Excluding financial success, what are you most proud of? And what’s your personal metric for success? How do you know when you’re doing the right thing?
I’ve always felt like having a clothing company should be a sounding board for social and political issues, so I’m proud of always sticking to this with whatever I do. With Alphanumeric we always pushed people to question authority and keep educating themselves. Self education is cool, and education is cool. Never stop learning; never stop exploring. I know this sounds corny after trashing other mission statements, but it was still the ethos for the brand. I think it resonated with people.
Your second question is a tough one. This may sound narcissistic, but I like being right about something being big before it comes to market. I like proving naysayers wrong. Then there’s the satisfaction of these people coming back to ask if they want to work on that project I told them about months or years ago.
I know that I’m doing the “right thing” by following my instinct.
Your successes outnumber your failures, but can you speak to some of your bigger missteps? What did you learn?
“For all my eccentricities, I’m a simple creature.”
The end of Alpha can answer this question, and it’s why kids with unwarranted bravado freak me out. By all means, be confident in yourself, but also be clear about what you want to do. If you just want to be rich and famous, or just famous (which is a lot more common these days), then go for it.
At the height of Alphanumeric I was in my late 20s and making like $400k, which made me very overconfident. This lead to a falling out with our financiers. They fired a member of my staff, and I was like, “Hey, are we gonna have a sit down to try to mediate this?” And they were like, “Absolutely not--your guy is fired.” They could fire any of my people and I wouldn’t stand for it. Assuming I could have a new brand up and running in a couple weeks, I quit the company and my friends lost their jobs. I opened a new store, made really bad retail decisions, bought all the product outright, and kept it open out of pride. Eventually my business partner embezzled $100k and I ended up in debt with the IRS. This is money I could have used to buy a house or start another brand, but it was wasted because of my ego.
So I get really freaked out when I hear kids talk big when you try to caution them about mistakes they might make. I had a conversation with this kid about being an intern the other day and I asked, “well, what do you want to learn?” And he said, “I just wanna get my foot in the door and be famous.” He never mentioned design. We started talking about Instagram, so he asked how many followers I had. Since he ended up having more, he ended the conversation with: “Then I guess there’s no need for me to talk to you about this stuff anyway.” He had already surpassed me. Fair enough.
We live in a fascinating, occasionally depressing time. But I’m sure 40 years ago someone was saying the same thing. Every generation has issues with change.
What do you want your legacy to be?
I want to be remembered as a man with integrity, and as someone who helped pioneer the industry we now call “streetwear.” I want to be remembered as having inspired people to learn a trade that would put food on their tables. Eventually, I want to be remembered as a good husband and father.
For all my eccentricities, I'm a simple creature.
