My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness. Meet Coln de Lane, young emerging American entrepreneur, slash artists slash genius who's turning his fashion brand Kid Super into a global phenomenon.
I have a listen to this kid.
That's all right, you should collapse, you know, that would be hilarious fashion Week all that body corpses.
That'd be awesome.
I think it's a good idea. I just don't know how tasteful.
Yeah, yeah, I know it's it's kind of thing we're on and we're talking, but the just so as you know, we are now being recorded. Sorry, but you think then the idea of fashion all dead bodies, that's my idea that you just but you don't think it's gonna.
Work on record if it comes from your idea. And then I just did it and I was like, well it was Craig, you know, it was so adamant about this.
Yeah, but I don't get to bill you around.
You're the You're the wonder Ken, You're the You're the face, the emerging face of American nay the world well fashion, yes, but as the face of American fashion is quite funny to even think about it.
But if we propped up dead bodies and just like just.
Oh you thought they were propped I thought they were just open casket, Well you just analyze the look.
Well, how can you how can you look at them? I mean that, then it's not going to work.
No, No, you like treat it truly like a funeral, where instead of like going up to see them and cry, you just like go up and be like, wow, it's a great outfit that.
You know what see, this is why you are. You're who you are.
Do people call you kid Super because the brand's called kid Super? Do like do you do people say hey, KD Super?
Yes?
And if they don't know me, right, and my first name is a little weird for Americans.
Call them yeah, call them yeah. It's uh, I grew up with a little guy. It's called call them yeah.
But so if you call me kid or kid Super, it's usually you don't know me super super.
Well.
Well, and here's the thing as well, though, you don't want people calling you kid for a long time because then you get into the kid rock scenario, which I actually I've thought about this. Right, there's Kid Rock, there's Kid Cuddy, right, and as they've grown older, you forget the meaning of kid.
It just becomes the name.
All right, I get it. So so, so your name is Kid. You're just like, oh, it's just a sound. Yeah, but I think Colm's a lovely name. And I think your mom and dad were very proud to give you that name.
Is Craig your real name. Weirdly, my real name is Kid show Business.
Yeah, yeah, Craig is Craig is like the male version of being called Karen.
I think it is a little bit. I don't know, not in America. Well maybe not.
Okay, So let's let's just get a bit of background on you a little bit before we go in the Fashion Genius. Well, actually, let's go into fashion genius a little bit because I know, I know that you won the Carl Lagerfeld Prize.
Do you ever meet Carl Lagerfeld? I did not. That's a shame. My wife met him and he was amazing. He was nice to her. Yeah, he said that. He said, you look beautiful, he said to her.
I don't know if he said it like that, but well, he has some of the best quotes every where. It's like anyone who wears sweatpants doesn't care about their lives. Well, you know, I mean, look, guy, he's not wrong.
He may have a point. I'm not saying he's right all the time. But I think my number one seller is sweatpants.
You sell sweatpants, but they're fancy sweatpants with an odd design on them.
They are cool sweatpants. Sweatpants took over I think, and you know, I'm a comfortable guy, but I do wish I lived in that era of fashion where you could say these kind of outlandish things.
I think you can now, but I need the look you look. Do you know what I was thinking about you the other day because I was in Pittsburgh. Now, I was in Pittsburgh and I saw a lot of people in sweatpats. But I went to the Andy Warhol Museum, and I have you been to that met I haven't. It's really cool. You'd love it. But as I walked around, I thought, you know what I met? Somebody really recently reminds me. Are you influenced by Warhol?
Do you think? I think?
I mean, it's always funny because some people consider me an artist. Some people consider me a fashion designer, blah blah, blah blah. I never called myself either of the things. I was just at a young age trying to make things and trying to make them tangible and trying to make them that some could someone could purchase, right, And so that like kind of commercial aspect of it wasn't so much like, oh, I'm this business genius.
It was like, Okay, I'm fifteen.
I need to figure out how to like make something that can connect me with different people or turn into
a little bit of sales. And so I was always really good at drawing, and I just started drawing on T shirts and then I got what I loved about fashion was it was like the easiest I mean, I don't know, for me, it was art form to meet new people, right, because it was like, oh, you might come from completely different backgrounds, completely different interests, but might both like the kids super T shirt.
But that's why the kind of war whole thing is like Warhole collected people as well as art. And he was very you know, and he went across a whole lot of different areas and he had that kind of artist as capitalist, which I kind of like, I really like about you as well, man, you're quite unashamedly entrepreneurial, which I love. It's not like there's not like a phony rockn roll about it. It's real roken roll, Like, no, this is going to be successful. I wanted to be successful.
Yeah, And I think also I was so out of the art world and I was so out of the fashion world that it wasn't like it didn't even feel possible. So it wasn't like, oh, column if you're like, if you have more integrity about your art or blah blah blah. Like I was like, no one was treating me as an artist. I was a kid in Brooklyn who majored in mathematics and was a soccer player. So it was like I was like just trying to hustle and bustle for new opportunities, and like part of that was an
entrepreneurial spirit. But the entrepreneurial spirit came also from like a little bit of the New York spirit is entrepreneurial. Like no one moves here to just sit around and move here to make it. You move here to enter and like if you didn't move here for that, your parents did, right, And so there is a push I think to like kind of create your own lane. And for me at a young age, I was very just entrepreneurial.
Well cause your parents moved here.
Your your mom's Spanish, right, yeah, and your dad's Irish. Yeah, so that's that's a fiery company.
Do you have a bad temper? They do? They do it kind of in the game. It was like a doctor Phil growing up.
Well, it's just like they always fight about everything, and so I had to be a little bit like, come on, guys, the cabinet door being open, isn't this big of a deal. That's really interesting. Do you think were you an only child? Yeah, yeah, that's kind of interesting. So you are the you're the genetic experiment between your mom's was an artist.
Your mom is an artist.
Yeah yeah, yeah, but again they didn't realize and still is that Do you want to take the comic? I know you're busy. I muted it. Come on, it's just a loud vibrate yet you know what, you're an emerging artist. You're doing your thing in New York. If you need to take a call, okay, all right, So your mom is an artist.
Yeah, your dad's not an artist.
No, he's not, but I would give him a performance artist kind of energy. He's a crazy guy that like if we were here and competing over like who could climb to the building the quickest, or who will break that window, He'll do it.
Okay, all right, So he's he has an adventurous.
Spirit, incredibly like to the point a super extreme sense. Like one story when I was I think I must have been thirteen, we went skydiving for our first time ever, okay, right, and I was like, I don't really want to go skydiving. He convinced the instructors that he was a professional and that he must go alone.
What and you have to do like one hundred to two hundred's that's very dangerous, super dangerous, And we were.
So he was like, I'm a professional. I've done this many many, many times. And I think he had done it once with someone on his back before, like five years prior. Right, Anyways, he convinces them, jumps off the plane completely alone.
Right.
Then he's supposed to like pull it out a certain time, and he doesn't, and so they all fly to him, the instructors, they're like pull it, pull it, pull it, and so he pulls it and then they're supposed to land in like a soccer field size thing, right, and we don't see my dad when everyone lands, and we're like, oh my god, like did he blah blah. And then ten minutes later he walks in with the whole parachute and was like that was amazing and he's like banned
from life from this ego band. Well, they were like, what the fuck did you feel? I would be kind of what the fuck is?
Is it a crazy story? But did you did you feel kind of unsafe growing up? Or were you Okay, no, no, no, always felt safe?
Right, Okay, so you grew up And it's a because I think of you, like we've had conversation before, and I think of you, is you have a kind of like a stable background. Yeah, and like your your your family is kind of together still, right, and they were just moving a lot and crazy thinkers.
But what I always say to this, and obviously I'm not a parent, but I I think the best thing to do as a parent is that you and your kid have the same priorities. And I think when you're very little, you get in trouble for stuff that you can't really understand, where you're like, oh, like standing on top of this table, wasn't that bad while am I getting yelled at so much and then like getting.
Telling the flight the instructors that you're a professional.
Exactly, and then and then getting like a B in school, Like you don't get in trouble so much. So then you're kind of like, what's like when I was a kid, I could stand on the table no matter what. No one cares, orf my parents didn't care. But if I got to be in school, I was in a lot of trouble. So it kind of you a straight A student.
I was a straight A student, but I felt like, Okay, I understand why you're being mean here and why you're not being mean here, and so I always felt like we were on the same team, right, So I was like, okay, this is I can take punishment because I understand when I'm wrong, and then when i'm when we're on the same side, it's like other people might think it's not the best acting, but I thought, like standing on table is fun.
Yeah.
I think I think you turned out all right.
Yeah, So you come out of school and when you drawing into fashion, was it through music because usually young people it's through music, right.
So I had moved a ton growing up. So I went from like New York, Chicago, New York, Mexico, Wisconsin back to New York.
And so it was because your parents work.
My dad was just getting new jobs, okay, and so he and since he's Irish, she was like, fuck it. Yeah, Mexico, Mexico is the same as New York.
Yeah. Yeah.
But Wisconsin when I was like eleven, was very very much like what was cool was sports.
So if you're good at sports, you were a cool kid, okay.
And then I moved right to Brooklyn at twelve, and what was cool was fashion, right, And I knew nothing about fashion, and I was like I couldn't really wrap my head around like young kids spending a lot of money on clothes to make themselves cool, right, And I was kind of like, well, I was like anti anti culture, where I was like, oh, this is stupid. Let me just make my own clothes, right, And so that was really why the clothing thing happened.
So you started making your own clothes. How did the term professional? Who's noticed it? Did it come to me?
It's funny, like there isn't a moment where it's like you are professional.
I wish it was. Yeah, it would be very cool.
But I think. I mean, so I started with T shirts in high school. I was spray painting. Then I started screenprinting, and then I manufactured my first hat that was with a factory that was like custom. Everything else was like I was buying a T shirt and I wish I could say that I had manufactured my first hat. Yeah, it was pretty cool.
There's nothing says you're going to be a billionaire like having a phrase in your life like that's what I manufactured my first hat. Yeah, but that was pretty big deal for me because I was like probably seventeen on Ali Baba, which is like, yeah, I know what it is, Chinese website where you can get anything made right, And so I was talking to all these factories and knew nothing, and I asked ten different factories for this one hat design and this one hat and they all sent me
ten different ones. All most were horrendous, but one was incredible, and I was like, this is the start of me, like learning how to make things and produce things. And so that hat I dropped with like T shirts and a hoodie and I was like, this is a full collection.
I'm like, I am a top tier designer.
Did you ever watch Project Runway? Did you know? But Project Runway to me was like so fashion. I was like such a streetwear person at the time, and so I was like, Okay, I have a hat that's unique and I have T shirts and so I dropped the collection.
And I was in college at the time, and a kid on my soccer team's roommate built the website and that was my huge like, oh man, I'm going to sell to people that I don't know, because at the time you're like, how do you find people that you don't know to buy your clothes?
I think it's fascinating is you're very clearly a result of your time as well, like you use the resources of the internet.
Yeah.
I mean that's interesting that you were on a Chinese manufacturing website when you're a teenager.
Yeah. Yeah, And I'm sure there are other kids doing it now.
I think it's even crazier because now there's all like there's Instagram's now devoted to finding manufacturing for young clothing brand designers.
Is that good? Do you think? Does it help?
It helps if you're young, but it also it just allows so many people to enter the field. Yeah, So you're like a young designer. For me, it took ages to make my own shoe right right now, you can make your own shoe quite easily if you do the research. And you're all of a sudden talking to a shoe manufacturer in Asia and you're like sixteen.
So let's talk a little.
Bit about shoe manufacturers in Asia a little bit, because there is you know, there is an ethical problem and you're industry about how negative connotation?
Yeah, there is?
Well, is that something that you're cognizant of, that that you're of course you're cognisant of. You does it plan how you make your staff? Well, there's two things. One, China makes everything.
It's not just clothe whatever, so everything. They're the best manufacturers of things in general, right And it's not just pricing, it's just bare minimum. If you want the highest end thing, they could still make it the best. And it's just because they've had infrastructure for seventy years and we took off the past seventy years basically, like we basically just handed them all manufacturing and we stopped doing it in America. And so the idea that it's like worse or better
or whatever. There are factories that are very bad. But there's also factories that are very good, okay, And like the factory that I work with, Like I visited and went to dinner with the whole like staff, oh, and like it was like, Okay, this is nice, but you checked it out.
Yeah, I checked it out.
And it was like she's always complaining that her husband's playing too much basketball, right, so it's like she has the same problems and we're working at as well. But what I love about China and working with factories there is like, Okay, if you want to make a pair of denim jeans in America, you have to go find the fabric which is in from America. So maybe there's some from America, but usually it's not. So let's say you imported Japanese denim right now, you have to get
a factory that cuts it right. Then you have to go find the factory makes the buttons. Then you have to have another factory that puts the buttons on the jeans. So like you've just touched ten factories and like tons of shipping and all this stuff to make one pair of pants. China's infrastructures it's all in the same area. It's all in the same block, so they don't even it's not even considered going to different factories. It's just
all done in the house. So if you're talking about you know, there's other issues with shipping that comes in and you know, so, but.
Let's we made a kind of a leap there because we got your high school and now your touring factories in China looking for the best deal for your jeans. But between there there is your relationship with Paris Fashion Week, which I think is fascinating because you kind of that that's kind of where you made your boones. Really, so you you applied to Paris Fashion Week, street fashion was that the way.
You do So this is so basically to speed up the story. I was in college, I launched the brand, things start moving a little bit. I convert my sophomore year dorm into a store and so everyone's come into my dorm room and it looks like a storefront, and I got racks of clothing.
And to be so rich, it's scary.
And then and then I'm like, okay, I get in trouble with my dean of housing because they didn't like that this course. Yeah, and so I'm like I should have told them you were a professional parachutest.
Something I was trying to say, like, how am I not the face of housing?
It's like, give me a bigger room. I was like, you should be supporting me. You're right, I got it.
And they have like twenty five thousand kids go to the school and I'll like tell them all about my story.
Right.
I was like, if all of them buy one item, I'm super rich. Yeah, and so whatever I got, and they didn't believe in the vision. So I was like, I converted a dorm into a store. But what if I do the flip side? Okay, So I found this little store in Brooklyn on Craigslist.
Okay, what you run I do?
Yeah, I swear I made my mind, which would be an amazing side. Yeah. Yeah, you know it's a sight hustle, but you know it brings in a couple of billion of years.
Was it. It is amazing that Craigslist never changed their name. Yeah, it's super awesome.
It's fantastic. You know the eBay was stuffed by a guy called eBay Noah, Yeah, but Yahoo Yahoo yeahoo's You always have other options, that's what yeahoo was. You always have other options. That's why they it's so good. Yeah, it's clever, all right. So you convey a store into a dorm.
Yeah, So then I basically move into the back of a store in Brooklyn, and I have all my classes in junior year set up. So it's Monday Tuesday, I go to school, Wednesday through Sunday I work at the store.
So what college are you having. I'm at NYU, right, and I'm studying mathematics.
Right, But clearly it's not You're not going to be an academic mathematician.
That's not clearly.
And I think, I mean, it's a side conversation, but I think math is taught really horribly. I mean in the United States or wherever. But it's not seen as a creative field, I know, and that's wrong. It should be actually the most creative I agory. It's the language of the universe, and people think that it's a chore.
And I don't know why or how it got converted to that, but I think it's like, if me and you are sitting here and there's a problem to be solved, me finding it out faster than you proved I'm more creative. Like it's the most easy way to prove I'm more creative, right, So I don't understand why. And it's like gamifying it too. Math is quite fun in a game. It's trying to figure things out. So yeah, I think it's taught really bad.
But by my senior year of college, I had been what twelve years of math basically, and it had weeded out like all kind of sense of personality, right, And all the kids in that are very, very straight by the book, which sucks because it shouldn't be that you should have very unique thinkers in a room full of math.
Well, but you clearly are that anyway.
So you're taking those mathematics and you're applying it to a different area.
I think what math really helped me.
It obviously it was good at training the brain, but I think it made me fearless because everyone was like, oh my god, I can't believe you're doing math, like that's so like crazy, it must be so difficult, and I was like, yeah, it is, but it's possible, right right. And I think that mindset was applied to fashion, where it's like, yeah, I don't know a lot about fashion now,
but it's learnable, And so math was learnable. Everyone thought it was the scariest thing to major, and I did that, So why couldn't I apply that like mindset or mind practice to different mediums?
Was it ever?
Was it a social thing as well? Was that a way to meet girls?
A way to kind of social I think I was the hottest girl in my math class.
You can't say that, all right, you said it, but I understand what you're saying.
So, but you're now moving into a very different world from academic mathematics, right, You're super different, right, And you're so you're in Brooklyn and you're living in a store, which is about the hippest thing I've ever heard.
Well, what's even funnier about this is to make money. I'm airbing being a room in the store, okay, and I call it a Brooklyn studio. And if you're from Sweden, this is like the coolest shit ever. Nothing really works. You're kind of in this art studio. And then I would only try to get people there for like a day or two days, because by day three they'd noticed that there was hours and operations of the store that they were living in.
So they were actually working there, so they'd like, yeah, and wait a minute, I came here, and good trace to have a hipster holiday and now I'm living in a store.
But if you're like really foreign, that's the coolest New York experience ever.
Well, you know when I when I lived in the East Village in the eighties, there was one or two of your type down there. Then the big thing at the time was stores became nightclubes. Okay, so there there was a furniture store called Space Gallery during the day and at night it was a it was a club called Space Gallery, and you would go in and it's like, I think that still happens.
Actually, yeah, I mean that I would love to. I mean that would be a very fun thing for the kids. Super news store, very secretive club a club. Yeah, you should come see it. By the way, where is it. It's in Williamsbury.
I don't go to Brooklyn, but come on, I'm too old. I'm too old. I can go. I'll try.
You went to Lower east Side, it's like ten more minutes. Yeah, but I'm in the Upper east Side now. I go to the Daily, I get my bagel, I go back home. You got my day.
Yes, But these tattoos, yeah, that's true. Yeah, do you have anything?
I have super tattooed on my right butt cheek. Okay, committed, you're gonna have to have kid, no kid? All right, Okay, I get it. Everyone always says the same thing, you know, or then get pooper or duper put on super duper or super pooper.
Well the poopers there as well. Well you know if you label it as well.
So listen, you do this. You're in the store in Brooklyn. Yeah, and now you're starting No, it's a business, right.
Well this was the me getting the store was proved to everyone that it was serious, okay, because it was a physical entity that represented something real. And it's funny because, like you know, most businesses now start fully e commerce and they're like, I don't even need a store. We can just direct a consumer. We don't need to have
a physical location. But for me, I guess the real thing that excited me about fashion, besides all the other stuff, was meeting people and having a place to Like again, my parents moved here in the seventies or eighties, and they were always talking about this energy that New York had and everyone was kind of working.
Yeah, and I probably ran into your parents, and certainly I think your dad. At some point. I probably ran away from your.
Dad at some point in like erotic a club, like, yeah, I've actually touched your father.
Yeah, yeah, I touched your father. I touched your father in the eighties. So now you're my kid exactly. I could be you're my kid.
That's it. So I need a cut.
But I always heard about this and I was like, man, I wish I could live that era. And I was like, there isn't these there aren't these spaces where people are meeting up. There aren't these like these ideas of like buildings that you could kind of convert into art studios or like convert a stores slash club. Like you just needed so much money to do that. Nowadays, it was like my mom would always say Colin, like, why aren't you just focusing on painting? And I go, Mom, what
was your rent? She goes seventy five dollars a month and I go, okay, what did you do? She was like I could work on Friday as a waitress in the Financial District and get tipped one hundred dollars. I'm like, so you're making your rent on tip one night? Like that freedom doesn't exist now, Yeah.
No, that's kind of true. I remember that.
I mean that time period as well, was because I worked in a building site in Harlem. Yeah, and I get paid six hundred bucks a week in my rent with six hundred bucks a month. Yeah, I left in a very fancy place six bus a month. But you know that thing you're talking about the store is kind of because you remember were talking about the There was a store on Avenue, a furniture store run by an
English guy, and we sold nineteen fifties furniture. And it was there that I met Andy Warhol and basket at because people used to go there to hang out during the day and drink beer and set on the furniture.
That's all they did.
And it was kind of a weird time and I see your hankering for that, yeah, and people it didn't feel like there was anything particularly fabulous going on at the time, but it was only in retrospect to going this was kind of an interesting time.
Well even now, so like I had this physical space and then no one was coming to the store to shop. It was kind of in the middle of nowhere.
That was the problem. That was the problem everybody else had. They weren't making any money.
And I remember being like, damn, okay, so no one's coming to the shop. What if I converted into a place that people need to come. So I did a thing for converts. They paid for this recording studio in my basement. I bought like a sewing machine. I bought like seamless to take photos. And I was kind of like, anyone who wants to come can come use this place, right OK. And so I was like, the more people
that come, I will see what happens. And in retrospect, as you're saying now, like we had so many cool and interesting people work and live out of there, and like my basement recording studio, I think a couple songs from it are like five times platinum.
That's amazing.
And so you're in retrospect you're like, Wow, this is fun, blah blah, and then you're like, whoa this we were really doing stuff and this is kind of like what my mom described.
Do you still have the store now? I have a bigger one, but I stole all the walls. So I painted the walls of the store, and when I left, I ripped them all off and then I rebuilt them in my new store.
You probably lost your deposit, Oh definitely.
Yeah. I had previously lost my deposits, so this store is now happening place.
Yeah, the chronology, I'm trying to get to this. I'm trying to make the.
Connection between you and Paris Fashion Week because I think that's when you go in New Clear, Yes, when it was at Paris.
So what what happens? Did you decide you wanted to try that? Is that?
So basically I was doing a lot of different things at that time, where I was like doing album arts for musicians, I was maybe doing merch, I was doing art shows. I was doing all this stuff, and I was dropping clothes like super erradically nothing to the schedule. How most people drop clothing, right, And so someone came into a store she and she was like two girls, a stylist and her friend, and they're like, what's next for you? And I jokingly said, Paris Fashion Week? Complete joke.
But at the time you had heard about, you know, Virgil had gone to Louis Vauton and was doing Paris fashion shoo shows out there with Off White as well, and there was kind of an energy around Paris Fashion Week. To me, it seemed like completely out of the picture, Like it's.
Like saying a night to Off Broadway. What's next Neo Superman? Yeah, I'll be playing Supermo yah yeah, or like yeah, like you're in high school. Well, it's so funny. So I went to This is a side note, but I made the jerseys for Barnsley, which is a third division soccer team in Yeah, that's amazing. So I made their jerseys and I went there. This is fast forwarding, but I went there and they were kind of wrapping their heads around what I was doing, and they were like, so,
how important was Louis Vauton like calling you up? And I go, well, it's kind of like you're playing for Barnsley and real Madrid's exactly.
Right, yeah, and they all were like, oh, okay, all right, now we understand it. Yeah, that's right.
So anyways, I'm back in the store and these two girls asked me what's next, and I jokingly go Paris Fashion Week and she goes, my boss is a French PR guy who helps people do Paris Fashion Week shows.
I'm like, she's like, do you want to meet and I'm like sure, no problem.
Again, meeting people was like that it was the goal, and so I'm in this meeting and he's like, so for venues.
Are you thinking this one, this one, this one?
And I didn't want to look stupid, so I just set like, well, my mom's from Spain, and'd be cool to do a bullfighting ring instead of the instead of the conventional catwalk, it would be cool if it was circular.
He's like, what about this circus.
I'm like, oh, that's amazing, blah blah, and I leave and I'm like, what the fuck did I just plan a Paris fact?
And he keeps calling me. He's like, hey, I've spoke to the venue. I suppose do you need money for exactly?
And so I haven't agreed to any money, right, And I'm just kind of like this guy thinks I'm doing it, but I'm had no plans of doing it. But then I keep telling my friends and I'm like, hey, man, like this, should we do Paris faction? Just just feel how they'd say it? And everyone around me was like yeah, cool,
Like I'm in, sign me up. And I remember being like I think I had created this like exaggerated persona of myself called kid Super that everyone believed in because I'd proven correct a couple times, and so they were all in. And I remember being like, all right, well I'm not going to be the one guy who doubts me. If everyone else is on I'm in. So I remember calling the guy. I'm like, okay, let's do this, Like how less there is this cost?
Where do we like? Who models it? Blah blah blah.
And so the cool thing about Paris Fashion Week is to get on the official calendar. You basically have to show up do a fashion show at the same time, same area, and they'll review it and if you're good, maybe next time or the next time or the next time. Right, But it's kind of like showing up to Sundance, renting a movie theater and it being judged by all the people at Sundance, or which was the.
Way at the beginning, which yeah, I mean I won Sundance in nineteen ninety nine, yeah, I think, or two thousand and that was what used to kind of happen.
You just took your movie to Sundance and physically you didn't have to talk to anyone.
Well, you know, you very quickly became you know, well, this guy wants this movie here at this time and this, and so it became about really access to timeslow it right, more than anathon, but at the very beginning there was no It was like, yeah, bringing along.
Which is such a cool and kind of inspire hiring or motivating concept where you're like, wait, I just have to show up. Like if that's it's like.
The Edinburgh Festival or something, comedians just go there.
If that's like all that it is, I'll show up for the rest of time. So anyways, I do this fashion show and I'm like, who to model it? So the first model on my fashion show is my mother, perfect choice, The second models my father, perfect choice. Yeah, third and fourth is like the rappers that had worn the kids super stuff the last person. And so it ended up getting this review from Vogue called breakout fashion show of Men's Paris Fashion Week show.
All right, so that's to me, seems like a gear change right there.
It was a gear change for sure, where I'm like, okay, And I had read about other fashion designers and I'm like, how did like Jeremy Scott turned to Jeremy Scott or Mark Jacobs turned to Mark Jacobs and these fashion shows were super integral to their life changing moments, and so
I'm like, holy shit, my life's changed. And then nothing changes and I'm like, wait, and because we were in a weird time where like media doesn't matter as much as it wants, Like a good article doesn't change your life for sure, A good like one picture of a celebrity wearing your clothes doesn't change your life anymore. And so it really nothing changed. Besides, I couldn't uber home because I'd spent all my money. Wow, And so I was like, okay, this was I was like was this
worth it? But what was really cool was I felt like it was this amazing like artistic challenge. And I don't know how like what our goal in life is, but mine was these artistic challenges. And what I also loved was that it was seen by and judged at the highest level. So I was at the highest time. I'm taken seriously just because I'm doing I'm trying it and it's every six months, and I'm already got to so I did that.
I got a review. Wait wait, fashion Week is every six months. Yeah, so every six months you do autumn, winter, summer, spring, summer, spring. You have to keep doing this to conty once a year.
I wish you once a year would be way less physically and mentally draining. But so when they review that, they reject me again from the official calendar. So I've got rejected twice or three times. I eventually get it rejected three times. But everyone's like, man, I'm so sorry Colin that you got rejected. I'm like, guys, they're reviewing me. I'm like this and it's literally called like the Federation on de haut Couture, and it's like the and it's
like the most French and prestigious name. And I'm getting this email like thank you so much for like applying. Unfortunately you're not a blah blah, and I'm like, I was always afraid that I would never get in that room. I wasn't afraid of like that was my fear. But once I was in it that I was getting no I was like, oh, this is easy. This is only about amount of times you try, effort you put in and good ideas like medical equations.
I'll beat math again, that's what you're doing.
And I was like, I'll beat everyone in those like you're not gonna outwork me or out the idea of me. And so I just did it three times and which is more than the average brand has to do. But I was against such an outsider. And then on my third time, I get accepted to Paris Fashion Week, and which is fantastic.
No, what show do you put on for your first This is great official?
So this is great official things happened by the way, I've blown all my money, of course, and I get accepted. I'm like, fuck, I really don't want to. I don't financially can't do another fashion Week show. COVID hits and I'm like, thank god, which I might be the only person in the world.
I think it was one or two people were like, yeah, okay, well yeah, I mean it's bad that people are getting sick, but this.
Is not bad.
No.
Yeah, but I was like, this stopped all fashion week shows and they all went virtual. Okay, So now virtual fashion shows were video fashion shows that had really no restriction because it had never been done before, and so you could do a catwalk that you filmed, you could do blah blah blah. But it kind of leveled the playing field because now you couldn't, like, rent a palace in Paris hire the top models like that. You couldn't
do anymore because models can't move. Renting a place doesn't look that cool on camera, and so this was my chance. And before this, I had done all these music videos for artists, I had done all this stop motion stuff. So I thought, wouldn't it be funny to do a stop motion fashion show made out of Barbie dolls? And
so I bought all these Barbie dolls. I ripped off the head of the Barbie dolls and I three D printed like fifty cent Jennifer Lopez, Stephen Hawking, Picasso, Salvador Dali, and I had all these doll versions of them and little miniature clothes, and I had them stop motion.
Walk on a catwalk. That's genius.
And in my mind, I remember telling my friends like we were this is our first and last time on Paris fashion because I'm.
Like, there's no way to go.
This is the most amazing all in my mind, I was like, they didn't even make clothes, like they're ten inches tall, and so I'm like, but I thought it was such a cool idea. And I also thought it was so authentic to the kids superstory because claymation had been a huge part of the success from doing music videos for different people. Right, these are ours that you're collaborating with, are in your store in Brooklyn to begin.
With, yes, right, and so, and I was making their little stop motion videos and so I get this like amazing review from the pair and it's like a breakout hit in fashion world. And now everyone starts taking me
seriously as this like original thinker. And because I was competing during Virtual Fashion Week, where everyone else kind of fucked up because they were they had all these plans for these giant fashion shows that they had to stop, so they were like last minuting making these videos where that's kind of my skill is these last minute no resources.
Like all that helps me is.
That when the big fashion houses start circling you about coming in and doing stuff for them.
Not yet, but this is where the fashion world first takes an eye to me, right, And they had really not and so now I'm like once they supported that original thinking, I was like, oh, man, now I can do anything because I thought that was going to get kicked off and so I'm like, oh, if that's allowed, then I'll have And so there was probably five COVID fashion shows, so like yeah, two and a half years of COVID, and I did very unique ones.
I did one that was a short film.
I did one where I set a booth in Washington Square Park and I asked three hundred people what they want to do before they die, and then the video cut to them being like, I want a sky and it would cut to them skydiving and a kid's super look nice. And so I did skydiving. I did family reunion, blind date, climb a mountain, raft the river, and so it was oh, I fashion aside, it's a.
Kind of beautiful. Yeah, it's a lovely thing to do show.
And then the last fashion show, I'm like, I always thought there'd be a cool kid super television show.
And I was just like, how do you do this?
And so I had looked up The Entourage and how to make an America IMBD and I saw a name and I hit up Rob Weise from He's on both of them, and I was like, how do you get a TV show?
Blah blah?
And I got through him through Instagram and he was like, well, basically, you make a pilot and maybe someone buys it or not and blah blah blah blah, and like they fund a pilot. And I was like, what if we just do a pilot and call it a fashion show? I have to spend like, you know, fifty to one hundred or one hundred and fifty k every fashion show, let's just do it for this. He's like, wow, that's crazy, blah blah. And so I wrote a script, shot it
blah blah. And I shot this like pilot episode, called it a fashion show all everyone was wearing the kid super clothes. But it feels really much like a decent pilot for.
A TV show. So does the TV show get picked up?
So then that's how I meet W E. C a UK because of this TV show concept. And again like super outside of the television world, and don't really.
That's all changing so much anyway. I mean, everything is changing so much. You're really right in a wave. It seems to me that you're that you're very Stuart learning very quickly. The things are changing, and this is how it can do it, and you can adapt. They talk about Darwinism as the survival of the fast.
It's not. It's the survival of the most adaptable.
Sabertooth Tiger's pretty fucking you know fit, But it's if it's not going to fit the conditions, if it's not going to write it out, it's not going to survive. So you do that because the industry is changing, and I think all industries are changing, like TV is changing, fashion is.
Changing, all everything the world is changing.
Do you see a time that you can You can't really sail into a traditional kind of model. You can't say, well, at a certain point, I'll be Louis Vitone because well, it's changed.
It's changing.
And also it's really not my best strength, right, Like, if you compete head to head at like fashion infrastructure with one of these big guys, you're getting crushed, right.
But because they have distribution and they have this, it's just.
And that's their whole thing, and they have millions and billions of dollars backing. But original ideas and original ways of thinking and moving very quickly and nimble is a strength that I have that they don't have. So everyone was always kind of thinking like wow, Colin, like these are such amazing original ideas. It's like they are good ideas. But it was also like I was aware of what I could bring to the table and what I couldn't
and the things that I could compete with. We're more ideas than it was like, you know, so you had a sense of you know yourself and you had a sense of your place in it. Yeah, so what happens when Louis Vuitton comes to you and says, right, we want you to be his guest designer, that's what we call it.
Right, So they want you to do that for a year. No, we've taken you know, Sid.
Vicious out of the pistivals and he's just joining the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and that it's a very it's a very different world. He does it, marry out well one. Sid Vicious never thought he was going to get to the well. It's a bad example somebody else, you know, I'm.
Saying as the sid Vicous character, Right, it was as extreme as that scenario where I was like I never even thought because you know, there was rumors about who was going to be next after Virgil, and I wasn't even putting myself within like even joking with my friends you're right, and you know you joke like, oh I should play.
Yeah.
I never even went brought it up because that's how far fetched it was. And so when I get the ask or call to pitch, because you still, it wasn't like we need you, you're in.
It was like would you like to apply.
Yeah.
It was at exactly so I think people think it was like they just called me and we're like, the time is now and my name.
I would like you to come to my house and make a pair of trousers.
It was very much like you have a first meeting and I was like, how much time do I have to prepare? They're like house two and a half weeks? I go perfect, So what do you make? You just make a bunch of different looks or stuff. So I made a five hundred page book okay of ideas, concepts, thoughts, clothes, pitches, shows everything. I three D printed shoes, I three D printed a belt buckle I built, I made a bag, I shot three.
Commercials, really threw down. You know, you did the work.
That's what I think people may or may not understand, was like I don't think I was the top of their list. I think once they got they saw how much work I was able to do in such a short period of time, they were like, oh, if we give this kid resources, like this guy's the limit.
Right.
I was just again, it was about being in the room. Once I was in the room, I was like I can do.
This, right, But here's the thing no, No, you have a situation where you have, up until this point unrestricted creative control. Now I feel like it would be naive for anyone that think you're going to walk into a giant fashion host late Vatona and they're going to say, would you like, you know, let us see a picture of the pants? So, is there is there an editor you're dealing with? Is there someone who's looking at is there a Tim Gunn? So that's hilarious.
I love it, but I think it really should be just make it work.
So this is what's interesting about fashion, I think is so these runway shows are kind of just an example of your creativity, and then what you see in the store is merchandised for production.
Right, So it's a concept car versus a production like right, right exactly. And so during in the concept car you have crazy freedom. And I was pretty blown away by Louis Vutan's like acceptance to new ideas and very little like you can't do this.
The whole thing was like, you can do this, this is great. We have a team here that makes it, takes all these ideas and turns it into.
Oh that's very clever.
So so what it does then is that you get the concept and there's a group of people who their skill is to take your concepts and make it racles things like that. Was that that must be a weird kind of I mean, you're the crazy. Thing is like, I mean, right now you can go to Louis Vuitton and you see like my handwriting on stuff and like kind of my drawings on pain my paintings on clothes. But what was really amazing about the experience is like it makes you dream so big. I mean, obviously you
as well, like your life story. It's like once you get on national television, you're like, what can't I do?
Yeah, well, it's a little of that for sure. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I understand it.
You know.
It's it's like it's for me.
It was it was America, America, you can do anything because I'm an immigrant. That's my And it feels like you you have that from your parents that they were like, you can do anything here.
The sky's limit in this place.
Yeah, And I mean definitely felt like I could try for anything. It definitely didn't feel like it was going to happen. No, there's no guarantees, but you get the opportunity and so yeah, but it was was also crazy. Is like Paris was way more open to me as a designer than America.
That's interesting, I wonder why.
I think because Paris knows they're good and knows that they're great, and knows they have history that they can take risks.
America is constantly searching for like we can't be wrong, Like, oh, so it's a confidence. I think it's like from a fashion world perspective, Americans, I think.
That that has that has residencies elsewhere, so they like are afraid to take risks necessarily on someone because if it doesn't hit the check check check, check check, they look stupid because they put all their eggs in a basket of an American whereas Paris or France, it's like they've proven themselves time and time again.
If they have one that doesn't work, they're willing to test it out. What does what does it look like? Don't work? And is that like sales are bad? Is that is it simple as that? Like people just don't want to buy it or it gets a bad review from you know.
I mean the reviews don't matter as much as they ever did. I mean, like I would love to see the numbers of how many people read the like your Vogue review many and and then so so that's not what's important.
I think. I'm sure you've get more Instagram followers. Yeah it's Vogue.
Yeah.
The main thing is just like keeping the energy alive and like, because I come from a streetwear background where it's like, you know, you're either the hottest streetwear brand or everyone hates. It's like pretty hard to maintain the cool forever. You see it now with Supreme struggling a little bit.
Ed Hardy. Yeah, but now the cool thing about that is like now ed Hardy could be cool, right, it comes back again. You got a wait, it's every twenty years, right.
And you can wait that as a brand, and like there's a bunch of brands and like Stuicy or Stussy however people want to say it that was not cool for like ten years and now it's super super cool.
Well I did that, went through that and stuff like that as well. So what now, because now you're an interesting point you are you're no longer street.
I mean you look street, but you know you've been against that. I mean, number one thing, it's a weird. It's a weird position to be in.
An earlier than I thought I was going to be into it, and I think like the Kid's Super business wasn't as like figured out when I got the LV thing, where I was like, Okay, now I know exactly like my price point and my distribution and all this stuff.
But it's super exciting.
I think also the stuff that I'm interested in, things that have opened up, as you said, like the TV series was always something I was really trying hard to do. Art was always something I was really trying hard to do. And I think I have to maintain myself as like an artist that's true to the craft while the kids super clothing business builds up.
And so it's the balance of art and call maers again, right, yeah, because I think that's what worked for me.
And I think added this like luxury standpoint to the kids super even though the prices aren't crazy.
All right, So how does this figure out in your life? A way? What if I strip all of it that's away and go, okay, none of this this is all your work? Is there a person there who is not the work? Is there? Is there ambitions for a family? Is there ambitions?
Is this a therapy session? A little bit at the moment. Now, I think that's okay. That's a very healthy and honest answer to say no, this is what I do, this is who I am. And I think that that there's a kind of interesting morality given to people who say no, no, no, I do this. I like this, Like I'm friends with I'm sure you know his name. I don't know if you know his work, but I'm friends with Jay Leno. The Jay's thing is I Yeah, I just like that.
I just did my job. I did have my job. That's who he is.
And if he didn't do it, I don't think he'd really I mean, he loves his cars and cars yeah car right, the count of right. But if you took a way doing stand up comedy for him, I don't think he would really understand what life was about.
I think also, I've been really fortunate to brand things that I'm very interested as kid super, So it's like there isn't too many like for example, I did Barnsley's Third Division a third division soccer jersey football jersey and.
Essentially because Barnsley are like it's an odd choice.
It was a odd choice and amazing experience. But I called a kid super right, but I would do that as column right, And I was like, and I got to train with them, so I got to play.
Oh, because you'd like to play song?
Yeah?
Yeah? And I was like, okay, like right, and what point is that become a column thing or a kid super thing. It's a column thing, true and true, but I just branded it as kid Super. So I think my like moral dilemmas of that stuff, I don't have any because I'm really doing stuff that I would do if it wasn't a brand, or I would want to do.
That's what I think.
And I think the bottom line is this is that you know, I worked a little bit with the Rolling Stones at some point.
It was actually I was working with my I don't know if I'm supposed to say this, but I'm doing their alternate cover. Are you really? Yeah? That's really fun. Are you working with Jagger? Well?
I don't get to meet him, but he approved. I bet you, I bet you do, because he's really hands on. I was writing a script with him. We never made the movie. He's like, now, what we have put a full stop in there and do you know we have a sentence there and then have this black guy with that. But he's very hands on. But because I was kind of working with him, I was they were on tour
at the time, so I was in that environment. This is where I get to you because Keith Richards is the guitarist in The Rolling Stones and I don't think he gives a rat's ass if it's a stadium or a pub.
As long as he's playing the guitar, that's what it is. And he does it because he doesn't know how nought to do it. And I think that's you.
I think what you're doing is you're smart enough and you're mathematical enough to know that I can make a lot of money doing this.
But I think you would just do it anyway.
And I think that's when you enjoy what you're doing, sure, and I think it's why you continue. I think a lot of people, you know, I started making clothing in high school where none of those and there's lots of kids that have brands in high school that didn't continue because they weren't hitting, like the success meter that they had in their head. But I never had the success meter, that's right, wasn't there because I was like one. I always felt that this was like I don't know if
the words blessing. But I was always like, wow, I can't believe I'm doing this. Like it wasn't that I can't believe this is successful. I was like, I can't believe I get the opportunity to like make clothing or fuck around with my friends or whatever.
And it's a business. And so I wasn't like, why am I not sales like this? Blah blah blah blah.
And I always was like, okay, this is there's always a little bit of a door opening or a door closing. So I knew exactly what to do or not to do, because it wasn't like I knew the big vision of what I always wanted, but I had no idea how to get there. And then I just followed kind of like open or closed doors.
It's it's funny. It's a very mathematical approach to it, like you know, this gate's closed, it's zero one zero one zero one go through. I am very much looking forward to seeing what happens with you next. I'm delighted that you came in and talked to us. You are a force of nature and a real American story, and I'm fascinated by it.
Calm you have to come to the store. I bought a moped. You can just get on the back. I'll get on the back. I'll be your moped bet. Thank you so much, z