Telfar

“So we became a supplier to White Castle, and they're renewing them every, you know, six months, and like, that Became a revenue stream, not just a kind of press release.”

“It was the end of March where finally China opened up. We got a shipment of bags. We post a bag drop in the middle of this crazy pandemic... And they sold out in seconds.”

“So with White Castle, we had the opportunity to make unisex clothes for a 20,000 unit order.”

“That, that was a big part of it, is that Telfar wanted to base the price on how much you would make in a night DJ. And that absolutely didn't square up with how much it cost to make the bag. Like, at all. But it's like the price of the bag was part of the conc…”

“Like, at some point, we were bringing in over a million dollars just from doing shows, so what you would consider marketing is actually, it wasn't an expense, it was Our income.”

“I was bad at it, and I'm still bad at it. Like, I can't sew for shit, and I wouldn't want to. That's when I, you know, I really, like, you know, I'm blessed enough to have, like, great people that work with me that make things the way how they should be made”

“But we made the decision January, 2019, that by January, 2020, we would be completely out, which was a very difficult thing to do.”

“We're still only making like a few thousand dollars a month. Right. Through 2018 and into 2019.”

“And at that time, you know, our wholesale accounts were doubling every season.”

“And then we had produced the Telfar bag, the shopping bag, and we put the entire production in the store. So it's like hundreds and hundreds of this bag, you know, for a brand that had never sold more than Maybe a dozen, a couple dozen of anything.”

“You have to understand that when people, you know, you have these institutions like Vogue and Style.com, and they're like the Library of Congress of fashion. So they, their, your entry means that you happened. So when they refuse to even record that you had a …”

“Well, think, you know, these things are usually for show. They're for press. It's just, you want a press release saying that happened, and then you get a little check for your design fee.”

“I want it to be accessible. Like, you can go to a store and get the things that you want to get, you know. A Telfar store. Definitely clothes, definitely accessories, and definitely an experience. Candles, pianos, bath bombs.”

“I was getting the fabric as a gift from Supima. You know, I couldn't even afford the fabric that they were giving me.”

“The whole reason why we collaborate changed because of our material position. Like, we're not looking for that check, actually. We're looking to develop a product that somebody is better at making, or that would take us two years to do.”