Latest / Earn Your Leisure / EYL #275 How to for Black Fashion Designers: Scaling, Funding, Placement, & Partnerships with Brandice Daniel

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EYL #275 How to for Black Fashion Designers: Scaling, Funding, Placement, & Partnerships with Brandice Daniel · Earn Your Leisure

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Speaker 6: See you there, all right, guys, welcome back EYL. We
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Speaker 6: are back home and we got a special episode. Any
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Speaker 6: time we get to talk about fashion, it's always a
2:02
Speaker 6: good energy, good conversation.
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Speaker 4: This is the byproduct of dripping responsibly.
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Speaker 6: For sure.
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Speaker 4: These type of things happen, for sure, get to the
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Speaker 4: highest level, for sure. For sure.
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Speaker 6: Brandis Daniel So actually spoke at our event at New
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Speaker 6: York Fashion Week last year. Yeah, when we did with
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Speaker 6: United Messages in ally, and that was a legendary situation.
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Speaker 6: So you are the head of Harlem Fashion Row.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 6: Absolutely, and have done major collaborations Nike. Obviously we just
2:33
Speaker 6: talked about the lebron sneaker. We're go into detail about that.
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Speaker 6: A native of Memphis author, you brought us your books, yep,
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Speaker 6: thank you. Yes, family woman, you just said you dropped
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Speaker 6: your child off to your daughter.
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Speaker 8: I had a daughter, a seven year old well actually dog,
2:53
Speaker 8: she just had a birthday, eight years old.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure.
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Speaker 6: So now you live in New York. Started Memphis, but
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Speaker 6: now you're at Brooklyn night yep, so little change of scenery,
3:03
Speaker 6: colder weather. But yeah, but it's it's a lot to
3:10
Speaker 6: talk about.
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Speaker 3: You know.
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Speaker 6: We love to talk about fashion and entrepreneurship and working
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Speaker 6: with corporates and challenges and different things of that nature.
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Speaker 6: So I'm sure we'll have a very insightful conversation. So
3:20
Speaker 6: thank you for joining us.
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Speaker 2: Thank you for having me like.
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Speaker 8: I am so inspired by both of you and what
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Speaker 8: you've built with Earn your leisure. I'm mad I didn't
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Speaker 8: make invest fast because I was preparing for New York
3:31
Speaker 8: Fashion Week, but everything looked incredible.
3:34
Speaker 4: And thank you for inviting us to the show.
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Speaker 2: No, thank you for coming.
3:37
Speaker 4: It was an amazing show.
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Speaker 5: A lot of honorees were there, Kelly Rowland, O Boy
3:41
Speaker 5: Johnny and this shout out to him a legend. It
3:43
Speaker 5: was well put together that Rocky was honored that night. Yeah,
3:47
Speaker 5: it was a beautiful evening in.
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Speaker 4: Hallm I love it.
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Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm so happy y'all were able to make it.
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Speaker 6: Thank you. So all right, So let's for people that
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Speaker 6: don't know what is Harlem's fashion role.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, Harlem's fashion role.
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Speaker 8: We're premium agency based in New York City and our
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Speaker 8: goal is really like how do we become a bridge
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Speaker 8: between designers of color and brands, and so we do
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Speaker 8: that through a number of different ways. We have the
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Speaker 8: events like the one you guys came to in New York.
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Speaker 8: We do that through collaborations. We just dropped a collaboration
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Speaker 8: with Abercrombie and Fitch, which I'm actually wearing this DAP
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Speaker 8: jacket Dap jacket here, but everything else is Abercrombie and Fitch.
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Speaker 2: And then we also do HBCU.
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Speaker 8: We work with HBCU fashion departments as well, like trying
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Speaker 8: to get them to the place where they can actually
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Speaker 8: compete in this industry. So you know, it's all about
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Speaker 8: like how do we continue to elevate Black and LATINX designers.
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Speaker 2: That's the goal for us.
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Speaker 4: So we got the hall in Fashion Room, but the
4:44
Speaker 4: journey starts in Memphis.
4:45
Speaker 2: The journey started, there's a big gap.
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Speaker 4: In between it.
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Speaker 5: How do we get from Memphis, Tennessee out everybody in
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Speaker 5: Memphis to coming to New York with this this vision,
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Speaker 5: this thing that you want to create.
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Speaker 8: So I always wanted to do something in fashion right
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Speaker 8: but back and there were no shows like Project Runway.
5:02
Speaker 8: There was no Project Runway, there was no America's Tech
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Speaker 8: Next Top Model. I grew up in the seventies, so
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Speaker 8: people were like, go to school, you go for a doctor, lawyer,
5:10
Speaker 8: you know, all the traditional careers. And so when I
5:13
Speaker 8: went to school, that's what I went for. Premt end
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Speaker 8: up changing my major to fashion merchandising. Eventually after college,
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Speaker 8: got a job in Memphis, which is a long story,
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Speaker 8: but got a job in Memphis working for the only
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Speaker 8: buying office there. There was a store called Catherine's, which
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Speaker 8: is a plus sized women's store that was there, So
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Speaker 8: got that opportunity. Actually got offered a job by one
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Speaker 8: of my vendors from New York because we bought underwear
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Speaker 8: from a vendor in New York.
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Speaker 2: They offered me a job. That's how I got to
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Speaker 2: New York.
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Speaker 6: So, and how did you start the Halm fashion roll?
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Speaker 2: So I went to a show in Brooklyn.
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Speaker 8: It was at like this small restaurant and I'm sitting
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Speaker 8: there with a friend and I'm watching the models go
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Speaker 8: down the runway. And at the time, me and my
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Speaker 8: friends were throwing something called the Hottest Harlem House. So
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Speaker 8: I was also throwing Harlem brunches. So I was already
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Speaker 8: throwing events in Harlem, but never thought about doing anything
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Speaker 8: fashion related until I went to that show in Brooklyn
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Speaker 8: and I'm sitting there and I don't know if you
6:11
Speaker 8: ever had this happen, but like you get like an
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Speaker 8: idea or download, and it's like you can't even think
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Speaker 8: about anything else because that idea kind of takes over.
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Speaker 2: That's what happened.
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Speaker 8: At night, I'm watching the show and I'm like, you
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Speaker 8: need to do this in Harlem. And while I'm watching it,
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Speaker 8: like I literally see this event happening in Harlem. That
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Speaker 8: was in May of two thousand and seven, and because
6:32
Speaker 8: I didn't know any better, I put the event for
6:35
Speaker 8: August two thousand and seven, like a few months later,
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Speaker 8: I had no idea what I was doing and did
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Speaker 8: that event. But during the planning of that event, I
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Speaker 8: was like writing in a journal all of these ideas
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Speaker 8: I had for what this would be.
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Speaker 2: And yeah, and that event happened.
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Speaker 8: So you know when perfect by no means nothing about
6:56
Speaker 8: it was perfect. But I always say, like, that was
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Speaker 8: the most magical event I've ever done, because to see
7:03
Speaker 8: an idea that you have come to life. And I'm
7:06
Speaker 8: sure when you guys started investments, so when you started
7:08
Speaker 8: this podcast, like to see an idea like a physical
7:12
Speaker 8: representation of that, there's nothing like it.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, you sketched it in your mind and it comes
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Speaker 4: to life.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 5: And so at this time is it just you? Are
7:19
Speaker 5: you looking for people to help you? Is this a
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Speaker 5: solo mission? That that event that you're putting on and.
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Speaker 4: You said it wasn't perfect, which is great, but that's
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Speaker 4: part of the story, right, So what are some of
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Speaker 4: those things that you saw, Like as you started put
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Speaker 4: on more events, what was I thinking.
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Speaker 8: Oh my gosh, I mean, how much time you got?
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Speaker 8: You know, when I first started, I didn't. I always
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Speaker 8: brought people on, Like I was always about like how
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Speaker 8: do I get as many people to help me with
7:42
Speaker 8: this as possible. So the first person I brought on
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Speaker 8: with somebody who did PR. I didn't really even know
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Speaker 8: what PR was, but this woman had just started her
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Speaker 8: own agency. I'm like, can we can you come on
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Speaker 8: and do the PR for this event that I'm doing,
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Speaker 8: And that actually helped us get We got written up
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Speaker 8: in Women'swear Daily, which in fashion that is like the
8:04
Speaker 8: business publication that you want to look at all like
8:08
Speaker 8: retail CEOs and fashion read Women's Were Daily. So we
8:11
Speaker 8: were in Women's Were Daily, a small, small article, but
8:13
Speaker 8: I'm going to take that.
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Speaker 2: And then we were on style dot Com that very
8:17
Speaker 2: first year. And after that.
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Speaker 8: One of the things things that I did was I
8:21
Speaker 8: was like, how do I build community around this? So
8:24
Speaker 8: I started having luncheons and breakfasts and dinners and all
8:29
Speaker 8: stuff that I was self funding from my nine to
8:31
Speaker 8: five to bring a community around HFR. So my first
8:35
Speaker 8: like advisory board member was Audrey Smaltz, who owns the
8:39
Speaker 8: ground Crew. My second advisory board member was MICHAELA Angela Davis,
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Speaker 8: who was an editor at the time at Essence.
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Speaker 2: And I started bringing like the Bevy.
8:47
Speaker 8: Smiths and the Julie Wilson's and people to like kind
8:52
Speaker 8: of basically, I knew that I needed people around this
8:55
Speaker 8: who was championis in order for it to work.
8:58
Speaker 6: So you talked about the working with black brands and corporate.
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Speaker 6: So for people that's not even in the fashion world,
9:08
Speaker 6: why is it important for black brands to work with corporate?
9:11
Speaker 6: And what's the disparities from black brands working with corporate
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Speaker 6: as opposed to white brands working for corporate.
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Speaker 8: So two thousand and nine, I started to look for
9:20
Speaker 8: black designers to be a part of our second show.
9:22
Speaker 8: I couldn't really find any black designers. So naively, I said,
9:28
Speaker 8: let me go to the department stores where we shop.
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Speaker 2: I'm going down.
9:32
Speaker 8: The list of all the designers on the department store website.
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Speaker 8: Realized that less than one percent of the designers that
9:39
Speaker 8: were on those websites or black. Then I went and said, well,
9:44
Speaker 8: how much are we spending on apparel? In two thousand
9:47
Speaker 8: and nine, we were spending twenty two billion dollars a
9:50
Speaker 8: year on apparel product And I'm like, this is not
9:55
Speaker 8: matching up at all, Like, how do we represent less
9:58
Speaker 8: than one percent of the designer but at the same
10:01
Speaker 8: time we're spending all of this money on apparel, and
10:04
Speaker 8: at that point, I was like, how do I start
10:06
Speaker 8: to get more designers of color into department stores? And
10:11
Speaker 8: that was hard because for the first ten years of HFRS,
10:14
Speaker 8: retailers really didn't retailers and brands they weren't the ones
10:19
Speaker 8: really rocking with us. It was like brands like Verizon
10:22
Speaker 8: was sponsoring US, or at and T or Pandora Jewelry,
10:26
Speaker 8: or Prudential even was partnering with us.
10:29
Speaker 2: It was really difficult for us to get retailers.
10:32
Speaker 8: And so now I'm like, the more we can partner
10:36
Speaker 8: brands up with retailers. What it does is a w
10:40
Speaker 8: When the designer comes on board for a collaboration like
10:43
Speaker 8: the Abercrombie and Fitch one that I'm wearing, they can
10:46
Speaker 8: come in and they can just design. They get paid
10:48
Speaker 8: a rate that is fair for them. They can come
10:51
Speaker 8: in design, they don't have to worry about doing all
10:53
Speaker 8: the things. All the infrastructure is there for them, they
10:55
Speaker 8: don't have to worry about the manufacturing of it. So
10:58
Speaker 8: it's a win win for both the design and also
11:00
Speaker 8: for the brand because they get to tell this designer
11:03
Speaker 8: story and they get to tap into our culture, like.
11:05
Speaker 6: What designer is that the Abercrombie and Fish.
11:08
Speaker 8: This is Nicole Benefield. So she was one of the
11:10
Speaker 8: designers that we showed. She was the first designer that
11:13
Speaker 8: came out at the show.
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Speaker 6: So so Nicole Benefield has her own owning fashion line.
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Speaker 6: So she works with Abercrombie. Is it just abercromme or
11:24
Speaker 6: is it Abercrombie slash Nicole Benefield.
11:26
Speaker 8: It's it's I wish I had my jacket look I
11:29
Speaker 8: feel like showing so on the label it has at
11:35
Speaker 8: HFR Abercrombie and Fitch and the.
11:37
Speaker 2: Cold Benefit also everybody it's every part on the label.
11:40
Speaker 6: And then that helps her explain how that helps her.
11:44
Speaker 8: Yeah, so it exposes her to a whole different audience. Right,
11:49
Speaker 8: so now Nicole Benefield, So Abercrombie and Fitch is sending
11:53
Speaker 8: out marketing emails about Nicole Benefield to all of their
11:58
Speaker 8: their audience, right their email audien people are also learning
12:01
Speaker 8: about their her story because they did a lot of
12:03
Speaker 8: storytelling and the marketing of it. So it opens her
12:06
Speaker 8: up and you know, she also gets paid for that.
12:10
Speaker 5: This feels like when we talked to Steve Style what
12:12
Speaker 5: he was doing with corporate and hip hop, where it
12:14
Speaker 5: was he was merging the two. It feels like it's
12:16
Speaker 5: a similar story here where you're merging fashion with corporate
12:20
Speaker 5: in a sense, how do you find the emerging talent?
12:23
Speaker 5: So that Nicole is incredible, right, but I'm sure as
12:27
Speaker 5: your brand grows, people want.
12:28
Speaker 4: To be in front of you.
12:30
Speaker 5: So how do you decide and how do you identify
12:32
Speaker 5: the next emerging talent to say all right, this is
12:35
Speaker 5: worthy to be put with a brand.
12:36
Speaker 8: Yeah, So we have an online platform called Designer's Row,
12:40
Speaker 8: So any designer can go to our website, her Olmes,
12:43
Speaker 8: Fashion Road dot com and once they are in our database,
12:48
Speaker 8: they get invited to be a part of Designers Row.
12:51
Speaker 2: So really it's very organic. I have a team.
12:54
Speaker 8: My team is always scouting new talent. So Nicole Benefitl
12:57
Speaker 8: came to me through you know, someone who I knew
12:59
Speaker 8: who was like, hey, you should check out this designer.
13:02
Speaker 8: I'm always looking for who is a designer that I
13:04
Speaker 8: feel like has like a new perspective, like somebody who's
13:07
Speaker 8: bringing something new and interesting and has like a very
13:10
Speaker 8: clear aesthetic of what they have to contribute to this industry.
13:18
Speaker 8: And then what I also loved about her in particular
13:20
Speaker 8: was that she was she was. Her vision for where
13:24
Speaker 8: she was going was so clear when you looked at
13:28
Speaker 8: her aesthetic from like we show her collection last year too,
13:31
Speaker 8: twenty twenty two. So when you look at her collection
13:33
Speaker 8: from twenty twenty two to twenty twenty three, it looks
13:37
Speaker 8: like it's just an evolution. It didn't like it wasn't
13:40
Speaker 8: like one person here and then a whole different kind
13:43
Speaker 8: of ball game on this side. Her vision is really
13:48
Speaker 8: clear her aesthetic. I think it's something that the industry needs.
13:51
Speaker 8: She is a just a dope human because we're also
13:54
Speaker 8: we only work with dope humans with good character, right right,
14:00
Speaker 8: And so we knew when Abercrombie came to us and
14:02
Speaker 8: was like, hey, we want to do a collab HFR
14:04
Speaker 8: like we either Sometimes we'll give a brand like three
14:08
Speaker 8: or four options. That's what we did with Nike and Lebron.
14:10
Speaker 8: Actually we gave them three options and they were like,
14:12
Speaker 8: we can't choose, so we're gonna.
14:13
Speaker 2: Choose all three.
14:15
Speaker 8: With Abercrombie, we were like, here's the option. She's the one,
14:20
Speaker 8: and they were like, we trust you.
14:21
Speaker 5: How social media you said you started in two thousand
14:24
Speaker 5: and nine with that vision. At this time, Facebook is prominent,
14:27
Speaker 5: but Instagram isn't yet.
14:29
Speaker 2: There's social media. Thank god, there was no social media.
14:31
Speaker 4: How does that change?
14:33
Speaker 5: I guess the work that you're doing, right, because I
14:35
Speaker 5: feel like everybody now has a look book on Instagram.
14:38
Speaker 2: It definitely changes. Like I'm able to see designers.
14:41
Speaker 8: I'm able to literally go to a designer's Instagram page
14:44
Speaker 8: and like walk into their world like quickly, and I
14:48
Speaker 8: can tell so much just by scrolling up.
14:51
Speaker 6: So okay, so what is the problem. Why is there
14:53
Speaker 6: not a lot of black designers? What's the what's stopping
14:59
Speaker 6: black design from becoming mainstream or penetrating that market? Less
15:04
Speaker 6: than you said, one percent of the money from black
15:07
Speaker 6: people go to black designers.
15:08
Speaker 8: Yeah, when you think about the designers who have made it.
15:12
Speaker 6: And exactly right, you said one percent.
15:13
Speaker 2: Less than one percent, it's maybe three percent.
15:16
Speaker 6: Now, the money that black people spend on clothes, no less.
15:19
Speaker 8: Than one percent of the designer sold on major department
15:22
Speaker 8: stores website.
15:23
Speaker 6: Okay, do you know how much percent black people spend
15:26
Speaker 6: on on apparels on like black designers.
15:30
Speaker 8: So here's interesting. I don't know how much they spend
15:33
Speaker 8: on black designers. But McKenzie released the study. So by
15:36
Speaker 8: the year twenty thirty, we're going to spend Black people
15:39
Speaker 8: are going to spend seventy billion dollars a year on apparel.
15:44
Speaker 8: The other thing that was interesting about that study is
15:46
Speaker 8: that black black people are three times more likely to
15:49
Speaker 8: switch brands if it's a black founder or black creative brand.
15:54
Speaker 8: That just really happened, I think after twenty twenty. I
15:58
Speaker 8: feel like after twenty twenty, we all were like, like,
16:00
Speaker 8: if we're gonna.
16:02
Speaker 2: Make it, we got to take care of ourselves.
16:05
Speaker 8: And so with that though, that's a huge I think
16:09
Speaker 8: opportunity for brands, is a huge opportunity for an investor
16:14
Speaker 8: who wants to really invest in black brands as well,
16:17
Speaker 8: because consumers are now ready to shop the black brands.
16:20
Speaker 8: But the challenge is we don't have the infrastructure. So
16:23
Speaker 8: imagine if we had like an LV and MAGE, like
16:27
Speaker 8: a holding company, an LVMH or Caring or Tapestry or
16:31
Speaker 8: you know, an Authentic Groups type brand or something like
16:33
Speaker 8: that that was a holding company that provided all of
16:36
Speaker 8: the infrastructure for black designers, like think about that, right,
16:41
Speaker 8: and they provided all the operations, the manufacturing partnerships.
16:46
Speaker 2: That that's what we've been missing.
16:48
Speaker 8: Like, if we had that, the opportunity for black brands
16:52
Speaker 8: and where they could go is really limitless. What we've
16:55
Speaker 8: been missing really is the funding, the infrastructure, operational capacity,
17:01
Speaker 8: the manufacturing kind of you address those things like there's
17:05
Speaker 8: no limit to how far we can go, and it's
17:07
Speaker 8: kind of crazy that no one has really seen that
17:11
Speaker 8: as an opportunity.
17:12
Speaker 6: Well, I think Kanye spoke about that. That's when he
17:15
Speaker 6: was I want to go back to that, but before
17:17
Speaker 6: let's go, let's talk about this. Then when Yay was
17:20
Speaker 6: like he didn't have the infrastructure pretty much paraphrasing, and
17:25
Speaker 6: that's when Sway that legendary conversation with him and Swist.
17:30
Speaker 6: That's what you're referring to. Because LVMHOR. Everybody hears about LVMH.
17:33
Speaker 6: What exactly does LVMH. What do they do? We know
17:37
Speaker 6: that they own all of these luxury brands, but you say,
17:39
Speaker 6: the wholding company provides infrastructure, So what exactly does LVMH
17:44
Speaker 6: do for all of these brands that their own have
17:47
Speaker 6: ownership in?
17:48
Speaker 2: They provide the revenue for those brands.
17:51
Speaker 8: That's a big piece of it, which then allows them
17:54
Speaker 8: to be able to do proper marketing and it also
17:57
Speaker 8: allows them to tap into LVMH's infrastructure. So what is
18:00
Speaker 8: that like accounting, manufacturing support, operational support, like those are
18:08
Speaker 8: the things that a lot of times smaller brands are
18:11
Speaker 8: struggling with cash flow, you know, which is a problem
18:15
Speaker 8: for all small businesses.
18:16
Speaker 2: You don't have to imagine if you could just go create.
18:22
Speaker 8: And and and do the things that you actually love
18:24
Speaker 8: in a business without having to worry about all of
18:27
Speaker 8: the business operations of what it takes, because that's what
18:31
Speaker 8: takes small businesses out. It's the cash flow, it's the
18:35
Speaker 8: you know, the accounting.
18:38
Speaker 6: Piece was y correct in his assessment, but I.
18:41
Speaker 2: Feel like Yay also could have ye in a.
18:45
Speaker 5: Sense because even for the LVMH, they have a bunch
18:48
Speaker 5: of companies, but there's really like probably five or six
18:51
Speaker 5: that account for most of the revenue absolutely.
18:53
Speaker 2: I mean lous of a ton is like they're number one, never.
18:54
Speaker 5: One by far yes, right, and then there's like forty
18:57
Speaker 5: other brands. Yes, they don't generate as much, not even close, right,
19:00
Speaker 5: and so it can offset some things just infrastructure. From
19:04
Speaker 5: what I'm hearing, it sounds like let's just use Harlem
19:07
Speaker 5: Fast role as the holding company for black brands in
19:10
Speaker 5: the sense where Tel Far can exist under the inn,
19:12
Speaker 5: theicole benefit. They could all exist under there, and then
19:15
Speaker 5: we can grow together. I feel like what we've seen,
19:17
Speaker 5: especially from our designers, is very individualistic. It's like, I mean,
19:21
Speaker 5: we can.
19:22
Speaker 4: Use Shawn jump by itself, full by.
19:24
Speaker 5: It so, but there's not one piece that holds it
19:27
Speaker 5: all together to say, let's build so we can have
19:29
Speaker 5: an LBMA type situation.
19:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.
19:31
Speaker 8: Absolutely, Like if you look at the fact that Tapestry
19:34
Speaker 8: just Balker pre holdings right right, that's going to make
19:37
Speaker 8: it one of the largest, you know, fashion conglomerates in
19:41
Speaker 8: the US if it hasn't already done that. So if
19:47
Speaker 8: we had that, even if we started with three brands,
19:50
Speaker 8: it would it would it would be building upon something
19:54
Speaker 8: that could be like a legacy like or huge legacy brand.
20:00
Speaker 8: I just see there's a lot of opportunity there because
20:02
Speaker 8: consumers are ready, consumers are ready to shop black brands.
20:06
Speaker 4: It goes back. I mean, it's part of that that
20:08
Speaker 4: process of us trusting each other, yeah, and having partnership.
20:12
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely.
20:13
Speaker 5: Do you feel like what you're doing now is setting
20:16
Speaker 5: the trend for that because you are finding brands right now,
20:19
Speaker 5: it's partnering them with corporate but at a certain point
20:22
Speaker 5: do we lean toward more of that.
20:24
Speaker 4: All right, let's have create this infrastructure.
20:26
Speaker 2: I would love to with the right investment. It's gonna
20:30
Speaker 2: take a lot of money, but not a lot like
20:33
Speaker 2: ten million.
20:35
Speaker 6: Tam million, Yeah, that's it million what to build that.
20:38
Speaker 2: I think to start it, to start that infrastructure.
20:40
Speaker 6: But they start it comes a thing where it's like fabrics,
20:44
Speaker 6: even fabrics, right, And this was like when yay I
20:47
Speaker 6: was talking to somebody and they was like when they
20:49
Speaker 6: went to Milan and they was like it was hard
20:53
Speaker 6: for people to fully understand what ye was talking about.
20:55
Speaker 6: But it was like even the fabric is different, Like
20:57
Speaker 6: you got to actually go to Italy to actually have
21:00
Speaker 6: access to the richest level of fabric. So it's it's
21:05
Speaker 6: almost like a monopoly that the fashion houses have, which
21:10
Speaker 6: makes it hard, especially like to grow like a luxury brand.
21:13
Speaker 8: Yeah, there's always a way to get around stuff. And
21:18
Speaker 8: there are so many different fabric manufacturers in the world.
21:21
Speaker 8: You're talking about the world, Like, there are so many
21:24
Speaker 8: fabric manufacturers in the world, and a lot of that
21:26
Speaker 8: stuff is built on relationships, so you know, but who
21:30
Speaker 8: has the resources to go to Italy stay in Italy
21:34
Speaker 8: for a bit and build the relationships with the manufacturers.
21:38
Speaker 2: Not a lot of black designers have that opportunity.
21:41
Speaker 6: Well, that's what I'm saying.
21:42
Speaker 9: So so.
21:44
Speaker 6: I was like, all right, Virgil, right, he was somebody
21:48
Speaker 6: that had off White yep. But and then that had
21:53
Speaker 6: raised questions about off White, like is it a black
21:58
Speaker 6: was it a black owned brand? But now it's like,
22:01
Speaker 6: all right, well, if you get help from the outside,
22:06
Speaker 6: you they have resources that you might not have. Right So,
22:09
Speaker 6: as a black owned company, like I feel like, how
22:11
Speaker 6: far can you go if you're just always just incubated
22:16
Speaker 6: as just being black.
22:18
Speaker 8: That's a great question for SHI because our community would
22:21
Speaker 8: throw we'd throw each other on.
22:22
Speaker 2: The bus for getting outside investment.
22:25
Speaker 6: Shout out today, I'm just saying that that's what that
22:28
Speaker 6: was as what he said, that was a topic.
22:30
Speaker 8: So definitely shout out to Dab. I'm actually representing that today.
22:35
Speaker 8: I was like, let me, let me bring him in
22:38
Speaker 8: the building with me. We got to get over that though,
22:42
Speaker 8: Like in order to grow and scale stuff, we can't say,
22:45
Speaker 8: you know what, we're not able to grow as big
22:49
Speaker 8: as the other brands. But the other brands were willing
22:51
Speaker 8: to take investment and sometime that investment, you know, like
22:57
Speaker 8: for example Tommy Hill figure when after he went bank
23:00
Speaker 8: rub he partnered with the factory overseas. That was his
23:04
Speaker 8: main investor, right, That's how he was able to bring
23:08
Speaker 8: his brand back.
23:09
Speaker 2: And so.
23:11
Speaker 8: We have to allow people to grow our community. We
23:15
Speaker 8: have to allow brands to grow. And sometimes that's going
23:18
Speaker 8: to mean that you're going to get investment from people
23:20
Speaker 8: that's not like you.
23:22
Speaker 2: But at the end of the.
23:23
Speaker 8: Day, if you can grow and do your thing, Look,
23:26
Speaker 8: think about the opportunities that they can open up for
23:28
Speaker 8: so many other people.
23:30
Speaker 2: Like, we can't keep stunting our growth by.
23:32
Speaker 8: Saying the only way we're going to grow is if
23:35
Speaker 8: I get money from a black owned.
23:37
Speaker 5: So how do we create that evolution? Because I feel
23:41
Speaker 5: like for our brands there's like a time limit, there's
23:44
Speaker 5: a time stample on them. It's like you're going to
23:46
Speaker 5: be hot for five to ten years, then it's over
23:49
Speaker 5: and then there's a new brand. So how do we
23:51
Speaker 5: manage that level of consistency. I like what you said
23:54
Speaker 5: about when you watch Nicoles. Look you said that I
23:57
Speaker 5: can see the evolution. Look, that's important because we need
24:01
Speaker 5: to have something that sustainable, like a raffle lorand or
24:03
Speaker 5: a temmy. These brands have been here for decades. How
24:07
Speaker 5: do we get to that point?
24:08
Speaker 8: Like, for us, we have to be willing to give
24:11
Speaker 8: up some equity and we have to be willing to
24:14
Speaker 8: bring in some investors because it is very hard to
24:19
Speaker 8: grow and scale without capital, and so many of us
24:25
Speaker 8: are are designers. Will say to me, I can't get
24:28
Speaker 8: anybody to invest in my brand, And I said, oh,
24:29
Speaker 8: how many investors have you pitched? And then they're like,
24:33
Speaker 8: they're like, oh, I said this to one person, and
24:36
Speaker 8: I was like, when you can't send your deck, your
24:38
Speaker 8: investment deck to one person and then say you can't
24:41
Speaker 8: find investors or send me your investment deck, I actually
24:45
Speaker 8: know a couple of people who might be interested. And
24:47
Speaker 8: you know, we have to do what we need to
24:51
Speaker 8: do to get what we need to get in order
24:53
Speaker 8: to grow.
24:55
Speaker 5: To follow up with that, because that's interesting because I
24:56
Speaker 5: don't think we've ever talked about what does that pitch
24:58
Speaker 5: look like? From the fashion well, we know in the
25:00
Speaker 5: world of business there's like you got to have these
25:02
Speaker 5: things when we're trying is it similar or are there
25:04
Speaker 5: some nuances that you have to have?
25:06
Speaker 2: Now it's similar.
25:07
Speaker 8: Now, I will tell you fashion businesses are harder to
25:09
Speaker 8: get investment for because people don't feel like it's as
25:12
Speaker 8: sure as like a tech company. But I think that
25:15
Speaker 8: if you can show your community like you have a
25:19
Speaker 8: much more you have much more of an opportunity to
25:24
Speaker 8: actually get investment if you've got a big community. So
25:26
Speaker 8: like some designers like Honefa, like she has a huge
25:30
Speaker 8: community of like black women. I mean she's killing it
25:33
Speaker 8: and shout out to her. You know, Telvar has a
25:37
Speaker 8: huge community, So there are some people who got huge.
25:39
Speaker 8: If you can build out that community piece, I think
25:42
Speaker 8: you can really approach the investment like any other business would.
25:45
Speaker 4: There's another woman. I'm thinking of my wife Bis all
25:47
Speaker 4: the time. That stuff is in Target Pheenoel, Oh my god. Yes,
25:52
Speaker 4: community Pheno l.
25:53
Speaker 2: You know she was one of the designers on the Sneaker.
25:56
Speaker 4: I know a name. We actually ran into her by
26:00
Speaker 4: a mistake on the street.
26:01
Speaker 8: Yeah, she's so fe is so dope. She has a
26:04
Speaker 8: store now in Brooklyn too.
26:06
Speaker 4: Yeah. I know I can see my charges. I can
26:09
Speaker 4: see them. It's an investment fee exactly exactly.
26:13
Speaker 6: And it's also like you know, you look at like Milano,
26:19
Speaker 6: like you know she's both a great following. So it's
26:20
Speaker 6: like I think poof of concept. It's like any business,
26:22
Speaker 6: like you got attraction. Nobody's going to invest in a
26:24
Speaker 6: business if you have a thousand followers and you sold
26:28
Speaker 6: ten T shirts, Like it's too risky, right, But if
26:31
Speaker 6: you can develop proof of concept. But the hardest part
26:33
Speaker 6: is to actually get to a point where you're already successful.
26:36
Speaker 6: So there would be some tips that you would give
26:38
Speaker 6: to some Because everybody wants to do fashion, usually they
26:41
Speaker 6: start with like T shirts, hoodies, sweatsuits, is like easy
26:44
Speaker 6: to produce that type of garments or hats, stuff like that.
26:47
Speaker 6: What would your advice be for people that want to
26:50
Speaker 6: start a clothing business?
26:52
Speaker 8: I think first like have a really clear vision, you know,
26:56
Speaker 8: like no, not just where you want to start, but
26:59
Speaker 8: where you want to end, Like where do you want
27:01
Speaker 8: to land?
27:01
Speaker 2: Who do you see your brand sitting next to?
27:03
Speaker 8: Because that is like the number one question always people
27:07
Speaker 8: want to kind of know, like where do you want
27:08
Speaker 8: to fit into the market. I think having that clear
27:12
Speaker 8: vision also helps you decide like what you take on
27:14
Speaker 8: and what you don't take on, what partnerships you take
27:16
Speaker 8: and what partnerships you don't take who do you actually
27:19
Speaker 8: give your product to and who you decide not to
27:21
Speaker 8: gift it to. So I would say start with the vision.
27:25
Speaker 8: Then I think building out a community is like so important,
27:29
Speaker 8: like that community piece. I mean, that's how we've grown.
27:32
Speaker 8: HFR has been our community. So building out the community
27:35
Speaker 8: piece is really important because you need somebody to sell to,
27:40
Speaker 8: and a lot of times designers spend a whole lot
27:42
Speaker 8: of time designing product that they love and they have
27:45
Speaker 8: nobody to sell it to. And the third thing I
27:49
Speaker 8: would say is like, build relationships with the fashion industry,
27:52
Speaker 8: because whether you love it or not like it, those
27:55
Speaker 8: are important relationships to have.
27:57
Speaker 6: How did you build your community?
27:59
Speaker 8: Yeah, so again, like the my community when I first
28:04
Speaker 8: started was really built by doing lunches. Lunches, I sent
28:08
Speaker 8: cupcakes out all the time to people. I sent personalized
28:12
Speaker 8: cards out to people all the time. I researched when
28:15
Speaker 8: people's birthdays were and sent them books.
28:19
Speaker 2: I was really, really, really As a matter of fact,
28:21
Speaker 2: I was working.
28:21
Speaker 8: I worked with Steve stous Agency, and the way I
28:24
Speaker 8: started working with them they brought on my first sponsor
28:27
Speaker 8: was by sending a cake to the office.
28:28
Speaker 2: I sent a whole cake to the office.
28:30
Speaker 8: And my strategy was when this cake is in the office,
28:33
Speaker 8: people are going to say whose birthday is it?
28:35
Speaker 2: And then they're like, it's nobody's birthday, Well who got
28:37
Speaker 2: who brought the cake?
28:38
Speaker 8: Our olose fashion roles sent the cake, and I knew
28:40
Speaker 8: that that would be the story around the office. So
28:42
Speaker 8: it's like, how do you do things that are just
28:45
Speaker 8: different to kind of like get people talking in terms
28:48
Speaker 8: of the like the fashion insiders. That was you know,
28:52
Speaker 8: me reaching out cold email. I cold emailed Stephen Cole
28:56
Speaker 8: from the c the c OH the CFDA and asked them,
29:00
Speaker 8: will you come to a conversation with me in Harlem?
29:02
Speaker 8: And he came in Harlem and we had a conversation
29:03
Speaker 8: at the Shamberg. You know, Well, twenty twenty happened and
29:09
Speaker 8: then a whole lot of people started to reach out,
29:12
Speaker 8: you know. I that was when I built my relationship
29:15
Speaker 8: with Anna Wintor was in twenty twenty, but that came
29:17
Speaker 8: through the relationship with Stephen Cobe, who I had reached
29:20
Speaker 8: out to seven years earlier, you know. So it's it's
29:25
Speaker 8: not being afraid to reach it, to reach out to
29:28
Speaker 8: people and to kind of meet them halfway.
29:30
Speaker 5: What was that like the conversation with Anna wint who
29:34
Speaker 5: was looked at as, you know, the person when it
29:36
Speaker 5: comes to fashion. Everybody knows her from all her work
29:39
Speaker 5: and Vogue, But what was that like for you coming
29:41
Speaker 5: from Memphis building this brand and having that moment.
29:45
Speaker 8: So I've never told this story, but I got a
29:49
Speaker 8: call from Anna Wintor's office on a Saturday morning. It
29:56
Speaker 8: was the morning of my sister's wedding, and I wasn't it.
30:01
Speaker 8: And the first thing she said is I told her,
30:03
Speaker 8: It's like, oh, it's you know, my sister's wedding, and she's.
30:05
Speaker 2: Like, what are you wearing?
30:08
Speaker 4: Good question?
30:09
Speaker 8: But they ended up her and the CFDA ended up
30:13
Speaker 8: giving a million dollars to our nonprofit that we started
30:16
Speaker 8: in twenty twenty. But that first conversation with her was
30:20
Speaker 8: actually a real conversation because at the time, there was
30:24
Speaker 8: so much going on, like George Floyd had just been murdered.
30:27
Speaker 8: Companies were finally saying, wait, we don't have any black
30:30
Speaker 8: people in our office, like are we doing enough?
30:33
Speaker 2: So it was a really probably one of.
30:36
Speaker 8: The realist conversations someone has has had with someone like her,
30:43
Speaker 8: But we had a real conversation. We talked about like
30:46
Speaker 8: what she could do from her and we did some
30:49
Speaker 8: things with some HBCUs through her team at the time.
30:52
Speaker 8: And then what was crazy though, was in twenty twenty one,
30:57
Speaker 8: she showed up to our fashion event.
31:00
Speaker 2: We held it on a street in Harlem.
31:02
Speaker 8: Nobody knew she was coming, and so she pulls up
31:06
Speaker 8: on the block on one thirty seventh Street to present
31:08
Speaker 8: the award to Carlos Nazaria, who is an incredible stylist,
31:14
Speaker 8: and the whole block people were like, is that Annah
31:18
Speaker 8: went tour walking down one thirty seventh Street? But that
31:23
Speaker 8: was like a huge moment for us, a really big
31:27
Speaker 8: moment for us, and we had it. We did the
31:29
Speaker 8: fashion show on the stoop of my apartment that I
31:32
Speaker 8: used to live in in Harlem. We're actually the idea
31:35
Speaker 8: for HFR was burt. So She's standing inside the apartment
31:39
Speaker 8: and I was like, Anna, I need to get a
31:41
Speaker 8: picture of you inside the apartment because this is like.
31:46
Speaker 2: A full circle moment and She's like it is. She
31:49
Speaker 2: was like it is.
31:50
Speaker 8: I was like yeah, And so we got the I
31:52
Speaker 8: got this photo of she and I inside that apartment,
31:55
Speaker 8: which I'm like, I keep this actually up on top
31:58
Speaker 8: of my desk.
32:00
Speaker 6: Talk about the collaboration with Nike with Leroy, how'd that
32:03
Speaker 6: come about?
32:04
Speaker 8: So twenty seventeen our tenth year in business, hardest year ever.
32:09
Speaker 8: I thought every brand was gonna want to partner with
32:11
Speaker 8: us and like, come on board. Really no one did.
32:15
Speaker 8: It was really, really tough. I lost money that year,
32:19
Speaker 8: put money on my husband's credit card. It was a
32:22
Speaker 8: whole situation, and I kind of said, you know what
32:27
Speaker 8: if I do anything next. I wanted to be a
32:30
Speaker 8: real collaboration with the product, but I didn't know how.
32:33
Speaker 2: That would come about.
32:35
Speaker 8: But I feel like words have so much power and
32:38
Speaker 8: intentions have so much power.
32:40
Speaker 2: So in September was our event that was really tough.
32:44
Speaker 8: And November I did an event in Memphis because I've
32:47
Speaker 8: committed to doing something in Memphis every five years. I
32:50
Speaker 8: feel like you should always get back to where you
32:52
Speaker 8: came from. And after that event, I got an email
32:56
Speaker 8: from someone who said, Hey, there's an athletic company that
33:00
Speaker 8: wants to do something with black designers. That's all I
33:04
Speaker 8: can tell you. I'll send you over if you're interested,
33:07
Speaker 8: I'll send you to NDA. And I'm like, sure, I'm interested.
33:11
Speaker 8: I know my mind was not thinking in a million
33:16
Speaker 8: years that it was Nike. So the NDA comes through
33:18
Speaker 8: with the swoosh on it and I was like, wait what,
33:21
Speaker 8: I didn't send it to my attorney.
33:23
Speaker 2: I just signed the thing and sent it back.
33:26
Speaker 8: And then the next day I'm on a phone call
33:29
Speaker 8: with the brand manager for Lebron at Nike, and it
33:33
Speaker 8: just felt so unreal because I was just in this
33:37
Speaker 8: place of like, man, I don't even know where to
33:39
Speaker 8: go from here. And now I'm on a call with
33:41
Speaker 8: the brand manager from Lebron and she's talking about the
33:44
Speaker 8: fact that Lebron was like interviewing on this bouncy ball
33:47
Speaker 8: in the Nike corporate offices and they were calling him
33:50
Speaker 8: the strongest and he was like, no, I'm not the
33:52
Speaker 8: strongest black women on the strongest.
33:54
Speaker 2: My mom is the strongest.
33:56
Speaker 8: And they decided there was a woman there who worked
33:59
Speaker 8: on his team, black woman who was like, I want
34:01
Speaker 8: to do something with that, and that was how that
34:04
Speaker 8: sneaker came about. And so she was like, just send
34:07
Speaker 8: me over some designers that we can potentially work with
34:10
Speaker 8: on this sneaker, and I created a whole deck for them.
34:13
Speaker 8: She was like, just send me an email with their
34:14
Speaker 8: websites and I was like, nope, So.
34:16
Speaker 2: I told their whole stories.
34:18
Speaker 8: Three designers told their stories why I felt like they
34:21
Speaker 8: resonated with what he had said.
34:25
Speaker 2: And erness what's up.
34:28
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Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
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Speaker 1: If you are here illegally, your next you will be
36:56
Speaker 1: fined nearly one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned, and deported.
37:00
Speaker 2: You will never return.
37:01
Speaker 1: But if you register using our CBP home app and
37:04
Speaker 1: leave now, you could be allowed.
37:06
Speaker 2: To return legally.
37:08
Speaker 1: Do what's right. Leave now under President Trump America's laws
37:13
Speaker 1: order and families will be protected.
37:15
Speaker 3: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
37:17
Speaker 8: They hit me back and was like, we can't pick
37:19
Speaker 8: just one designers. We've like printed out the deck you sent,
37:22
Speaker 8: we put it on the wall.
37:23
Speaker 2: We want all three.
37:25
Speaker 8: And we were in Portland with about twenty people from
37:28
Speaker 8: their team maybe two weeks later, and.
37:32
Speaker 6: That was three different versions.
37:35
Speaker 2: It's two different versions.
37:37
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was the white one kind of the off
37:39
Speaker 8: white one, and then also cit tron like.
37:42
Speaker 4: Or yeah.
37:43
Speaker 8: So when we had the meeting where we talked about,
37:47
Speaker 8: you know, well, so here's what's funny.
37:50
Speaker 2: So we go into this meeting because me and all.
37:53
Speaker 8: The designers were at like just a really low place
37:56
Speaker 8: in our lives and in our businesses. I was like,
37:58
Speaker 8: we're going to go in here and we're gonna be
37:59
Speaker 8: fully ourselves. Like we didn't dress in Nikes. We dress
38:03
Speaker 8: how we normally dressed. We were the most dressed up
38:06
Speaker 8: people in Nike. But I said, we're gonna go in
38:08
Speaker 8: here and be our full selves and we're gonna tell
38:10
Speaker 8: our real stories. So we got in we tell our
38:13
Speaker 8: stories and the Nike. The woman from Nike was like,
38:18
Speaker 8: all right, let's get ready to you know, talk about
38:21
Speaker 8: this project. And I said, you know what, we're excited
38:25
Speaker 8: to hear about this project. But we just told y'all
38:28
Speaker 8: our stories, like that's deeply personal and we don't know
38:33
Speaker 8: anything about you guys. Would you be willing to share
38:36
Speaker 8: your stories with us? And they Lin Merritt started off,
38:40
Speaker 8: you guys know what he is. He was the one
38:42
Speaker 8: who like signed lebron and found when he was thirteen.
38:45
Speaker 8: He's like the og at Nike. So lem Merritt started
38:48
Speaker 8: the story off talking about when he was in Kansas City,
38:51
Speaker 8: he was a little boy, he was poor. He used
38:53
Speaker 8: to look up at the airplanes and say, one day
38:55
Speaker 8: he would be on an airplane. Than Teet, who works
38:58
Speaker 8: with Lynn next and he's talking and then we get
39:01
Speaker 8: all these stories. So by the time we actually get
39:04
Speaker 8: to the project, we're so connected because we know each
39:08
Speaker 8: other at that point. And so when the designers go
39:12
Speaker 8: into design, it's literally like looking at magic. I was
39:15
Speaker 8: sitting back there with the team and we're just looking
39:18
Speaker 8: at them.
39:18
Speaker 2: Just go for it.
39:20
Speaker 8: One of the most amazing experiences of my life was
39:24
Speaker 8: watching them code design that sneaker.
39:27
Speaker 4: Did. Was there a reaction at to when Broun actually
39:31
Speaker 4: sold the show?
39:32
Speaker 2: Yes, So when.
39:34
Speaker 8: Lebron actually saw the shoe, we met him in New York.
39:36
Speaker 8: He saw the sneaker. You see the bracelet around it, right,
39:40
Speaker 8: So the designers actually designed that so that you can
39:43
Speaker 8: wear it around your wrist or you can wear it
39:45
Speaker 8: as a choker.
39:46
Speaker 2: And so.
39:48
Speaker 8: When we were telling the story about the sneaker, one
39:51
Speaker 8: of the designers said, Lebron, the sneaker is amazing, but
39:54
Speaker 8: I want you to know outside of the sneaker, like,
39:57
Speaker 8: because of this collaboration, we built this incredible sisterhood. And
40:02
Speaker 8: people talk about black women not being able to collaborate
40:05
Speaker 8: and that we're always in competition, but these are my
40:07
Speaker 8: sisters now. And he looked at them and he was like,
40:11
Speaker 8: that's the story I want to tell. I want to
40:13
Speaker 8: tell that story. And then when they showed him how
40:16
Speaker 8: the bracelet went around the wrist and the neck, oh god,
40:20
Speaker 8: he went nuts. He was like, wait a minute, people
40:22
Speaker 8: about to be wearing my lugo around her neck.
40:25
Speaker 2: So it was a really really dope moment.
40:27
Speaker 8: But he was so intentional about the story that was
40:30
Speaker 8: told around the sneaker because the fact that it involved
40:34
Speaker 8: black women.
40:34
Speaker 6: You spoke to him, Yeah, how was he to work?
40:36
Speaker 8: He was very nice and we honored him that year,
40:39
Speaker 8: So we actually launched a sneaker at our event in
40:43
Speaker 8: twenty eighteen.
40:45
Speaker 2: Honored him that year.
40:47
Speaker 8: Got a chance to dress Savannah for that event with
40:52
Speaker 8: Kimberly Golsen that's a designer that she wore.
40:54
Speaker 2: And Maverick was there.
40:57
Speaker 8: Rich was there, His whole Nike team was there, is
41:00
Speaker 8: It's Vanna was there, Is, Gloria was.
41:02
Speaker 4: There, Zori was there, the whole team.
41:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were all there to see him except that award,
41:08
Speaker 2: which was really dope.
41:10
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the shoe has been successful as a sneakerhead,
41:12
Speaker 4: I was not able to get my hands on them.
41:14
Speaker 2: It's sold down in less than five minutes, which makes.
41:16
Speaker 4: That how great the shoe is. And it still has
41:19
Speaker 4: held its value.
41:19
Speaker 5: I think you now it's still selling on like stock
41:23
Speaker 5: X and th for like seven hundred hundred dollars.
41:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, which furthermore lets you know how great the shoe is.
41:27
Speaker 4: So congratulations, thank you.
41:30
Speaker 5: So you have partnerships with Nike, you said, Arrow Kanbe Timberland.
41:34
Speaker 5: How do you go about finding the right strategic partner
41:37
Speaker 5: for some of these brands because every brand is not
41:39
Speaker 5: going to fit what Harlem Fashion Road represents and you know,
41:43
Speaker 5: fit with the designer represents. So how do you go
41:45
Speaker 5: about doing that?
41:46
Speaker 6: Yeah?
41:47
Speaker 8: Sometimes you know the brand. Sometimes the brands will reach
41:49
Speaker 8: out to us. Sometimes we reach out to the brand.
41:53
Speaker 8: I think when we had that first conversation, we usually
41:55
Speaker 8: know our team know like are they about.
41:58
Speaker 2: About this life or are they not.
42:01
Speaker 8: You know, do they really want to support black designers
42:03
Speaker 8: or you know not really? So, so we we usually
42:09
Speaker 8: know and like that first call like is this something
42:12
Speaker 8: that we want to move forward with? And then you know,
42:18
Speaker 8: following our instincts on that. Sometimes it's hard because we've
42:22
Speaker 8: also turned down really really big lucrative deals, but following
42:27
Speaker 8: our instincts on that We've had like successful collaboration after
42:31
Speaker 8: success coul collaborate. This one is doing really well, the
42:34
Speaker 8: Abercrombie one right now. We did one with Banana Republic
42:38
Speaker 8: a few years ago with designer Charles Harbison. That one
42:42
Speaker 8: be all gross margin expectations by three digits. I can't
42:46
Speaker 8: give you the exact number, but blew it out the water.
42:50
Speaker 8: And so you know, collabse have been major for us,
42:55
Speaker 8: and I think a really great opportunity for the designers.
42:58
Speaker 5: How does that work strategically without givings ccific numbers hypothetically? Right,
43:01
Speaker 5: I have the brand, I have the designer, we have
43:04
Speaker 5: your company in the middle.
43:05
Speaker 2: Yep.
43:06
Speaker 4: How does that work?
43:07
Speaker 5: Do they say this is a number that we're willing
43:09
Speaker 5: to pay to have the brand aside? And that happens,
43:13
Speaker 5: and do the sales dictate you know the amount of
43:16
Speaker 5: royalties that people get?
43:18
Speaker 4: Like, how does this work?
43:19
Speaker 8: Yeah? So, so we always wanted to be like transparent.
43:22
Speaker 8: So HFAR gets like an agency fee and we get
43:26
Speaker 8: a licensing fee if they use the HFR logo on it. Right,
43:30
Speaker 8: But then we negotiate the designer's fee separately because we
43:33
Speaker 8: always want like whatever needs to go to the designer
43:36
Speaker 8: needs to go to the designer, so we work that
43:38
Speaker 8: out with the designer.
43:39
Speaker 2: Sometimes we come to.
43:40
Speaker 8: The table and the brand will say like, this is
43:42
Speaker 8: our number, and we like know what that number is.
43:45
Speaker 8: But in most situations we're able to go to the
43:48
Speaker 8: designer and say, do you feel good about this number?
43:50
Speaker 8: This is the number we want to go to the
43:51
Speaker 8: brand with. So once we do that the brand, then
43:55
Speaker 8: you know, it flows through HFR. But the designer gets
43:58
Speaker 8: the number like their whole number. We don't take anything
44:01
Speaker 8: from that. Then HFR charges our agency fee and then
44:05
Speaker 8: we split royalties.
44:07
Speaker 6: So you wrote a book called Small Business, Big Partnerships,
44:11
Speaker 6: and it talks about how to track, secure, and maintain
44:13
Speaker 6: partnerships with big brands. So can you give us some
44:16
Speaker 6: insight on how to attract, secure, and maintain partnerships with
44:19
Speaker 6: big brands.
44:20
Speaker 8: Absolutely, you know, the sponsorship deck is so important, like
44:27
Speaker 8: what you send out to brands. The other thing that's
44:30
Speaker 8: so important our relationship with.
44:31
Speaker 6: What should be in a sponsorship deck.
44:33
Speaker 8: So when you're sending out a sponsorship deck, you're basically saying,
44:36
Speaker 8: so think about this. I want you to think when
44:38
Speaker 8: somebody gives you a gift at a party, and you
44:41
Speaker 8: see a gift that's like wrapped in this like beautiful
44:44
Speaker 8: wrapping paper with this bow on it.
44:46
Speaker 2: You assume that that's a nice gift if.
44:48
Speaker 8: You got to get you get a gift in like
44:50
Speaker 8: a brown paper bag, You're not as excited about that
44:53
Speaker 8: until maybe you look in and.
44:54
Speaker 2: See what it is.
44:55
Speaker 8: So really, your sponsorship proposal, your deck, your partnership proposal,
44:59
Speaker 8: it's like basically like how you're wrapping your company. So
45:03
Speaker 8: I always say people like, I know Canva is great
45:05
Speaker 8: and people love to work in Canva, but like, get
45:08
Speaker 8: a professional graphic artist to design your sponsorship deck. And
45:13
Speaker 8: in that deck, you want to try to keep it
45:15
Speaker 8: to like ten pages. You want to include like you know,
45:18
Speaker 8: your company, what you're doing, your audience, because at the
45:22
Speaker 8: end of the day, brands want to connect with your audience.
45:24
Speaker 8: The reason they're going to partner with you is because
45:26
Speaker 8: they think that they can get more business by working
45:28
Speaker 8: with you. They're going to get more business by working
45:30
Speaker 8: with you through your audience. So you always want to
45:33
Speaker 8: make sure that your audience is highlighted who they are,
45:36
Speaker 8: what they do, how they connect with that brand as well.
45:41
Speaker 8: And then any photos you've got from recent events or
45:45
Speaker 8: partnerships that you've done really important, any press that you've gotten,
45:49
Speaker 8: you want to include that because you're basically saying to
45:51
Speaker 8: a brand like, you want to have a.
45:54
Speaker 2: Conversation with me, and here is why.
45:57
Speaker 8: So you're building credibility with that deck want you And
46:00
Speaker 8: then of course in that deck if you want to,
46:02
Speaker 8: you don't have to, though you can also include like,
46:05
Speaker 8: here's how you can work with us. So you may say,
46:08
Speaker 8: let's say, if it's an event, you can sponsor an
46:10
Speaker 8: event at this level and hear all the things you
46:12
Speaker 8: get and you can put pricing in there, or you cannot.
46:15
Speaker 8: I don't really like to send pricing out on our
46:17
Speaker 8: first decks. I prefer to like, I'll put like here
46:20
Speaker 8: all the things you get, but I don't really like
46:22
Speaker 8: to talk pricing yet.
46:24
Speaker 4: Why is that?
46:25
Speaker 5: Because I mean, we've been in this dek space where
46:27
Speaker 5: we've got a conversations. Shall we send it out with
46:29
Speaker 5: the pricing or shall we send it with that with it?
46:31
Speaker 5: And it's kind of like it depends, Well, why don't
46:34
Speaker 5: you do that first?
46:35
Speaker 8: Because it's different when I get on a you know,
46:37
Speaker 8: you saying a deck that's just you know, it's just
46:41
Speaker 8: a document versus me getting on the phone with you,
46:45
Speaker 8: giving you, showing you a video like I always show
46:48
Speaker 8: videos on our call, showing you a video of like,
46:50
Speaker 8: this is what the experience actually looks like.
46:53
Speaker 2: This is what it feels like.
46:55
Speaker 8: And I'm telling you what it is like that people
46:58
Speaker 8: underestimate human connect And if people get on the phone
47:02
Speaker 8: with you and they're filling your vibe and they're loving
47:05
Speaker 8: what you're talking about and they're seeing the video and
47:07
Speaker 8: they're excited cited, it's a different conversation. Now priceing may
47:13
Speaker 8: not matter as much because now I've built this connection
47:16
Speaker 8: with you, And you know I said the second thing,
47:19
Speaker 8: it's like that connections piece. Like a lot of times
47:22
Speaker 8: people think, oh, I'm just pitching a brand. You're not
47:24
Speaker 8: just pitching a brand. You're pitching John at that brand
47:27
Speaker 8: or Paul at that brand, or Sarah at that brand.
47:30
Speaker 8: Like it's that person that has to want to partner
47:35
Speaker 8: with you.
47:35
Speaker 4: So what inspires you to create this masterpiece?
47:39
Speaker 5: Was it after years of seeing this or being to
47:41
Speaker 5: ask the same questions, having trials and tribulations, I got
47:45
Speaker 5: to put something together.
47:46
Speaker 8: Yeah, so I wrote a book. Actually did This is
47:51
Speaker 8: actually a follow up to the first one. I did
47:53
Speaker 8: a book called Sponsored when I was looking to get
47:56
Speaker 8: sponsorship for our events. I really can find the information
47:59
Speaker 8: like it was all very generic. Nobody was really telling
48:02
Speaker 8: me like what to do, how it worked. Is very
48:05
Speaker 8: like a secret agency society in knowing how to partner
48:08
Speaker 8: with brands. And I'm like, there should be a book
48:10
Speaker 8: out that just tells you how this works, like because
48:13
Speaker 8: if you go get a brand partnership, that doesn't take
48:15
Speaker 8: anything from me, right, so like how can we all win?
48:19
Speaker 8: And so this was really the follow up to that
48:21
Speaker 8: because I wrote that book in twenty seventeen and I
48:24
Speaker 8: think the biggest partnership I had had that at that
48:27
Speaker 8: time was probably like maybe one hundred and fifty thousand
48:30
Speaker 8: dollars for something. We've far surpassed that since then, and
48:35
Speaker 8: so I really wanted to write like a follow up
48:37
Speaker 8: to say, here's all the things I've learned since then.
48:40
Speaker 5: So what's that transition like from getting the single year
48:43
Speaker 5: sponsorship to getting.
48:45
Speaker 3: The multi year sponsorship?
48:46
Speaker 5: Because we all try to get to that space where
48:48
Speaker 5: it's not just a commitment for one year our brand.
48:52
Speaker 5: Our audience has now seen you, they're familiar with you,
48:55
Speaker 5: what happens next? How do you follow up and create
48:58
Speaker 5: those relationships.
48:59
Speaker 8: I think is a conversation with the person at the brand,
49:02
Speaker 8: you know, and saying, hey, we really want like a
49:04
Speaker 8: real commitment, and you know, we appreciate your one year commitment,
49:09
Speaker 8: but like let's lock this in for three years.
49:12
Speaker 2: Because it also works for the brand.
49:14
Speaker 8: It also guarantees that you know, you're not partnering with
49:17
Speaker 8: one bank this year and then another bank the next year.
49:19
Speaker 8: Like there needs to be some consistency. It's not a
49:24
Speaker 8: good look to me for the brand. For you guys,
49:26
Speaker 8: that open yourselves up to competition coming in. So I
49:30
Speaker 8: think having that conversation with the brand is like having
49:36
Speaker 8: like singing that like I want to make sure that
49:38
Speaker 8: you're secured so that we don't have to go out
49:41
Speaker 8: to your competition. Also, I want to make sure that,
49:43
Speaker 8: like there's consistency in our messaging going out and we
49:46
Speaker 8: can see year over year how we're doing.
49:50
Speaker 2: Brands are open to that.
49:52
Speaker 6: So, who's some of the biggest brands that you've worked
49:56
Speaker 6: with like on a consistent basis.
49:58
Speaker 8: Some of the biggest brands we work with on a
50:00
Speaker 8: consistent basis is Nike. We worked them for the last
50:02
Speaker 8: five years They've sponsored our designer retreat that we host
50:06
Speaker 8: in New York City at their corporate offices every year.
50:10
Speaker 2: We've also worked with.
50:10
Speaker 8: LVMH now I think we're going on your We have
50:13
Speaker 8: a three year partnership with Tiffany and Company for some
50:17
Speaker 8: HBCU work.
50:19
Speaker 2: The Virgil Ablo Award. They're committed to that year over year.
50:23
Speaker 8: We've also worked with Macy's for a number of years
50:26
Speaker 8: now on several different projects. Probably they're like our longest
50:30
Speaker 8: standing partner. We probably work with them for maybe eight
50:33
Speaker 8: years now. You know, we're building out a solid partnership
50:38
Speaker 8: with Norstrom now as well that we're really excited about
50:41
Speaker 8: some really cool things coming down the pipeline there. Trying
50:46
Speaker 8: to think of who else we're working with. Saxmith Avenue,
50:48
Speaker 8: we worked with them for a few years now as well,
50:51
Speaker 8: so a lot of several retail brands.
50:53
Speaker 6: And so that's the lifeline of the business, is the
50:56
Speaker 6: corporate relationships. Yes, yeah, So have you seen an impact
50:59
Speaker 6: like post Joy Floyd of companies that it's like we're
51:02
Speaker 6: nigging from or cutting back money.
51:05
Speaker 8: I mean, we were all seeing like three years and
51:09
Speaker 8: I think we all knew that it wasn't gonna last, right,
51:13
Speaker 8: But what I can say is I think companies are
51:18
Speaker 8: streamlining the amount of like partners that they have, and
51:23
Speaker 8: thank goodness, like HFR is one of those partners that
51:25
Speaker 8: they're like, we're.
51:26
Speaker 2: Going to continue with. But yeah, they're definitely pulling back.
51:30
Speaker 8: There has been, especially the luxury brands in particular, the
51:36
Speaker 8: luxury brands in particular, like they came out hard in
51:39
Speaker 8: twenty twenty, and they've been really soft over the last
51:42
Speaker 8: two years.
51:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's been pretty consistent.
51:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, say, it's same in your industry.
51:50
Speaker 5: Similar, Yeah, very similar. But I'm Athne's quests because we're
51:53
Speaker 5: seeing these things. Yeah, so it's interesting to hear from
51:56
Speaker 5: your perspective and obviously a different industry but similar scenario.
52:00
Speaker 8: Yeah, but she has to have like such a great audience,
52:02
Speaker 8: like appreciate that you should be like knocking your door down.
52:06
Speaker 2: That's what we said, they should be knocking your door down.
52:11
Speaker 8: Like if I had an opportunity to come to Atlanta
52:13
Speaker 8: and talk about twenty.
52:14
Speaker 6: Thousand people, a fact, that's a fact.
52:17
Speaker 4: I mean seriously, Yeah, I'm with you.
52:22
Speaker 2: It's a note brainer to me.
52:27
Speaker 5: Let's talk about fashion and color because I think just
52:31
Speaker 5: the title aloneent is incredible, but what it represents is
52:34
Speaker 5: being seen. Yeah, so talk about that because I mean again,
52:38
Speaker 5: it's an incredible piece.
52:40
Speaker 8: So when people think about our contribution to fashion, they
52:43
Speaker 8: don't really know, like the fact that like Jay Jackson
52:47
Speaker 8: was the first American couturier in Paris.
52:50
Speaker 2: People don't know that was a black man.
52:52
Speaker 8: He worked with Christian Dior, he worked with I believe
52:54
Speaker 8: it's al and Ron as well.
52:58
Speaker 2: They don't really know that right now.
53:00
Speaker 8: Now this year was celebrating the fiftieth anniversary at a
53:02
Speaker 8: Ballet Versailles, which was this competition between like French and
53:07
Speaker 8: American designers, and Stephen Burrows was the only black designer.
53:10
Speaker 8: Part of that, people don't even know who Stephen Burrows is.
53:13
Speaker 8: Our history in fashion hasn't been captured in a book
53:16
Speaker 8: since nineteen eighty two. In nineteen eighty two, a woman,
53:20
Speaker 8: Lowis Alexander Lane, wrote a book called Blacks in the
53:23
Speaker 8: History of Fashion.
53:24
Speaker 2: You can't buy a book because I bought all of them.
53:27
Speaker 2: There were only like ten of the market. I bought
53:29
Speaker 2: them all because I want to make sure they were
53:32
Speaker 2: in safekeeping.
53:33
Speaker 8: But you know, we don't really have our history preserved
53:37
Speaker 8: in fashion, and so I kept saying we need a
53:40
Speaker 8: book like so that fifty years from now, seventy five
53:43
Speaker 8: years from now, it's like registered with the Library of Congress.
53:47
Speaker 8: We can always have our history captured. People can always
53:51
Speaker 8: like look in this book. So this is actually volume
53:53
Speaker 8: one of Fashion and Color and so it's Black Designers
53:57
Speaker 8: eight to Z.
53:58
Speaker 6: Was it like a look book?
53:59
Speaker 7: Open it up?
54:00
Speaker 4: Yeah?
54:00
Speaker 5: Yeah, So how this is value one? What years to
54:04
Speaker 5: do is does it spand to is it up to current?
54:06
Speaker 2: So this is actually current designers. So it's actually.
54:11
Speaker 6: Thank you, You're welcome.
54:12
Speaker 8: So this one was actually dedicated to the fiftieth annivers
54:16
Speaker 8: of hip hop.
54:17
Speaker 2: We gave five mics. You guys know about the source.
54:20
Speaker 2: We gave five mics the Dapper Dan and Misa Hilton.
54:22
Speaker 8: Absolutely, and then we had there's a black artist. Her
54:26
Speaker 8: name is Ashley Buttercup. She illus. She actually painted. These
54:30
Speaker 8: are all original painter every so every letter, there's a
54:34
Speaker 8: designer for every single letter from A to Z. Olivier
54:38
Speaker 8: Rusting from Balmin wrote the foreword to the book and
54:42
Speaker 8: so it's like it's a coffee table book. It's a
54:44
Speaker 8: reference book. If you look in there, you'll see that
54:46
Speaker 8: there's a QR code, So the QR code takes you directly.
54:49
Speaker 2: There's Pheno l your wife's favorite designer.
54:51
Speaker 9: That's going on period, right, it's going on the table. Listen, listen, Amaton,
55:01
Speaker 9: listen Pheno.
55:02
Speaker 5: While I appreciate all the garments, that's a little bout
55:05
Speaker 5: it cover my whole face.
55:06
Speaker 4: I don't care.
55:08
Speaker 5: Listen, everything that you can contributed to my household. I
55:10
Speaker 5: want to personally thank you. I want to personally thank
55:13
Speaker 5: you for making my wife feel happy in your clothes.
55:15
Speaker 5: And every time she wears it somewhere people stop her
55:17
Speaker 5: to ask.
55:18
Speaker 4: Where she got it from. So I just wanted to
55:20
Speaker 4: thank you, and you're being this is like immoralized right
55:24
Speaker 4: out of this historical document. Absolutely got out to you.
55:28
Speaker 8: But people can like scan the QR code and it
55:30
Speaker 8: takes him to the designer's Instagram page, so they can
55:33
Speaker 8: actually shop straight.
55:34
Speaker 2: The book, straight through the book.
55:36
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's fine. What's your favorite time period of fashion?
55:40
Speaker 2: Oh man, I think the nineties. I love the nineties.
55:44
Speaker 8: I love the nineties because we had so many black
55:47
Speaker 8: brands out there. There was you know, the Foo Boo,
55:51
Speaker 8: there was a knee che there was Seawan John, there
55:53
Speaker 8: was like, man, if we could replicate that right now.
55:57
Speaker 6: We spoke, we spoke about we spoke about this to
55:58
Speaker 6: DAP but then and he was saying that there's not
56:02
Speaker 6: there's never been black luxury designers. But I forgot that
56:07
Speaker 6: there actually is one that people overlook, Christian Lubaton. He's
56:12
Speaker 6: what mm hmm.
56:14
Speaker 2: I didn't know that.
56:14
Speaker 4: You know that no black man, do you know? Yeah?
56:18
Speaker 5: So he actually he was at a black man that's first.
56:22
Speaker 5: But he actually came uh to saxonth Avenue.
56:25
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
56:25
Speaker 4: So my mom worked for saxonth Avenue for.
56:27
Speaker 5: Years and then my wife ended up working there when
56:30
Speaker 5: they turned the seventh floor into the shoe level at
56:33
Speaker 5: sass Avenue.
56:34
Speaker 4: Didn't know who he was though, they didn't know. She
56:36
Speaker 4: didn't know. Wow, I'm like, no, that's him. He came
56:39
Speaker 4: in to open the store.
56:43
Speaker 6: You kind of favor each other home off. It could
56:45
Speaker 6: be your dad.
56:47
Speaker 2: I never knew that.
56:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, we shot with him a lot, all right, I know, my.
56:58
Speaker 6: Yeah, little little fact.
57:00
Speaker 2: I love that. I was at an event.
57:03
Speaker 8: It was like a footwear event and Idris presented the
57:07
Speaker 8: award to him and they had like a really dope relationship.
57:10
Speaker 5: But why now all right, who knows put me on
57:13
Speaker 5: might that old fashions?
57:16
Speaker 6: Yeah, but so yeah, I mean that's still an extreme outlier.
57:20
Speaker 6: But so when we talk about black brands, we always
57:22
Speaker 6: talk about like quote urban brands a lot. But so
57:28
Speaker 6: we had an interesting conversation with Dapadin about why there
57:31
Speaker 6: hasn't been luxury brand and he had his own opinions,
57:34
Speaker 6: why do you think that hasn't been black luxury brands?
57:38
Speaker 8: I think luxury is built on heritage, and we haven't
57:41
Speaker 8: really had a brand around long enough to build a heritage.
57:45
Speaker 8: That's you know, so you think you know the luxury
57:51
Speaker 8: brands in the traditional sense of who we know, like
57:53
Speaker 8: they've been around for one hundred years. We've not had
57:56
Speaker 8: Now we've been around for a hundred years, but we've
57:59
Speaker 8: not been able to bid a brand that is around
58:01
Speaker 8: for one hundred years.
58:02
Speaker 2: Like even if you look at who the oldest.
58:06
Speaker 8: Female designer is in the United States, I haven't been
58:09
Speaker 8: able to find anyone other than Elizabeth Keckley. Elizabeth Keckley
58:13
Speaker 8: designed for Abraham Lincoln's wife. She bought her and her
58:16
Speaker 8: son's freedom through design. She is the oldest designer that
58:21
Speaker 8: I can find in the US. And you know, and
58:26
Speaker 8: so imagine if she had kept that collection because everything
58:29
Speaker 8: she was doing was luxury. She was producing for the
58:32
Speaker 8: president's wife and all his friends. So that woman was
58:35
Speaker 8: like on a high, high level.
58:37
Speaker 6: Well, Virgil was luxury too. Virgil was luxury designer.
58:41
Speaker 5: Who's the longest lasting luxury brand that we have. That's
58:45
Speaker 5: interesting and I'm thinking about these brands.
58:47
Speaker 4: Is always a stop, there's always a stop progress.
58:49
Speaker 6: Well, you haven't had a lot of luxury black luxury brands,
58:52
Speaker 6: like I said, or even brands Christian Lubatan's black. Yeah,
58:56
Speaker 6: Virgil was black. That's it that I could think of.
59:00
Speaker 5: Public just got showing back. But that's not a luxury
59:02
Speaker 5: brands period. Well, long like decades of having a brand.
59:06
Speaker 8: Tracy Reese, She's had our brand for a long time.
59:12
Speaker 8: There's just not a lot No.
59:16
Speaker 6: Why I think that that is as far as the
59:18
Speaker 6: life span. Why is it like because even we've had
59:20
Speaker 6: beans that's been successful. Fooble they made a bunch of money.
59:22
Speaker 6: We actually just have put interview Damon John. It was good, Yeah,
59:27
Speaker 6: thank you. So they made a lot of money. Sean
59:31
Speaker 6: John made a lot of money, then sold Rockaway and
59:34
Speaker 6: made money. Then they sold their company so people have
59:38
Speaker 6: experienced success, even karlk and I at one point that
59:42
Speaker 6: it was a successful brand, absolutely, but it seems like
59:45
Speaker 6: it it seems like it's a cycle where you start off,
59:49
Speaker 6: you know, underdog, people start to root for you, and
59:51
Speaker 6: rappers start the champion it, and then you get successful
59:54
Speaker 6: and then it just becomes corny, and then it becomes
59:56
Speaker 6: like a laughing stock almost. And we had an interesting
59:59
Speaker 6: conversation with Jim Jones a few years ago, very controversial,
1:00:02
Speaker 6: but he had some insight onto his his thoughts on it.
1:00:05
Speaker 6: What you say, Well, he thought that all of those
1:00:08
Speaker 6: fashion brands in the nineties and the two thousands were
1:00:11
Speaker 6: knockoff brands. He was like, they were knockoffs off of
1:00:16
Speaker 6: with Like He was like that the people in the culture,
1:00:20
Speaker 6: like Diddy, like Jay were smart enough to understand what
1:00:23
Speaker 6: was going on, what was really moving culture, and it
1:00:26
Speaker 6: wasn't really innovative. It was more knockoff of Nordica, of Polo.
1:00:31
Speaker 6: So he was like, well, why am I going to
1:00:33
Speaker 6: buy this when I can just buy Nordica. People were
1:00:36
Speaker 6: disappointed how he said it, because he was pretty much
1:00:39
Speaker 6: saying that he would rather support Nordica than support But
1:00:44
Speaker 6: I actually understand the right, but I understand it, but
1:00:47
Speaker 6: I understand the rationale. It was very controversial, but I
1:00:50
Speaker 6: do understand the rationale. That is a mindset. That's why
1:00:53
Speaker 6: these brands haven't been able to be successful because after
1:00:55
Speaker 6: a certain while, it's looked at it as like rockaway,
1:00:58
Speaker 6: like it's a joke or foolb spoof. Yeah, exactly, It's
1:01:01
Speaker 6: not looked at like at first it's cool, but then
1:01:04
Speaker 6: it's like, I'm not wearing that really.
1:01:06
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean you have to think though, you have
1:01:08
Speaker 8: to put a lot of money into sustaining a brand,
1:01:11
Speaker 8: but it's that psychology.
1:01:12
Speaker 6: Is that outside of the money. Is that like a
1:01:14
Speaker 6: black psychology that we devalue things of our.
1:01:18
Speaker 2: Own in some cases? Yeah, in some cases we do.
1:01:23
Speaker 8: But even when you just said that, I'm like, well,
1:01:25
Speaker 8: he don't Know's like some of those brands they go
1:01:27
Speaker 8: to our culture or go to the black They went
1:01:30
Speaker 8: to black designers to get inspired to do what they did,
1:01:33
Speaker 8: Like so many of those brands that have come up,
1:01:36
Speaker 8: the great American brands like got inspired by black designers
1:01:41
Speaker 8: from the eighties and nineties.
1:01:42
Speaker 4: I said, do what.
1:01:43
Speaker 5: I didn't know what Tommy hill Finger was before I
1:01:44
Speaker 5: saw a grand pool I wearing straight up on your TV.
1:01:48
Speaker 8: Rapp And even in this book, like there you'll see
1:01:51
Speaker 8: some pages where basically it's like rap lyrics that we
1:01:54
Speaker 8: hope people will start to say, you know, like go
1:01:59
Speaker 8: and spend a g on a fee shopping spree like
1:02:01
Speaker 8: you know, like because I'm like, we have the.
1:02:04
Speaker 2: Power to.
1:02:08
Speaker 8: Like put our black designers where they need to be,
1:02:11
Speaker 8: especially music, Like especially music, we have that opportunity, Like
1:02:16
Speaker 8: even red carpets, thank goodness, more actors than actresses now
1:02:19
Speaker 8: are showing up on red carpets wearing black designers.
1:02:22
Speaker 2: But like, we have that power.
1:02:24
Speaker 4: He's I'm supporting Eying right exactly. I mean it's because like.
1:02:28
Speaker 5: I bring up the grand poop bout thing because Asapple
1:02:30
Speaker 5: was just award recipient at your show, they asked him
1:02:35
Speaker 5: who his favorite people in fashion in the history of fashion.
1:02:38
Speaker 5: He had grand poofa Ye West and Pharrell. And then
1:02:42
Speaker 5: I started thinking about the conversation we were having with
1:02:45
Speaker 5: Damon John about yes, here in America there is a culture, right,
1:02:49
Speaker 5: but hip hop culture is throughout the world absolutely, and
1:02:52
Speaker 5: so we live in a world where retro comes into
1:02:55
Speaker 5: to play, and so that era of the nineties.
1:02:57
Speaker 4: I feel like that might. I mean if I travel
1:02:59
Speaker 4: to Spin, you might still be able to see it.
1:03:01
Speaker 6: I mean it's coming back now. Bag everybody wearing baggage.
1:03:03
Speaker 5: That's what I'm going so like, even like the Karlcanized
1:03:06
Speaker 5: uh walk Aware Foodbull even Echo.
1:03:09
Speaker 4: At a certain point, people were do you feel like,
1:03:12
Speaker 4: did you ever wear football? I never wore.
1:03:15
Speaker 6: Did you ever wear Echo?
1:03:17
Speaker 3: I did?
1:03:17
Speaker 4: Well, no I did. I'm not lying. I think I
1:03:20
Speaker 4: seen Knaves wear Esco T shirt and I wanted that
1:03:22
Speaker 4: T shirt.
1:03:23
Speaker 6: Did you ever wear Kalkanile I did? Going through I'm
1:03:27
Speaker 6: just asking questions.
1:03:29
Speaker 4: I wore Georgia and I wore rock collars.
1:03:31
Speaker 2: I know y'all were cross collars, no.
1:03:34
Speaker 4: Cross colors I wanted. I don't think I got it.
1:03:36
Speaker 4: I was still wearing Beautiful Boy that got We were
1:03:38
Speaker 4: too young.
1:03:38
Speaker 6: It was young. But I'm asking you that question because
1:03:41
Speaker 6: it's like we can talk about supporting black brands. But
1:03:44
Speaker 6: Jim Jones, he actually it was very controversial what he said,
1:03:47
Speaker 6: but it's extremely insightful because I never wore football ever
1:03:50
Speaker 6: in life. I wore rock, A wear a little bit
1:03:53
Speaker 6: sewn John wore. But a lot of these black brands.
1:03:58
Speaker 6: We didn't support them, so we can champion it, and
1:04:02
Speaker 6: but we got to have an honest kind of sity.
1:04:04
Speaker 5: But what I was doing is like, had they had
1:04:06
Speaker 5: the business acumen to know that hold on to it,
1:04:09
Speaker 5: maybe I could license it. Because that's what they did
1:04:11
Speaker 5: with football, was being able to license throughout the world.
1:04:13
Speaker 5: Whereas now when those brands retro into these other locations
1:04:18
Speaker 5: throughout the world, there isn't that opportunity anymore, you know.
1:04:21
Speaker 6: I think the issue is black brand. I think that
1:04:26
Speaker 6: Virgil cracked the code by just having a luxury brand.
1:04:30
Speaker 6: Once you get boxed in the corner as being a
1:04:32
Speaker 6: black brand, white people don't want to support it.
1:04:35
Speaker 4: But when it came it wasn't luxury Virgil.
1:04:38
Speaker 6: But regardless, it was never looked at as a black brand.
1:04:40
Speaker 6: Off White was never looked at as a black brand. Never. Never,
1:04:44
Speaker 6: it was never looked at as a black brand. It
1:04:46
Speaker 6: was just Off White. Even Easy Easy. I mean, he's
1:04:49
Speaker 6: Kanye West, so it's easier for anything to reach the status.
1:04:52
Speaker 6: But other rappers when they put their brands out, it
1:04:54
Speaker 6: was like, oh, this is urban. Easy was just Easy,
1:04:57
Speaker 6: And I feel like that is something that is very
1:05:01
Speaker 6: important to crack that cold because once you get put
1:05:04
Speaker 6: in the boxes a black anything, even with us as
1:05:07
Speaker 6: a black media, it's very stifling. And what happens is
1:05:13
Speaker 6: that you alienate the vast majority of other people and
1:05:17
Speaker 6: then eventually your own people start to hte on you.
1:05:21
Speaker 8: You know, I think where we kind of mess up
1:05:29
Speaker 8: is or where I think there's some opportunities like.
1:05:34
Speaker 2: Creating a bridge, and like, how do you.
1:05:40
Speaker 8: As a black brand, how do you create a bridge
1:05:43
Speaker 8: so that you're like basically my brand, because at the
1:05:47
Speaker 8: end of the day, you want everybody to buy it, right, Like,
1:05:50
Speaker 8: you don't want your identity to then dictate who buys
1:05:54
Speaker 8: what you sell like that.
1:05:55
Speaker 6: But that's that's that's so limiting. That's how they box
1:05:57
Speaker 6: you in the corner. That's what Diddy was saying when Diagio,
1:06:00
Speaker 6: that's one of his little he was like his liquor
1:06:04
Speaker 6: got branded as hip hop and and he's like, so
1:06:07
Speaker 6: he can't be in steakhouses and other restaurants. Seems like
1:06:11
Speaker 6: they boxed you in. But that happens across the broaden
1:06:13
Speaker 6: in every industry. It's like, if you're black, you get
1:06:15
Speaker 6: boxed in, and that's so limiting. Not going to be
1:06:19
Speaker 6: able to become cosa egos if you're just a black
1:06:22
Speaker 6: liqui brand. But Cosagos has never described as just a
1:06:26
Speaker 6: Mexican brand or just George Clooney, like you know, it's
1:06:30
Speaker 6: like a white brand is never.
1:06:32
Speaker 2: Described as just you know, a white brand.
1:06:35
Speaker 6: It's for everybody. Black brands are always described as black brands.
1:06:39
Speaker 2: It's true. But look at tail Far. Everybody's wearing tail
1:06:42
Speaker 2: Far incredible, black, white, old, young, rich, poor. Just a brand,
1:06:49
Speaker 2: It's just a brand.
1:06:50
Speaker 4: And now I think that the terminology has changed to
1:06:53
Speaker 4: more than just brand. It's a designer, yeah, right, like
1:06:57
Speaker 4: this is a designer, right, Yeah.
1:07:00
Speaker 8: So I do think it's possible to be a black
1:07:03
Speaker 8: person to build a brand, to build it even around
1:07:06
Speaker 8: black people, but to still have like a larger reach
1:07:11
Speaker 8: for sure.
1:07:12
Speaker 6: Well, what's next, what's next for you? What's your what's
1:07:15
Speaker 6: what's on the vision board for you and your company?
1:07:19
Speaker 9: Yeah?
1:07:20
Speaker 8: Next year, we're looking to do a lot more things
1:07:23
Speaker 8: around consumers. So we have been very New York centric.
1:07:28
Speaker 8: We have, like you know, done the fashion thing in
1:07:32
Speaker 8: New York, but now we really want to go out
1:07:35
Speaker 8: to consumers and create experiences in different markets, which is
1:07:40
Speaker 8: why again investment.
1:07:42
Speaker 4: We know a place, we know a place that there's
1:07:44
Speaker 4: a lot of people.
1:07:45
Speaker 8: Just so those those are the types of experiences that
1:07:50
Speaker 8: that we want to do. We're launching a podcast, Fashion
1:07:52
Speaker 8: and Color. We actually shoot tomorrow Congrats, So that's coming up.
1:07:57
Speaker 8: Really excited about that. It's going to be on YouTube
1:07:59
Speaker 8: and on all podcast platforms. We have something coming up
1:08:04
Speaker 8: that we're launching for designers called HFR Verified, so that
1:08:08
Speaker 8: we verify designers, making sure that like you know, they
1:08:13
Speaker 8: have all their stuff together, so that people feel great.
1:08:17
Speaker 2: About shopping black brands.
1:08:19
Speaker 8: We have a website HFR and Co where people can
1:08:22
Speaker 8: shop actually black brands sold in major retailers. So if
1:08:25
Speaker 8: you want to shop, want to know what black designers
1:08:27
Speaker 8: are sold in North Strum or Macy's or Bloomingdale's, we
1:08:31
Speaker 8: have that website as well, and so we're hoping that
1:08:33
Speaker 8: people really support that for the holidays.
1:08:36
Speaker 6: So and how can people getting like if their designers
1:08:39
Speaker 6: and they want to reach out to your company and
1:08:41
Speaker 6: work with you guys as far as you know the
1:08:44
Speaker 6: corporate relationships, So how does that process work?
1:08:46
Speaker 8: How can they they can go on our website Harlem's
1:08:49
Speaker 8: Fashion Road dot com makes you put an s at
1:08:51
Speaker 8: the Anna Harlem and at the very top of the
1:08:54
Speaker 8: website it says, are you a designer? Like? Fill that
1:08:57
Speaker 8: out and then that puts you into our database. You'll
1:09:00
Speaker 8: get all the information you need to know that's coming
1:09:02
Speaker 8: through the pipeline for each offr.
1:09:04
Speaker 6: Thank you, anything else you want to say to the public.
1:09:06
Speaker 8: Before follow us on Instagram at Harlem's Fashion Row me
1:09:11
Speaker 8: personally at Brandon Daniel to find out you know about
1:09:16
Speaker 8: this book has not launched yet, but it's about to launch.
1:09:19
Speaker 2: Small business, big partnerships. They can shop the Fashion and
1:09:23
Speaker 2: Color book.
1:09:23
Speaker 8: They can go to Harlem's Fashion Row dot com or
1:09:25
Speaker 8: Fashion Incolorbook dot com.
1:09:28
Speaker 2: And get the book. Have a piece of history in
1:09:31
Speaker 2: your hands. But I appreciate you all this.
1:09:33
Speaker 4: This is definitely going in the dining room. Thank you,
1:09:37
Speaker 4: This is going to be I have to get a
1:09:38
Speaker 4: couple of copies. I want this to be a staple
1:09:41
Speaker 4: in the household.
1:09:42
Speaker 6: Thank you for sure, Thank you so much, Thank you
1:09:45
Speaker 6: well gosh, thank you guys for rocking with us. We
1:09:47
Speaker 6: see you next week.
1:09:48
Speaker 4: Peace Peace an.
1:09:49
Speaker 1: Illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child in Massachusetts.
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