On The Record

For almost 40 years, Tommy Hilfiger has changed how young people around the world dress. Pushing the boundaries of what a fashion business looks like commercially as a true global brand that just last year generated $4.7 billion dollars in revenue.

Business aside, the storied American brand reshaped what, and especially who, drove influence among youth culture. He was a pioneer in seeing musicians, especially hip hop artists, as powerful marketing vehicles that could culturally, and financially, create value for the business.

First it was Grand Puba from hip hop band Brand Nubian, who shouted out the brand in a song with Mary J. Blige. Then came the rest. Britney Spears, Lenny Kravitz, Aaliyah, Destiny’s Child, Snoop Dogg the list goes on.

Remember, this was at a time when fashion brands refused to work with hip hop artist, dismissing them as drivers of youth culture, and believing a too close association with predominantly black artists would be brand dilution. How times have changed for the better.

I called up Tommy who during our call early on in lockdown was on his boat. We discussed it all, from the early days of Destiny’s Child and Aaliyah wearing the brand to what make up the new foundations of a successful fashion business all these years later.

Spanish footballer player Hector Bellerin plays for both the Spanish national team and London footbal club Arsenal where he’s known for his attacking defense style of play. On the field, he’s known as one of the fastest players in the world, who just this month won his third FA Cup at Arsenal.

Off the field, there’s a completely different side to Bellerin. He’s incredibly vocal about environmental issues in his interviews, frequently attends fashion shows, just last year he walked Louis Vuitton’s men’s show, after being hand selected by its Virgil Abloh and he was instrumental in making LA streetwear brand 424 the exclusive off-field outfitter of Arsenal. His public persona is in stark contrast to what we’re often used to from football players. He drives an electric car, he strictly buys vintage, and in his free time is taking a fashion business course. He says that Hector Bellerin on the field needs to be balanced with Hector Bellrin off the field for when the day comes when he does retire. I wanted to dig deeper into this so I called him up at his new house in the English countryside.

As creative director of his London-based namesake fashion label JW Anderson, and at Spanish luxury leather goods house Loewe, Jonathan Anderson has been on the front lines of the European fashion scene for over a decade. And unlike many of his peers, he’s been able to innovatively adapt to the ever changing landscape of luxury while keeping an ear out to the desires of the young, yet highly influential, generation of fashion shoppers that dictate the market today.

Whether it’s sitting A$AP Rocky, Frank Ocean and photographer Tyler Mitchell front row at his Loewe shows and strategically launching youthful sub lines Paula’s Ibiza and Eye/LOEWE/Nature, to rethinking the entire show concept with his ‘shows in a box’ for both his brands and curating an entire art exhibition, Anderson continuously pushes the boundaries of what it means to be a creative director at a fashion house today.

There would be no mainstream dancehall as we know it today without Sean Paul. The Sean Paul who created chart toppers including ‘Get Busy’, ‘ Temperature’ and ‘Baby Boy’ with Beyonce. The Sean Paul, who has been nominated for 8 Grammy’s and won the award for Best Reggae Album with his legendary album ‘Dutty Rock’. And the Sean Paul who all of us continue to play at house parties and the club.

I wanted to hear a different side from him, and that we got. Today he still lives in Kingston, Jamaica where he’s from and it’s where I called him up to discuss everything from evolving your public image to mentorship for the next generation, and paying back to the culture that made him.

What do Kanye West, Billie Eilish, Daniel Arsham, Hiroshi Fujiwara, Bobbito Garcia and Tom Sachs all have in common? Well, they’ve all been connected (either directly or indirectly) to the heads of large corporations by one man, John C Jay, who is currently the president of global creative at Uniqlo’s parent company Fast Retailing. Over almost two decades at his previous job, as global executive creative director and partner at legendary American advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy, Jay created some of Nike’s most iconic campaigns. Most of all, he’s spent almost forty years exploring what gives a brand meaning, its significance in communities, and especially what pushes it forward in culture.

I remember meeting him in London last year at one of Uniqlo’s events where we spoke about everything from retail and sustainability to pop culture and what makes good design. And then the time ran out. But we had a lot more to discuss, so I called him to continue where we left off.

Bobbito Garcia aka Kool Bob Love, aka DJ Cucumber Slice has long been a New York City icon. From his early days of hosting the legendary alternative hip hop show “The Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Show” throughout the 90s which aired unsigned artists, rarities and B-sides from commercial artists and played in-studio freestyles from then unsigned legends including Nas, The Notorious BIG, Jay Z, Wu-Tang Clan, Fugees and more, to his pioneering 2003 book on sneaker culture ‘Where’d You Get Those?’, Garcia hasn’t documented youth culture from afar, he was there.

And there’s more. Over the past three decades he’s published magazines on streetball, hosted podcasts on NPR and brought sneaker culture to ESPN. He’s produced documentaries, worked with Nike, adidas and Puma on sneakers, and runs his own basketball tournament. A true gatekeeper of authority, and influence. And then some. In his New York residence we call him up.

Between all the fluff that is fashion, there is Robin Givhan. The American author and fashion critic of The Washington Post, whose cutting-edge journalism and objective reporting on the fashion industry stands out. It won her the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 2006. She was the first ever fashion writer to receive it. Back then, the prize stated she won the award for “her witty, closely observed essays that transform fashion criticism into cultural criticism.” Givhan's writing for the Post is indeed refreshingly honest, she always cuts through the bs, and she makes the elusive world of fashion digestible for her reader. It's why I wanted to speak with Givhan about a wide range of topics around how influence is changing, especially at a time when the fashion industry, like all other sectors, is in flux.

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