have to produce. So as time has gone and brand keeps going and doing well, I'm able to make more of stuff that I feel that people want to buy a lot of. There's certain stuff that I feel like I'm like, oh, you know, this mohair string vest, maybe not 500 people will want this.

1:32:00Right. But it's still very, just is very important to the line. Yeah. So I'm going to make 150 of those. Yeah. And then you make it educate decision based off how things do. If you're going to the next time you make an item of that style, if you buy more or less, would you ever repress something if it people like it? Yeah, yeah. Every design is different. But from what I've learned and read, not just in creation, it's like certain things miss people. And then if you step off it too quick, you don't get to get your idea out. So by repressing something, the idea gets to get out. And there's nothing wrong with it.

1:32:49It's the thing you made and if more people want it, it's all that they can have it. Yeah. I don't think we're making things with the idea that there's supposed to be impossible to get. It's like, I want my stuff to be like, okay, like, kill us with a flower moon. I just want to see it. We want to go see it a month ago when it first opened an incredible film. Anyone can go see it. You know, Andy Wallace said, like, I want to be like Coke. Everyone could get a Coke. So anyone can go see Killers of the Flower Moon. And I think that's, to me, that's the highest level access to everyone. That's what I endeavor towards.

1:33:30You know, make sense. It's like, again, you're not making it with the idea that I'm going to change it so more people will like it. You're making it the way you want it. Yeah. And it's once you're signing off on the thing that you love, if more people want it, that seems like a good thing. Yeah. It is a good thing in my opinion. And then also, but you see it a lot of music where it's like, there's a certain sound. And you go back to it. Uh -huh. And you know when it's, move on from the sound. Yeah. And you know when to keep doing it. What was the first collaboration you did? The first collaboration I did was with Callie DeWitt and B.

1:34:14Fowler. They had a brand called Somewhere. And I did it. It was a somewhere I did them to years, Callie. That was like 2016 -17. And then, yeah, that was my first one. And then my second one was with online ceramics. Third was with Levi's. And it was rolled from there. Yeah. How different is it doing a collaboration versus doing your own stuff? When it's a collaboration with another creative artist. Yeah. So different dance. But when it's a collaboration with a brand, it's more like they become the manufacturer and you get to design it. Yeah. So like, example, I did the cotton reef art piece, then converted it into AI file.

1:35:00And then Levi's reached out to me. They wanted to do a collaboration with me, some denim. So when I went up to San Francisco, I had to sheet a paper with the AI file printed out. I had it on a phone, a computer. And I opened my computer and was like, this is what I want to do. You know? So it's more so when I do a collaboration with the brand, I'm putting different ideas, stories, and or motifs with their products and doing intervention. You know? So to me, I was interesting like, ah, the story I'm tying with this reef and cotton and then doing it with a brand denim brand, which obviously uses cotton.

1:35:46That's interesting. And then telling the story through this American brand was interesting. But then also it was interesting of what Levi stood for. Shout to Jonathan and Hector. Hector's a guy who put me forward for Levi's. There's pretty unprecedented for them to work with solar like me. I wasn't really known like that. I thought. Hector's the one that convinced them to do their collaboration with Virgil. And then I was the next one after that. But I remember Jonathan telling me how Levi's like in the 80s during the AIDS epidemic. They're like, if you work there and you had a problem with working with someone, you know, if your co -worker co -worker said AIDS, they just fired you.

1:36:35Which was unprecedented because obviously if you've seen them move to Philadelphia, it was the opposite of that those days. People were pushing people with AIDS away. People were getting fired from the jobs. They're being demonized. So me when I learned that history about Levi, I was like, we're in the same my state. And also they were down to do it. They weren't like scared. They weren't like, ooh, this feels controversial. There's like, this is beautiful. Let's do it. So have you ever been censored? Yeah, I've been censored and you know, had different situations with different collaborators.

1:37:10Converse, I did a ped African flag converse and it took a lot to get those out. Originally a guy named by the name of Curtin's. He used to work with Converse and told them the idea. He did it. He was down for it. And I work with this amazing designer, Amy. What would be the pushback on that? They felt that it could be seen as disrespectful to the American flag, putting the pan -African flag, like pan -African Marcus Garbisies colors on the pan -African flag that David Hammons did, and doing that on sneakers. They said it felt like it could be disrespectful to the military. The shoes almost got canceled.

1:37:53It's interesting for me. Because it seems like there are lots of flags. Yeah. You know, like, yeah. That's lots of flags. There's lots of flags, exactly. I wouldn't have guessed that. You know what's funny thing too? I said to them, this is one of my favorite designers, this Japanese designer, Taki Hero. He used to have a brand called Number 9. And they had a brand called the Soloist. He put out a sneaker whilst I was working on mine that was American flag, but a black and white war. I was like, what's the difference, guys? You know, so then it got a bit choppy. We pushed back and forth about it, and then George Floyd happened.

1:38:31And then, you know, I spoke out publicly about my feelings about the support of converse, of certain movements that were going on during that time. And I was like, I can't really put out this shoe if I don't see more of a, more of a dangerous just donating money. Because intention does more than money. And then they were super responsive and emailed me right away. And we had a great talk, and then we decided to still put out the shoes, and all the money from the shoes went to black voters matter. We donated the first release of the sneakers, donated all the money, and then we worked with this artist, Hank Willis Thomas, to make infographics, to try to get people to vote.

1:39:20Not encourage them to vote who they should vote for, but just to get them to vote. Just to participate. Participate in states where African Americans didn't normally vote. So that's what the sneaker became, representative. So in the end, we had discourse, and it was great. Yeah. Tell me about the difference between streetwear and luxury fashion. For me, there's four terms that exist. Categories of fashion. Ready to wear, sportswear, couture, and accessories. The streetwear, still waiting for someone to give me a definition of that. Oh, these years later, I don't, I don't personally describe to that.

1:40:10That title, luxury. There's a great book called Deluxe, written by a woman that, I don't know if she's still right, shouldn't be here at times, but it says, how luxury lost its luster. I think one of the only luxury brands that still exist is Hermes. I love Hermes. Yeah, same. If you look at the way they go about making the stuff and the intention behind it, that's luxury. Phoebe Fyllo, she just put out a luxury, her new brand, that she just put out that's luxury. So the difference between luxury and, let's say what I do, ready to wear and sportswear. Luxury is artisan base. And it's small quantities, not because you're trying to make it worth more.

1:40:59You could only make so much. Yeah, there's only so many artisans to make it. Yeah. Fine crafted handmade. One time I was in Paris with my friend Willow, and we're at this guy Pierre's restaurant, which he's no longer working there anymore. And the food is incredible. And it's like the size of that recording console with tables around it. So 12 people, 60 people get sick. So if someone sets a pair, why don't you franchise this and make more. He says, there's not enough ingredients that are the quality that I make my food with to be able to franchise this. I can't get that many tomatoes of the quality to make what you just ate that she thinks is so special.

1:41:45So that's, if that's what luxury is, it's like there's only so many of these women or men who are alive that to make this sweater in this way. And there's only so many people that are apprenticing out it that would be able to do it when these people die. Yeah, because a lot of these skills are getting lost now. Exactly. So that's what luxury is to me is items made by artisans based off access to the best materials. Not just materials, the way it's crafted, the man hours. It takes to stitch or sew something, you know. So that's what luxury is to me. So people could say luxury is desire. So in the end, that's the case.

1:42:31Whatever has desire of said customer is luxury. But for me, luxury is how the thing thing is made. So I've made a couple items that are luxury like, so a lot of items in a DR collection. There's this amazing millenar that I got to work with. My highlight of the collection working with DR was working with Stefan Jones, who's a millenar that works a lot with Kim Jones. He's worked with Mark and other people. And it's just a dad kind of cap, but then it has the denim tears, the your tears logo. But it's all hand done work. And I forgot, I think it took 48 hours or something to make that part of the hat, you know.

1:43:16And it's beautiful. Not just not just about how long it takes, but it's beautiful hand work. And then that's why it's fun about certain, certain, I like certain artists and designers they take. Like Mark Jacobs' dad has done it, like remember Mark Jacobs' collection. He'd always do the Kazmerian hoodies and be like Kazmer and mix with silk. But they're just zip up, hoodies, sweatpants, cut just like old champion sweatpants, but in Kazmer and silk. That's luxury, you know. That's the difference to me. Tell me about your experience with Supreme. I think the last time I reached out to you was congratulating you on.

1:44:00Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're like, I like Supreme hot. Yeah, when I got the job, my experience with Supreme was learned a lot. Not so much learned a lot, working there, but me being in that situation, working on a company that's like gotten that big. A big corporate company that came from the roots of this thing. You know, someone say this thing of ours, that people call she wear or you know, sportswear with. That's funny. It's called this thing of ours. I've never heard that. That's what I call my, to me, that's what it is. This thing of ours, you know, I've heard that's how the mafia refers to the mafia.

1:44:43Yeah, like Coach, Coach, you know, you know, me and I like this thing of ours. Yeah, but StuC, 40 acres in the middle, denim tears, Supreme, Sir, you know, fucking awesome, Babylon, so on and so forth. You know, we're all Niko, Baked, Human made. There's a line, you know, the company got sold in a couple of times and then James fully sold all of it. So is that true? Yeah, to VF. I didn't know that. And when you sell a company, usually the person that bought your bread took a loan out. And there's a thing you call interest. So they took a loan out. There's interest on that loan. And it's just a math problem.

1:45:35How much time you have to make the money back on the loan? And then if you're not making back the money that they spent on top of the interest, you're at a loss and they're poking around. And that changes the intention of making things. So that's the less one to me, lessons I learned. Also, I'm less than I learned is it's not for me. It's not great working out a company where the founders still there. That's the crevice. That's interesting. Yeah. Because James is the crevice director of Supreme. Then I came in as a crevice director. First ever crevice director. Yeah. Did you feel second guest?

1:46:14Yeah, I was like crevice director in his pocket in the sense of I'll pull out the remains. What I want his idea or opinion, but in the end, it's my what I want. Which it wasn't presented like that. It was in like, hey, I'm trying to write off right off into the sunset and you're going to run a show and work with the team. Because the crevice director doesn't do everything. You work with the team. The whole thing is a team sport. So that was difficult. You know, not really being able to make decisions, but then in the media when numbers come out about how the bread is doing, it's the same thing.

1:46:56Traumae is doing something wrong where I'm like, James, still making the decisions. So, but so you're kind of taking the bullets and then you start to feel like a mass guy instead of a star player. And because that's the thing, it's like LeBron, he's trusted to take that last shot or fake like you can take a last shot and pass it. Like, you know, Jordan did what to do with John Paxton or Pippin. So it's not always about you taking the last shot, but you're making that decision and working with the coach. Whereas this was like, I'm not making the decision or taking the last shot. But you're taking the blame.

1:47:36Taking the blame. So I learned that there. I was just outside of there the way I thought, you know, it's funny. I was like, okay, I'm going to continue the legacy of supreme, but also modernize it in a way that. I think it'd be meaningful to the people that supreme wants to be attached to young people. I don't think that was really understood, you know, completely. But then some things were. So, you know, it didn't work out because then I started just getting put in compromising positions with artists and people I was working with that we were working with. And then things would change and then opinions would change and then it got just really kind of convoluted in my opinion, my experience there.

1:48:28I can see it. You keep denim tears going the whole time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I kept denim tears. That was part of my contract. You know, James always said, didn't tears is important. You know, he always said he felt it was one of the best brands out there. Even in the last conversation we had, he said that. It got really difficult there too because there's like things me and James discussed so we're trying to do and then. His, um, C suite, which I was a part of, they're trying to mitigate keeping him happy, but also keeping VF happy. And not none of it's out in the open. Nothing's clear. So now this causes conflict.

1:49:12It's like a family. Yeah. Right? That's why, you know, all the times I've talked about, I've compared it to like succession. You know, it's like you got Logan Roy and then you have people fighting for who's going to get the, get the keys to the throne, which isn't my thing. Yeah. I think anytime something gets big, yeah, it changes. It's just the nature of things getting big. It's impressive that Mark Jacobs is able to get as big as he did. Staying cool. Yeah. I think that's more the, the exception than the rule. Yeah, definitely, definitely. And then also I think for me, my ideas, I get an example.

1:49:56So the first thing I did for Supreme was like Andre 3000. You know, we shot Andre. That's part of the thing too of being creative director. It's like your influence with people. My influence, but like I have a relationship with Andre that's just based on friendship. And we have worked together. So I don't know if the answer would have been yes, if I wasn't involved. Of course. You have relationships. So then Andre's done and do it. And then there's a ray of images that we've shot. And the images that I felt were the best were him with the flute. Because the reason I felt they're the best because they were where he's at right now.

1:50:37And the images we went with were, you know, not that much different. It was same clothing. Not such, not different poses, but no flute. And the discourse from James and was, well, would you rather hear him rap or play the flute if you're going to show? And my response to them was, I'd rather hear him play the flute because that's where he's at right now. Has James ever heard him play the flute? No. So then how do you know? Exactly. Yeah. So it's interesting because for a brand that's so like we're cool, we're cool, and we're genuine, we're real. For me, it was a bit of a cosplay thing because it's like we want to present something that feels like Andre is a rapper.

1:51:24But me, I'm like, let's present him in his realist form, which is he walks around with that flute all day every day. It's an appendage. So, Andre, that, James the boss, we did the image without the flute. That's right. People loved it. Cool. Bob Nisius and I had an example of that's how everything kind of went. Which in situations where the stuff was more charged or more, there's more discourse about images. Or stories we should be telling ideas. It's the same kind of thing where it's like I'm presenting it. If you want to do it, do it, don't do it. But then it's still kind of all falling. But I actually don't have any control.

1:52:09And then that just puts me in a compromising place with the artists that we're working with. And just most importantly, compromising place within myself. Where I'm just like, well, why am I even here? And so, we just got really political there with project with Arthur J. Fah, which was kind of the bowling point for me, resigning from there. I had pitched in February or March 2022 to do a project with Arthur J. Fah. Everyone's excited about it. A .J.'s and amazing artists. What you're talking about him being this big, blue chip artist. Any artist that's allowing us to work with them, in my opinion, it should be their discretion, which works they want to do.

1:52:55So, A .J. made his discretion of the imagery he wanted to use. James was into it and said, yeah, this stuff's really important. The imagery was visceral, some of it. One image was of a freed slave. His own back had the wounds from when he was a slave, being whipped. And another image was a dip tech, which was two images together, which is basically, you could call it the Gernica for African Americans. And the Gernica is a Picasso painting, which is of a war, image of killing of war. This image is a image of two black men who have been hung for a, they're accused of rape. I think down in Memphis, but they were never tried.

1:53:42They were hung. And there's a bunch of people, white people that hung them, standing around them, looking at the camera, taking a picture. And then the next picture is grape street crypts with guns. So, the name of that piece is called, I don't care about your past, I just want to love the last. A .J.'s intention in that picture is to show this, got you this. It's connected. You know, there's that documentary, The Bastards of the Party, saying that the bloods and crypts are the bastard sons of the African American political parties that fell apart post -Cilarites movement, post -Crac - you know, during the Crackup epidemic.

1:54:25So, there's that piece, there's another image, LaRage. And so, anyway, those images got approved. The clothing got made. I get sick. You know, that stuff's supposed to come out, was supposed to come out spring 23. I got sick in fall 22. I'm in hospital for three months. I might get out the hospital. I'm on medical leave in total eight months. When I come back, the project is in stasis. And I'm like, oh, what's going on? You know, and before I can even ask, an email sent by an employee, we had two employees raised concerns about the imagery, which they have the right to. So, they raised concerns about the imagery.

1:55:20The first employee, we had a discussion, me, her, and the other C -suite team. And I explained to her A .J.'s intention, in Supreme's intention. I'm a conduit for both of those intentions as the creative director in the artwork. And she's like, oh, is this stuff going to be explained to the artwork? I said, yeah. And then she said, I'm cool with it. And then the next employee, so April 1st, which was coincidentally the day I returned back to work for medical leave, eight months of medical leave, from having the lower aortic aneurysm, the employee sent an email to the C -suite saying he felt, why is Supreme thinks it's okay to profit off this terrible imagery?

1:56:10And he's like, dude, so then he said, meet me, I'm saying, hey, Chmere, I'd like to talk. So, I thought he was going to talk to me about the A .J. piece. And we talk, and he says, hey, you want to talk about the A .J. piece? So, I'm ready to give him, again, repeat A .J.'s attention with the work and Supreme's attention. And then he says, oh, no, I talked to James about it already. I want to talk to you about, it's tough for me working here as a black person where you seem to be flourishing here. How do you flourish here when there's, it bothers me that the clothing and the stuff we make is largely based off black culture.

1:56:49But there's not a lot of black people in the design team, right? And I told them, I haven't worked anywhere where there was a large amount of black people around working in these type of institutions. On a place I've worked with, there was a lot of black people as a greaties liquor store. So, it's something that I'm used to, and it's something that within my, within reason and within my power, not just for black people, for all people, I try to diversify what places that I'm in, based off people with talent that can do the job. And I also try to make it diverse, far as women, but it's all the same to me.

1:57:32Having women involved, having working class people involved with any color, having people of any gender, it's all the same to me. Just people who are good, people who are good at their job, are going to make the team a better team. Yeah, I want to make it diverse with talented people. And I said, I'm doing what I can. I've had discussions with HR since I came here. They told me they're trying to make things that haven't seen that happen yet. Let me know what I can do to help you. He's like, well, just this conversation has helped me, and we had a great conversation. And then, you know, a couple of weeks before I resigned, he resigned.

1:58:09He resigned for feeling disgruntled about, filling his upward trajectory, Supreme and filling their some racial insitivities there. Those are his opinions. I've had conversations with HR about that. They said they were addressing the stuff. But he decided to resign. And also, he had his other reason. So, from April 1st to August, it's four months. No one talks to me about the AJ project. So, I was building my strength back up. It was a surprise what happened to you. Tell me what happened physically. At a lower aortic aneurysm, which was a... Did you know it was something? No, it was hereditary.

1:58:56But I didn't know it ran in my family. I found out after the fact that I had an uncle that died from one. I see. In his 20s. So, my main focus was my recovery. So, I was... How did it reveal itself? Like, what was the event? The event was started to fill a sharp pain in my chest first. Then I fell a sharp pain. Actually, the chain pain I felt my chest was actually my aorta. So, I was filling it from my chest. I felt short of breath. Thought I was having a heart attack. And then I felt this is a scru shading pain in my back. Up or back? Yeah. Between the shoulders. Like, yeah, between the shoulders.

1:59:35Which was my aorta dissecting. It was splitting. And then that pain kind of subsided. And then I had my leg wouldn't numb. Because the lower part of my aorta, the dissection ended there. And it ripped apart. And that's usually when people die from it within like three or four minutes. That's why it's called the nickname for it. It's called the Widowmaker. John Ritter from these companies, he died from it. But some reason it ripped. But it a little piece of a held on. So I was bleeding internally, but not full out bleeding. So my leg went numb. And that's when my wife, my girlfriend at the time, called the ambulance, went to get the ambulance.

2:00:25And you know, saved my life. If I wouldn't have been with her, I definitely would have died. And then we got to the hospital. It took them a long time to diagnose it the first hospital. And then about eight hours later, an amazing doctor. She came on and she immediately started asking me certain questions. And got me to get a scan. And then she realized I had a, was suffering aneurysm. And she called up to Cornell, which is one of some of the best doctors for that type of cardiac things. I went and had an emergency surgery that was supposed to be three hours. End up being eight hours spent a month in the ICU.

2:01:07Yeah, I mean, I almost died three times from the initial thing. And then had gotten pneumonia. Then I got a septus blood infection. And then also I was on dialysis for about three months. So I was a did a month in the ICU. And then they moved me up to Baker, you know. I did rehab for two months. And then came home in December 28th. And recovered at home during PT three times a week with my amazing physical trainer, Jacqueline Pailer, doing my doctor checkups. I thought, amazing. But yeah, miracle recovered me. I mean, my doctor said it was a 5 % chance of me living. Wow. But I got very lucky that you know, have a very important person to live for, which is Andy.

2:01:59So she was there with me sleeping on a lazy boy every night for three months, which I think that helped me really gave me the strength to, you know, when you recover in, there's medicine and then there's willpower wanting to be here. Pushing with that, I don't know if it's your molecules, your soul, what the energy is. But it takes to mix of all those things, you know, you know, you know, I had a lot of love, mainly Andy and my dad and Anthony and A side and Chris, other people too, just, you know, I got this friend, Kak, that she'd be flying in to visit me from Hawaii, you know, coming to Visarina Hospital, a brother, other friends coming to visit me.

2:02:51And all that love, mixed with amazing work from the doctors, helped me get me back. But definitely the main protagonist is Andy, definitely, she'd get out of work and she'd come straight straight to the hospital, hang out with me. And then stay tonight, go to work, come back every day for three months. I don't know how I would have done it without that support. I'm so happy you're here. Me too. Me too. So happy you're here. How has that experience changed you? The only way it's changed me is, when I met Andy, from the day I met her, I knew she was special, and then she became of amazing colleague and then became an amazing friend.

2:03:43And then we fell in love right before I got sick, like a month or two before I got sick, a month before I got sick. And once I got better, I just didn't waste any time where before. I should have just actually had a marry me. I knew, and when I first literally the first month dating I should have asked her. But you know, you know, like you like to tell yourself, well, let me wait and see. And I might say that's wrong either, but that's what I was thinking when I was waiting for an ambulance in the hallway in my apartment. I was like, if I got to survive, I'm gonna get a marry Andy. That was my thought.

2:04:23My last thought was my little brother, McCoy. My dad had a kid. He had my brother three years ago, with an amazing wife, Shelley. And what I thought before I went to surgery was, I need more time with Andy and McCoy. So when I got survived, that's what changed. It's just me trying to spend as much time with the reason with Andy and people I love. But I did that before that because that's what, again, this whole talk. My dad and my mom always like, hey, we're not parents tomorrow. We got to have fun. People might consider it morbid. My dad talked about death a lot because both my mom and my dad, my mom talked about death a lot because she lost two of her brothers with she was a kid.

2:05:16One to the aneurysm and one came back sick from Vietnam. So at a young age, she had a lot of loss of two people she loved very much. She would speak about that. She always say, Tremaine, I'm not gonna be here forever. Take care of you. You gotta figure it out. You gotta figure it out. You know, I should've like, you gotta look down for your little brother when I'm not here. And then my dad, his sense of mortality, came from, he was a TV news cameraman. So he saw, he's like basically a coroner. He saw death every day. So yeah, he gets to do cool things like cover our Yankees game with a Super Bowl.

2:05:52We'll go to the White House, but mainly they sell them death. They sell them that fact that you know, a lot of it. So he cover all kinds of stuff. And that just made him say, hey man, this guy died from a crane falling on him. This person got mudder and he'd tell the stories. But the end of the story was always like, so why we got to be nice to each other and have as much fun as possible. Because we are not guaranteed a second. So it didn't make me more like, oh, I appreciate my life more. And I'm gonna go for it more. Actually made me like, you know what?

2:06:31This work stuff's cool, but that's why like me and Andy went on, we went on a month honeymoon. I'm like, we are, it's like I survived. You were there with me. We got married. We're going away for a month. Great. You know what I mean? Great. We're going away for a month. That's what I learned from. It's just spend as much time with Andy and McCoy and other people that I love. But I already knew that. And also just maybe maybe this this work shit is not as important. It's just not. It's art's important. And it's important for me to be fulfilled because I can, I won't be the best husband or father.

2:07:11I don't have it. We don't have a kid yet. But I won't be able to be the best husband or father if I'm not fulfilled. Same for Andy, same for McCoy, same for everyone. You know. So that is important. But not at the expense of, in my opinion, what I've time with people you love, you know. You know what? We talked about fear a lot. It put not the fear of death for me. It put the fear of not spitting what I feel is adequate in my time with people. I respect that care about and love. I understood that. I've worked the most of me, one of the most amazing people I've ever met. So I have that fear. And the way I meet that fear is by letting and know how much of value her, what she's done for me.

2:08:11And even let her know what she means to me and then spending time out of fun. Just great. Yeah. So that's that's what I learned. Same thing with McCoy, same thing with A .S .I. and same thing with Prazier and David, Chris, the friends, you know. Even like with you, you know, it's like, we're cool, man. Like I can see someone I'm really cool with a friend is like, you know what? I was like, I'm a hit Rick when I'm in LA. And we can meet up. We can meet up. So might not see for a year again. Maybe we'll never see each other again. But we made time to see each other on this one like we've done in the past.

2:08:47So that's what I try to do. You can't see everyone all the time. But within reason I rotate it. And then I have my, you know, my main concern is Andy. That's my number one thing. Do you think of yourself as a spiritual person? I don't. But then even when I'm about to say my kiss on the head, say could be just a spiritual. I think life is meaningless. And we put the meaning you put the meaning into it. And then you're like loved ones that you think you want to give to meaning to wife. So maybe that is spiritual. I'm not real read in all the religions. But I know stuff from some from, you know, the Bible from Buddhism.

2:09:28Joseph Campbell. You know, me and Motu Musashi five rings book of five rings. Taoji kundal can go on and on comic books. That's what I think. You know, those are those are those are biblical. Those are biblical to me. Common books. That stuff I've learned. You learn from common books, you know, like the X men, Professor X was based off Marlith the King and Magneto was based off Malcolm X. And it was a chosen horse to tell that story through these mutants. The mutants represented African Americans in America. You know, I mean, so I've learned more from that than I learned from the Bible. But just only because I've read more, I'm a read more common books that I've read the Bible.

2:10:10So, you know, I'm agnostic and when people hear that. I think they think atheists and it's not. I don't subscribe to any religion or that there is an omnipotent being with human or that there's not or that there's not. Yeah. Or that that omnipotent being has human traits. Because that's the thing about humans were like humans as a whole were narcissists and were like, you know, it's like so and she's alien economy human. Yeah. And when we look at clouds, we see faces. We see faces because it's like, you know, whereas does dogs see a face in the cloud? No, maybe probably that. I'll tell you this.

2:10:49I felt spiritual the first time I saw the sun. After being in the ICU for a month. Yeah. I realized that the sun that I hadn't seen in a month from being in my hospital room and the sun that I thought I'd never was going to see again was the same that sun that's shine on every living being that. Everything that's lived in the Milky Way that this universe just our galaxy the earth the dinosaurs my mom was no longer here. Same son the same son. It's shine on every living organism that has ever spurned from the earth to the last one. The sun that same son that I hadn't saw that took for granted. Yeah.

2:11:31I felt that connection when I felt the sun in my wheelchair. What my shades on and took my shades off and start crying. Chris was there and my other friend Chris was there. I remember, you know, text the Andy the picture and my dad. So I guess I am spiritual maybe not by the textbook definition. You know, for me my religion like I find religion in people. You know, like people that I connect with. I find religion and like in the relationship. So I found religion and relationship with a side. I found religion in a relationship with my friend Frazier and I think I found my highest religion in my relationship with Andy.

2:12:21So I guess religion ultimately is about connection. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, connection. You know what though the one thing I'll say. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying.

2:12:45What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What you're saying. What of console control sing and listen, listen. That's And he has a farm, called Skyour Farm, and we're exploring stuff with food and design in black food, so we're going to do a converse of a watermelon right, the skin of a watermelon.

2:13:44So converse felt that was controversial and they felt it could be interpreted as racist, right? Because of menstrual imagery in the past of blacks and watermelons. But the thing is, I never... Were these white people who were concerned about it being racist? Both. Okay. Black and white people. Okay. But the difference in the situation was they called me, they told me they weren't down, they didn't want to do it. They were uncomfortable with the imagery. Yeah. And they didn't want to do it, but they weren't uncomfortable with having the conversation. Right. They were straight. Straight up, and we had the conversation.

2:14:22They said, we're not going to put these out. And I was like, you guys are kind of wasted my time. Yeah. And I think you guys are aiding and embedding, which you think you're protecting. Yep. But cool. And that's why I never posted anything like... Yeah. Converse has done something wrong. Do you ever get the feeling when something like that happens? Do you ever feel like I'm going to find another way to get these shoes out? My whole thing was it was like that silhouette of the chuck, and then working with Dan and Skyour Farm and telling that. I have art and things I've made with that imagery of the watermelon.

2:14:59It's going to come out in different places. Okay. Yeah. So it will come out. But again, they sent me, I guess, but they talked to me. And we were able to have discourse. We disagreed, but it was fine in it. And because I respected that they have a right to make a choice as a company, to not want to put it out. And they respected me by hearing me out. Why? So we should. And we talked about it and moved on. You know, and I guess because we had that situation with the Pan -African shoes and it went well, and we, you know, I was happy with the outcome of that and donating the money to Black voters matters.

2:15:36And so that's the thing where it's like, I'm about, not about getting my way, I'm about discourse. And then wherever the chips fall, I'm okay with that. Long as the talk happens. Yeah. Tell me from where you sit, describe the fashion industry and paint a picture of what the fashion industry is and how does it work. The fashion industry currently is no different than the film industry in a sense of power mile or caring group, they're a bank. And they invest in directors, creative directors. So whether, you know, Matthew Blase or I think Apple did kill us in the farm moon, Apple invested in March, Mercedes -Benz, and they want you to give the world clothing, tell a story so it could sell and then get more money than it did last year.

2:16:36That's the fashion industry. That's where it is now. That's not how it started. Where do you think it started and where do you think, when do you think it changed?

2:16:47Fashion really started with the creation of the bourgeoisie. When people had a surplus amount of money. Before that, people just wore work clothes or you based standard uniform, everybody dressed the same. Yeah. Actually, I would say fashion started in tribal times. Really when I really think about stuff I've read, tribal times to signify different things. And to signify hierarchies or this standard third within tribes, you see it across different indigenous things. But then once agriculture happened and humans were able to make a superfluous amount of food, they were able to do other things, become musicians, make clothing.

2:17:39Just before that, everybody had to hunt together. All your time was spent was finding food. So you had a time to make a flannel shirt. You had time to be like, okay, I got something to wear for my feet so I could chase down this animal. You know, everything was purposeful. So then once agriculture revolution happened, an agriculture revolution happened because people wanted to be stationary to go to church. So to do the stationary, not to be moving at all the time as hunting gatherers, you had to make a superfluous amount of food. So once that happened, made a superfluous amount of food, people were able to become scientists, soldiers, what, and once the barter system stopped and money, then it was like, that's when the bourgeoisie of any type of civilization was created, whether it's the Egyptians, the French, whatever.

2:18:36And they started having clothes to represent who they were. Those like the haves and the have -nots and the haves were fashionable clothing to separate themselves from the masses. Yes. But then the have -nots, the proletariat, they were clothing to get a job done. Denim. Denim was created because the other cotton fabrics that were worn would get torn and then they would have to bring in loads of pants to change into as the tamans got torn. So that was more work bringing in these extra pants. Once Denim was created, you didn't have to bring all these Denim which because your Denim would last you for a couple months or something.

2:19:21That was function. But then eventually Denim became fashion. I feel like that might have been as recently as the 70s when Denim became fashion. Yeah, because even like - You know, a re -avander bill. Yeah. Clothing was originally not originally but there was like couture. So you had the say Christian Dior. He was designing couture dresses and stuff, right? And only a certain amount of people could afford it. But not just the money that goes back to the artisan thing, there's only a certain amount of people that were not allowed to make it. Then the advent of ready to wear happened where it was clothing that was still made well but not couture so it could be made in higher quantities and it could cost less.

2:20:06Some more people would still bourgeoisie thing but more people could buy it. Then ready to wear went to the level where then industrial revolution they were able to make clothing cheaply at higher numbers. So then the fashion that let's say a mom or a dad saw someone wearing, you could go buy it in Walmart, a version of it. And then it all shook it down to where we're at now where like you see something on TikTok and you can click on it and it takes you to a link and you can buy something. You know, but it's a long history but like you said kind of recent. It's short. You know, it's short because businessmen are like, hey, people want to be like Elvis.

2:20:51What if we make shoes that look like Elvis's shoes? You know, I remember the last page of the book, please kill me. The book goes through the whole oral history of the punks scene and the book ends in Hawaii to this guy who had died childhood and his first show he went to was he saw Elvis and he said, all he remembered from the show was his shoes. That's where fashion really started when the proliferation of celebrity culture and then people wanting to buy beetle boots, buy shirts like James Brown, like my dad, my grandfather got so mad at my dad because my dad's first check, $99 that he got from my grandfather for making bricks.

2:21:35He went and bought, Augusta, Georgia bought some pants and a silk shirt and some stack hills to look like James Brown and spend all his money. That's really what you wanted at the place where James Brown got him probably. Probably, yeah. Yeah, it got stuff. And that's where I think when celebrity culture hit with the music, that's what I think fashion really took off was with musicians because you know, actors cool, you see the actor wearing it, but back then you didn't really see actors. Only in the movies. Only in the movies. Right. But musicians, you see the musicians in their own stage and you see David Boyle or what it makes you happy or whoever and you're like, oh shit, I want to wear that.

2:22:20And then brands start making stuff, not just based off that. A lot of it was ushered in by Carl Lagerfeld and Eve St. Laurent. You know, there's this book called The Beautiful Fall. I haven't read all of it by start reading it and it's about how the explosion of, like you said, 70s of fashion and Paris in the 70s and the competition between Eve St. Laurent and Carl Lagerfeld and Eve took over to your work there for like three seasons or three years. You got fired. Then eventually, oh, start his own label. Carl was working a bunch of different places and then eventually got to Chanel and then it just exploded.

2:23:05But if not, you know, just like shit exploded from fucking Chuck Berry and Elvis and a couple of people in the Rock and Roll exploded. Same thing with fashion, you know. To the point now where you have companies that, you know, did them tears. There's so many bootlegs out there, you know. So there's so many. Can you always tell what's a bootleg? Yeah. Can most people tell if they want to? Tell me about it. Tell me about the bootleg market. The bootleg market is existed for a long time and especially if you're popping, you're getting bootlegs. It's fun. I remember a talk between Virgil had all these just activations happening in London.

2:23:49Him and Kim were doing a talk and asked the question, I know you guys both, but Kim, how did you know that Virgil had made it? He says, when I went to China, I saw all the bootlegs, you know. So bootleg is really kind of like, let's, you know, you have pierced culture if your stuff's being bootleg. If you're not being bootleg, you're not. It's not hot. It's not hot. It's not hot. Some people don't know, but people do know and it's just like, there's like their bootleg and they're selling for like 40 bucks. 99 % of the bootleg is way lower quality than original. And there's no R &D that goes into it.

2:24:28It's just a straight up copy. Exactly. So I got to pay Daniel. I got to pay my whole team, my time, my ideas. Got to have the ideas. You got to make it. You got to make samples with a bootleg or just buys your piece. Copies it. Copies it. It makes it. So that's part of why they could sell that a lot cheaper and then using the quality is horrible. That's not a reason why they could sell cheaper. But it's interesting like this era of bootlegging, it's new because now people are bootlegging your stuff and creating their own versions designs and then they feel the bootlegger feels well, they take your IP and they're like, it's my IP now.

2:25:13So there's the thought of that there's no, everything's open, kind of like open source. There's no IP anymore. Yeah, it's interesting. And I'm like, interesting, you know. No, it's just interesting to think about. Yeah. How to conversation with James Persson, he started as a grateful dead bootlegger. Wow, sick. Yeah. Wow, that's amazing. And now he's done collaboration with them, you know, all these years later. That's incredible. Yeah. No, yeah, that's the funny thing about the bootleg is like, it's not like bootlegging liquor back in prohibition days where it's like they're bootlegging that because it's illegal.

2:25:49And also the bootleggers are like, they're feeling in the gaps of, okay, I can make a certain amount of jeans. I have a certain amount of money that I pay to get it made. And then once they sell out, they sell out, it might take me three months. Actually it does like for me to invest and remake the stuff. If I rerelease it, it takes months. You know, like my sweatsuits, they're puffed print and they're panelled. It's not like I could take a blank and put the print on it. It's panelled so that it's seamless and the print looks good and it's not shitty. That takes three months, two, three months we need to do it.

2:26:28So people want this stuff, the bootlegger is doing a much not as good version, but they're getting it out to the people. So maybe the person just doesn't want to wait plus it's cheaper. They don't care. So that's kind of the bootlegging. But it's interesting now like people bootlegging and doing it and putting their, their spend on it. It's interesting. It's funny. And it's almost like the bootleggers would be mad at you. Like you're copying us. It's like I created this, but cool man. Yeah. My thing with the bootleggers is like, have fun, but I'm going to keep putting my stuff out. Of course. So it's almost like, and then the choice is up to the customer.

2:27:16How do you handle fulfillment of sales? Okay. These flannels, there's these flannels that I have made in Japan. They get made with shipping over on a boat, hopefully because it's cheaper to ship them on a boat and more environmentally sound, shipping them on a boat that fly them. They get to the port, clear through customs. They don't come to my studio. They go straight to the fulfillment center and then they get packaged there. And then when someone buys it all, them tears .com, it gets fulfilled from there. And my 100 whole sell account, the over -sheets market, it gets fulfilled from there too.

2:27:59So that's how that works. Tell me something you believe now that you didn't believe when you were younger.

2:28:09I didn't believe that I'd be like living like so much of my adult life without my mom. I was ignorant and I didn't listen to her and my dad about mortality. I thought I was going to have her as long as I had my grandma who I just said her birthday was 97. My mom died at 58. So when I was younger, I was still having my mom's voice. I just thought I was going to have my mom a lot longer than I did. We had great times. So grateful for all the time we did have, but I thought I was going to have her longer than I did. To lose that 33 was pretty like, man. But then you know what? I think your compassion comes from when you realize there's someone that never knew their mom.

2:29:00And then that's how you circumvent grief. Not that I don't miss my mom, but then I just could have been worse. Could have been worse. Could have been worse. And like my the union of my mom and dad and our little family, I assume my mom died. They got shattered. Not shattered. We don't talk to each other, but we kind of all went off on our own paths. My little brother, my dad, you know, a dad got rebadred. I went, you know, just kind of like tunnel vision would work so that my little brother. So I just thought I'd be go visiting my parents outside for they were tired too. So, which is kind of the same thing.

2:29:43So that's the thing that's different in my adult life that I thought it would be that way when I was a kid.