SUBSCRIBE AND USE NEW10 FOR 10% OFF YOUR FIRST ORDER
2020 - Inauguration, the year I took office...
In 2020, I went to Barcelona again, you'll start to see this is a reoccurring location in my life. I had an idea for the painted pieces to be a thing, my thing. It seemed like it was the right and only root for me, it seemed so natural so I was gonna go at it.
Later in the month or maybe even before Barca, a friend of my brother won a professional photoshoot with a sick photography studio in central London, like a proper big boys studio but she couldn't do it for whatever reason and my brother didn't need it so he asked me if I wanted it and obv after a year of painting jeans of course I did. Funnily enough, I was actually looking for a studio to take product pics of my painted jeans the week before. Come and see God!
So I went, got that all sorted, the pics came out sick, even the photographer was rating my ting, so I was gassed! We soon went into lockdown with Corona doing its thing and I was at home chilling as per and racking my mind with what to do with the brand. One day I thought, ite boom, t-shirts are easier so lemme start with them, I dunno how, I can't even remember the day I did it but I made the first rendition of the Jesus Christ Saves Lives t-shirt.
However, one day in May, one morning like this, I looked at the design on Photoshop and deeped it needs more, it just wasn't enough, so I worked on it for a few hours. I added the AGAINST THE GRAIN 3D text, the rest of the front and the birds on the back. It was finally done.
After that, I can't lie p's were tight so I used 4bills from a tax refund and I penny-pinched to get 14 samples made, blank tees, packaging, the website domain etc. And it was no showtime with my 13 samples (I took 1). I was scared brooo, shook! I was thinking how am I gonna sell these 13 tees but soon family started grabbing a few, some friends and gave some away for promo.
In June, I was at my brother's house and we planned to go out and grab some Jordans. I remember it was the day that Smoke Grey 1's dropped. I think it was his idea for both of us to wear the tee, go out and get pics. So on this sunny day we set off vibing, went to Shoreditch took some pics, went to central did the same but this time people were stopping us asking where the tee was from. This was a bit weird cuz I didn't expect it at all. Nonetheless, we did our thing and went home. Later that day, around 9ish, I wanted to post the pics on Twitter but I was thinking it was too late but thought to do it anyway. And that's when it all kicked off.
Bear in mind, before that tweet, I had maybe 51 IG followers and 11 email subscribers. That weekend the tweet did more numbers than any of my tweets have ever done, in hindsight, it ain't crazy but for me it was brazyyyy! I got maybe 300 more email subscribers, bare IG followers, people wanted the t-shirt expeditiously, and I was ready to give it to them.
We launched on the 7th of July if I'm not mistaken and I was thinking I'm gonna sell 300 t-shirts easy, low and behold I sold like 30-40 or so which is still great numbers, but I was disappointed. Time went on, I got the pre-ordered t-shirts produced but my guy but the delays, stress and anxiety I was under trying to fulfil these orders was too much. I remember when the t-shirts were finally just about to be delivered from the printers I cried like a baby. So many emotions were wrapped into that 1 delivery.
I got that patterned and sent it off to the customers and moved on. I think I restocked a few more times then I wanted to move onto another design, people around me were saying no but I was saying yes. I personally didn't know people loved the t-shirt that much as well as in the UK when something is too common, it tends to be disregarded, which I didn't want at all.
I moved on to the Let My People Go T-Shirt. This design honestly coincidentally coincided with the racial uproar around the world. I never tried to make a race motivated design or anything like that but nonetheless, I think it took a toll on such a sick design, plus people probably wanted JCSL again. And that release didn't go so well, or at least as well as the previous drops. So I had to wheel it up and restock JCSL which I did a few times if I'm not mistaken.
Summer was done, and it was getting cold so t-shirts wouldn't really run like that so we were onto long sleeves, the v2. I made a new front design that I really wanna use again (but at the right time), tried to make a new back design but physically it didn't translate well, so the old one with gradient lines was the go-to design. But then again, this design didn't sell well and thankfully so.
This was the height of our supply chain issues, the t-shirt manufacturer had mad delays with corona on top, my printer was misbehaving as per usual, it was a big mess. I think this drop was in October time but the t-shirt wasn't delivered until January...can you imagine. It was so embarrassing, so stressful, so annoying. I knew something had to change, something had to give, so I started to plot and plan for the new year.
Before the year ended, we released one more t-shirt, Friends & Family 2020. It was a reduced price t-shirt to say thank you for all the support we've received in the last few months. I can't remember if I had the blanks already or if they miraculously arrived at a decent time. We then found a new printer, our first-time screen printing, got the tees sorted and dropped them on Christmas Day. It was a decent drop but then a whirlwind called 2021 awaited us...
