No Business Being Here
No really. I’ve got no business being here - here being in the fashion business, much less New York City. I grew up in Eastern North Carolina in a small town, an hour and some change from the beach. The kind of place where the talk of the town was which team won Friday night’s Little League game. Getting to friends’ houses typically required driving past a corn field or two. We only had a handful of mom and pop restaurants to choose from, but to this day they hold some of my favorite meals. Mom taught at my high school. Dad managed a heating and air business. We’d do church on Sunday’s, where as a toddler, my dad was teaching me how to dress: cowboy boots, spurs, and a little Ralph Lauren oxford. It was simple and wonderful.
Based on the standard formula of the South, I should either be a real estate agent in Raleigh making way more money or working for my dad’s HVAC business. But, chasing what I wanted and what I felt I was good at landed me in New York working in the fashion/apparel business. I had a close friend recently bring up the idea of a “vocational calling” and it’s great. The idea of being led to a career purely based on the love of the game. One that fits perfectly with how you’re hardwired. For some reason I know without a shadow of a doubt, I was built to build.
My grandfather was a master woodworker, my dad and uncle followed in his footsteps on a hobby level, but beyond that, creativity doesn’t necessarily run through my family's veins. We can just say I was the bad test taker. Anyways, I go on to college in the big city of Raleigh and study Industrial Design (go Pack). While I’m there I land a part time job working at Brooks Brothers selling suits on nights and weekends. I became fascinated with product, manufacturing, how brands tell stories and how a guy with a proper fitting suit could walk out standing a foot taller than he came in. I was fascinated with it enough that I started tailoring my Industrial Design projects to the apparel business, stopped sleeping and got through school in 3 years. I just wanted to work. Hell of a turning point to have when you’re just a kid unboxing and organizing regent fit, non-iron dress shirts at Southpoint Mall.
I spent my second and third year of school on the retail floor and interning at Peter Millar. Raleigh’s only proper hand in the industry. As I entered my last semester I wrote the CEO a letter asking for an interview. I had spent my summer building a portfolio for them- it was my only shot to get into this business and stay close to home. Little did I know it would become the best training I could have asked for before getting my ass handed to me in New York. I had ex-executives from Ralph Lauren, Zegna and Hickey Freeman teaching me how to build honest product, take criticism, and manage, while letting me sit in meetings that I had no business being in, allowing me to see what running a truly healthy brand looked like. Fortunately, they all cheered me on 5 years later when I told them I felt the pull to New York. By no means had I learned all I could learn. I just knew I would be able to propel so much faster in the epicenter of the industry. I was the only kid in the state with my job title and I lacked what New York is best at - community.
I woke up early for 6 months straight to cold email every brand’s VP of design I could guess the email of, and then hounded their subordinates on LinkedIn. I wound up landing a gig at Aimé Leon Dore. A harsh 180 from designing vests for golf dads. That team was/is special. I have never worked with a group of people so focused, so uninterested in competition, and so driven by one another. Those guys taught me how to truly be inspired by something and execute on it. I was there for just under a year before getting a call back from one of the other email addresses I had correctly guessed. This time it was from Ralph Lauren.
I made the hard decision to jump ship. Ralph had always seemed so unachievable. It’s Ralph. It was my dream job. It was a title and pay bump, I wouldn't have to reverse commute from Chelsea to Queens anymore. Aside from leaving the team at ALD it was a no brainer. I wound up learning the best lesson of my career during my short stint on Madison Ave. The dream job on paper isn’t always the dream job in reality. The brand, the magic of that office, the palpable dream that is Ralph, and simply getting to see the inner workings of the beast for a season was invaluable, but the work wasn’t fulfilling. I simply missed the startup energy at ALD. I missed having twenty different things to do across three departments before lunch… It’s almost like I was built to start my own brand or something absurd. I stepped down a few months after I started - that's where Ballard comes into play. More on that later.
For the most part, the fashion industry sucks. It’s not easy, fun or glamorous. You’ll never meet someone that had a flawless season. It's not fast or instantly gratifying. It's not cheap. It's bullets, it’s egos, it's cyclical, but there's a magic behind it. When somebody out there chooses to spend their hard earned money on something that you had a hand in bringing to life, and that item makes them feel more confident, more themselves, maybe more like someone they want to be, or even just an ounce of joy... That's it. It’s worth all the shit. And if I can manage to inspire some feeling along the way, then it’s not a job at all.
I’m here for the long haul. And Ballard is just warming up.