Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy nom the United States
Speaker 1: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border
Speaker 1: crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you
Speaker 1: are here illegally, your next you will be fined nearly
Speaker 1: one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned, and deported.
Speaker 2: You will never return.
Speaker 1: But if you register using our CBP home app and
Speaker 1: leave now, you could be allowed to return legally. Do
Speaker 1: what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump, America's laws, border
Speaker 1: and families will be protected.
Speaker 3: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
Speaker 4: You talked about the working with black brands and corporate,
Speaker 4: So for people that's not even in the fashion world.
Speaker 4: Why is it important for black brands to work with
Speaker 4: corporate and what's the disparities from black brands working with
Speaker 4: corporate as opposed to white brands.
Speaker 5: Working with corporate.
Speaker 6: So two thousand and nine I started to look for
Speaker 6: black designers to be a part of our second show.
Speaker 6: I couldn't really find any black designers, so naively, I said,
Speaker 6: let me go to the department stores where we shop.
Speaker 6: I'm going down the list of all the designers on
Speaker 6: the department store website. Realized that less than one percent
Speaker 6: of the designers that were on those websites were black.
Speaker 6: Then I went and said, well, how much are we
Speaker 6: spending on apparel? In two thousand and nine, we were
Speaker 6: spending twenty two billion dollars a year on apparel product
Speaker 6: And I'm like, this is not matching up at all, Like,
Speaker 6: how do we represent less than one percent of the
Speaker 6: designers but at the same time we're spending all of
Speaker 6: this money on apparel. And at that point I was like,
Speaker 6: how do I start to get more designers of color
Speaker 6: into department stores? And that was hard because for the
Speaker 6: first ten years of HFRS, retailers really didn't retailers and
Speaker 6: brands they weren't the ones really rocking with us. It
Speaker 6: was like brands like Verizon was sponsoring us, or at
Speaker 6: and T or Pandora Jewelry, or Prudential even was partnering
Speaker 6: with us.
Speaker 2: It was really difficult for us to get retailers.
Speaker 6: And so now I'm like, the more we can partner
Speaker 6: brands up with retailers. What it does is a w
Speaker 6: when the designer comes on board for a collaboration like
Speaker 6: the Abercrombie and Fitch one that I'm wearing, they can
Speaker 6: come in and they can just design. They get paid
Speaker 6: a rate that is fair for them. They can come
Speaker 6: in design, they don't have to worry about doing all
Speaker 6: the things. All the infrastructure is there for them, they
Speaker 6: don't have to worry about the manufacturing of it. So
Speaker 6: it's a win for both the designer and also for
Speaker 6: the brand because they get to tell this designer story
Speaker 6: and they get to tap into our culture.
Speaker 5: Like what designer is that the Abercrombie and Fish.
Speaker 6: This is Nicole Benefield. So she was one of the
Speaker 6: designers that we showed. She was the first designer that
Speaker 6: came out of the show.
Speaker 4: So so Nicole Benefield has her own she has own
Speaker 4: own fashion line.
Speaker 5: So she works with Abercrombie.
Speaker 4: Is it just Abercromme or is it Abercrombie slash Nicole Benefield.
Speaker 6: It's it's I wish I had my jacket, look I
Speaker 6: feel like showing so on the label it has at
Speaker 6: HFR Abercrombie and Fitch and the Cold Benefit.
Speaker 5: Also it's everybody, it's every partner on the label. And
Speaker 5: then that helps her explain how that helps her.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so it exposes her to a whole different audience. Right,
Speaker 6: So now Nicole Benefield, so Abercrombie and Fitch is sending
Speaker 6: out marketing emails about Nicole Benefield to all of their
Speaker 6: their audience, right their email audience. People are also learning
Speaker 6: about their her story because they did a lot of
Speaker 6: storytelling and the marketing of it. So it opens her
Speaker 6: up and you know, she also gets paid for that.
Speaker 7: This this feels like when we talked to Steve Stole
Speaker 7: what he was doing with corporate and hip hop, where
Speaker 7: it was he was merging the two. It feels like
Speaker 7: it's a similar story here where you're merging fashion with
Speaker 7: corporate in a sense, how do you find the emerging
Speaker 7: talent so that Nicole's is incredible?
Speaker 5: Right, but I'm sure as.
Speaker 7: Your brand grows, people want to be in front of you,
Speaker 7: so how do you decide and how do you identify
Speaker 7: the next emerging talent to say all right, this is
Speaker 7: worthy to be put with a brand.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So we have an online platform called designers Row, So
Speaker 6: any designer can go to our website, Herlmes, Fashion Road
Speaker 6: dot com and once they are in our database, they
Speaker 6: get invited to be a part of designers Raw.
Speaker 2: So really it's very organic. I have a team.
Speaker 6: My team is always scouting new talent. So Nicole Benefitl
Speaker 6: came to me through you know, someone who I knew
Speaker 6: who was like, hey, you should check out this designer.
Speaker 2: I'm always looking for who is a designer that I.
Speaker 6: Feel like has like a new perspective, like somebody who's
Speaker 6: bringing something new and interesting and has like a very
Speaker 6: clear aesthetic of what they have to contribute to this industry.
Speaker 6: And then what I also loved about her in particular
Speaker 6: was that she was she was. Her vision for where
Speaker 6: she was going was so clear when you looked at
Speaker 6: her aesthetic from like we show her collection last year too,
Speaker 6: twenty twenty two, So when you look at her collection
Speaker 6: from twenty twenty two to twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: It looks like it's just an evolution.
Speaker 6: It didn't like it wasn't like one person here and
Speaker 6: then a whole different kind of ballgame on this side.
Speaker 6: Her vision is really clear, her aesthetic. I think it's
Speaker 6: something that the industry needs. She is a just a
Speaker 6: dope human because we're also we only work with dope
Speaker 6: humans with good character, right, and so we knew when
Speaker 6: Abercrombie came to us and was like, hey, we want
Speaker 6: to do a collab with HFR, like we either Sometimes
Speaker 6: we'll give a brand like three or four options.
Speaker 2: That's what we did with Nike and Lebron.
Speaker 6: Actually we gave them three options and they were like,
Speaker 6: we can't choose, so we're gonna choose all three. With Abercrombie,
Speaker 6: we were like, here's the option, She's the one, and
Speaker 6: they were like, we trust you.
Speaker 7: How is social media? You said you started in two
Speaker 7: thousand and nine with that vision. At this time Facebook
Speaker 7: is prominent, but Instagram isn't yet.
Speaker 2: There's social media. Thank god, there was no social media.
Speaker 5: How is that?
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Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy nom the United States
Speaker 1: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border
Speaker 1: crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand illegal aliens.
Speaker 2: Have been arrested.
Speaker 1: If you were here illegally, your next you will be
Speaker 1: fine nearly one thousand dollars a day. Imprisoned and deported,
Speaker 1: you will never return but if you register using our
Speaker 1: CBP home app and leave now, you could be allowed
Speaker 1: to return legally. Do what's right, leave now. Under President
Speaker 1: Trump America's laws, border and families will be protected.
Speaker 3: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
Speaker 7: I guess the work that you're doing right, because I
Speaker 7: feel like everybody now has a look book on Instagram.
Speaker 6: It definitely changes. Like I'm able to see designers. I'm
Speaker 6: able to literally go to a designer's Instagram page and
Speaker 6: walk into their world like quickly, and I can tell
Speaker 6: so much just by scrolling up.
Speaker 4: So okay, so what is the problem. Why is there
Speaker 4: not a lot of black designers? What's the what's stopping
Speaker 4: black designers from becoming mainstream or penetrating that market? Less
Speaker 4: than you said, one percent of the money from black
Speaker 4: people go to black designers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you think about the designers who.
Speaker 5: Have made it, and exactly right, you said one percent.
Speaker 2: Less than one percent, it's maybe three percent.
Speaker 5: Now, the money that black people spend on clothes.
Speaker 6: No less than one percent of the designer sold on
Speaker 6: major department stores website.
Speaker 4: Okay, do you know how much percent black people spend
Speaker 4: on on apparels on like black designers.
Speaker 6: So here's interesting. I don't know how much they spend
Speaker 6: on black designers, but Mackenzie released the study. So by
Speaker 6: the year twenty thirty, we're gonna spend Black people are
Speaker 6: gonna spend seventy billion.
Speaker 2: Dollars a year on apparel. The other thing that was interesting.
Speaker 6: About that study is that black black people are three
Speaker 6: times more likely to switch brands if it's a black
Speaker 6: founder or black creative brand. That just really happened, I
Speaker 6: think after twenty twenty. I feel like after twenty twenty,
Speaker 6: we all were like, if we're gonna make it, we.
Speaker 2: Got to take care of ourselves.
Speaker 6: And so with that though, well that's a huge I
Speaker 6: think opportunity for brands is a huge opportunity for an
Speaker 6: investor who wants to really invest in black brands as well,
Speaker 6: because consumers are now ready to shop the black brands.
Speaker 6: But the challenge is we don't have the infrastructure. So
Speaker 6: imagine if we had like an LVMH, like a holding company,
Speaker 6: an LVMAGE or Caring or Tapestry or you know, an
Speaker 6: authentic groups type brand or something like that that was
Speaker 6: a holding company that provided all of the infrastructure for
Speaker 6: black designers. Like think about that right, and they provided
Speaker 6: all the operations, the manufacturing partnerships.
Speaker 2: That that's what we've been missing.
Speaker 6: Like if we had that, the opportunity for black brands
Speaker 6: and where they could go is really limitless. What we've
Speaker 6: been missing really is the funding, the infrastructure, the operational capacity,
Speaker 6: the manufacturing kind of you address those things like there's
Speaker 6: no limit to how far we can go, and it's
Speaker 6: kind of crazy that no one has really seen that
Speaker 6: as an opportunity.
Speaker 4: Well, I think Kanye spoke about that. That's when he
Speaker 4: was I want to go back to that, but before
Speaker 4: let's go, let's talk about this. Then when Yay was
Speaker 4: like he didn't have the infrastructure pretty much paraphrasing, and
Speaker 4: that's when Sway that legendary conversation with him and Swet.
Speaker 4: That's what you're referring to because LVMH. Everybody hears about LVMH.
Speaker 4: What exactly does LVMH What do they do? We know
Speaker 4: that they own all of these luxury brands, but you
Speaker 4: say the holding company provides infrastructure, So what exactly does
Speaker 4: LVMH do for all of these brands that their own
Speaker 4: have ownership in?
Speaker 6: They provide the revenue for those brands that's a big
Speaker 6: piece of it, which then allows them to be able
Speaker 6: to do proper marketing, and it also allows them to
Speaker 6: tap into LVMH's infrastructure.
Speaker 2: So what is that like?
Speaker 6: Accounting, manufacturing support, operational support. Those are the things that
Speaker 6: a lot of times smaller brands are struggling with cash flow,
Speaker 6: you know, which is a problem for all small businesses.
Speaker 2: You don't have to imagine if you could just go create.
Speaker 6: And and and do the things that you actually love
Speaker 6: in a business without having to worry about all of
Speaker 6: the business operations of what it takes, because that's what
Speaker 6: takes small businesses out. It's the cash flow, it's the
Speaker 6: you know, the accounting piece.
Speaker 5: Was Ya correct in his assessment, but I.
Speaker 2: Feel like Yay also could have.
Speaker 7: In a sense because even LVMH, they have a bunch
Speaker 7: of companies, but there's really like probably five or six
Speaker 7: that account for most of the revenue ablutely.
Speaker 2: I mean, Louis of a Ton is like their number one, never.
Speaker 7: One by far, yes, right, and then there's like forty
Speaker 7: other brands, but they don't generate as much, not even close, right,
Speaker 7: And so it can offset some things infrastructure. From what
Speaker 7: I'm hearing it sounds like, let's just use Harlem Fashion
Speaker 7: role as the holding company for black brands in the
Speaker 7: sense where tel Far can exist under there in the
Speaker 7: cole benefit, they could all exist under there and then
Speaker 7: we can grow together. I feel like what we've seen,
Speaker 7: especially from our designers, is very individualistic, right. It's like,
Speaker 7: I mean, well, can use show a jump by itself,
Speaker 7: food by itself, but there's not one piece that holds
Speaker 7: it all together to say, let's build so we can
Speaker 7: have an LBMA type situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, Like if you look at the fact that Tapestry
Speaker 6: just Balker pre holdings, right, that's going to make it
Speaker 6: one of the largest, you know, fashion conglomerates in the
Speaker 6: US if it hasn't already done that. So if we
Speaker 6: had that, even if we started with three brands, it
Speaker 6: would it would it would be building upon something that
Speaker 6: could be like a legacy like or huge legacy brand.
Speaker 6: I just see there's a lot of opportunity there because
Speaker 6: consumers are ready. Consumers are ready to shop black brands.
Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatema charged with raping a child
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
Speaker 1: Donald J.
Speaker 2: Trump's leadership.
Speaker 1: I'm Christy nom the United States Secretary of Homeland Security.
Speaker 1: Under President Trump, attempted illegal border crossings are at the
Speaker 1: lowest levels ever recorded, and over one hundred thousand illegal
Speaker 1: aliens have been arrested. If you are here illegally, your
Speaker 1: next you will be fine nearly one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned,
Speaker 1: and deported, you will never return. But if you register
Speaker 1: using our CBP home app and leave now, you could
Speaker 1: be allowed to return legally. Do what's right.
Speaker 2: Leave now.
Speaker 1: Under President Trump, America's laws, border and families will be protected.
Speaker 3: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.