This talk with iconic denim designer and businessman Maurice Malone feels like a fashion industry Masterclass but in the form of a great conversation.
In this two part episode we cover the good, the bad and the ugly of navigating the worlds of fashion and denim design.
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More on Maurice Malone
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Today, as the owner and designer of the Brooklyn based manufacturer, retailer and denim brand Williamsburg Garment Company (WGC), designer Maurice Malone is recognized in the denim industry as one of the top denim designers in the world. He has been called the “Steve Jobs of Denim” by Brooklyn Magazine, also, featured as a creative thought leader for Fast Company’s The Rise, Fall, And Rise Of The “Steve Jobs Of Denim” and Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s “21 People Besides Kanye Who Are Just Like Steve Jobs.” Like Steve Jobs, with WGC Maurice has been a different thinker, believing in simplifying a product to enhance it and not being content following the traditional routes of proven business models is why Williamsburg Garment Company has been so successful. —> Read More
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Part 1 – Show Notes
- Relaunching Maurice Malone Brand
- Williamsburg Garment Company
- Started with $1600
- Took MOJEANS brand off the market in 2001
- Relaunched it 2006
- The last Maurice Malone collection was 2005/6 just before the relaunched the MOJEANS Black Label, which ended about 2007/2008
- Celebrity brands
- MTV started blurring logos
- From Detroit
- Moved to New York in ‘89
- Big fish in a little pond
- Doing parties and fashion shows
- Started making clothes from himself then for friends
- Started out doing hats
- Wanted to be a special effects artist
- Fashion Institute of Technology Museum
- Maurice attended FIT
- Just Got Lucky by Joe Boxers
- Wanted to make jeans but didn’t know how to make a fly
- Started buying machines
- Hudson’s
- Willi Smith of Willi Wear
- School Daze
- Black Designers
- Patrick Kelly
- Karl Kani
- Calvin Klein
- Jean Paul Gaultier
- Dressing to work
- Staple of the Detroit Hat
- Polo by Ralph Lauren
- Finding good help
- New Yorkers talk fast
- You from the country?
- Detroit accent
- Derrick May
- MK
- Immersed in Hip Hop
- Kid Capri DJing
- KRS-One
- Transitioning from tight clothes wearing baggy clothes
- Became a NYC bike messenger
- Clinton Hill is full of creatives
- Junkprints
- Strict diet
- Eat to Live
- Designing at night
- Drawing on the floor
- Cross Colours
- Will Smith
- The Hip Hop Shop
- Giving away clothing
- Provocative advertising
- This is what we do, fuck you
- Abducted by aliens
- Ups and Downs
- Don’t let nothing stop you
- WGC Pillars
- Paper Denim and Cloth
- Meeting with Barney’s
- Doing branded unbranded denim
- One man company
- Manufacturing aging in denim
- You know you’re doing something right when you’re doing stuff before people understand it
- Thinking faster, simpler
- Pure Playaz
- Everything happens for a reason
- Selling clothes like hot cakes
- Merry-Go-Round
- DJ Clue Tapes
- Proof worked at the Hip Hop Shop
- My momma don’t want no hip hop on her block
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