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Written by THOM bettridge

Oral history interviews by keenan macwilliam

photography jason nocito

styling avena gallagher

Written by THOM bettridge

Oral history interviews by keenan macwilliam

photography jason nocito

styling avena gallagher

i-D ISSUE 375

GET YOURS

i-D ISSUE 375

GET YOURS

i-D ISSUE 375

GET YOURS

i-D ISSUE 375

GET YOURS

Charting a history of Telfar is not a linear undertaking.

The brand’s 20-year timeline defies Euclidean geometry.

Charting a history of Telfar is not a linear undertaking.

The brand’s 20-year timeline defies Euclidean geometry.

Charting a history of Telfar is not a linear undertaking.

The brand’s 20-year timeline defies Euclidean geometry.

Charting a history of Telfar is not a linear undertaking.

The brand’s 20-year timeline defies Euclidean geometry.

Even figuring out where Telfar ends and the rest of the world begins is a difficult task. Telfar is a person who is also a brand based on a person. His customers are his friends, who are also sometimes his employees. Together, they run the world’s largest Black-owned fashion brand, but they do not believe in fashion, brands, or even capitalism in general. Their story is the one-in-a-billion outcome that every young creative person dreams of: to actually change the world.  

A 2020 statement by

telfar

Telfar Clemens started his brand during a weird pocket of history that hasn’t quite been written yet. Post-9/11 New York City was a cultural wasteland compared to the decade prior. The nightclubs and boutiques that defined its underground were being converted into Chase ATMs and AT&T stores. Gentrification was turbocharged, and the economy was blissfully barrelling towards a recession. In 2005, Helmut Lang left his own brand, closing a chapter of avant-garde fashion that once defined the city. Amidst this wreckage, Telfar and the milieu of artists and designers surrounding him got to work building their own cultural infrastructure. Magazines wouldn’t cover them, so they made their own. Retail buyers didn’t mess with them either, so they made clothes for their friends. The luxury and beauty industries ignored them, so they sought different forms of patronage––from high culture (the New Museum and the Berlin Biennale) as well as the mass market (Kmart, White Castle,
and Century 21). 

But Telfar always aspired to be more than a cult label. From its onset, the brand was (to borrow half of one of its early slogans) “for everyone.” Telfar’s design DNA is rooted in jersey, the same fabric as the Hanes T-shirts he used to make his first Frankensteined designs in his childhood bedroom. Those early creations were a blueprint for a totally new ethos. Rather than use fashion as an avant-garde critique of the mainstream, Telfar wanted to redefine what mass could be. He wanted to take what was normal and make it something weirder. 

This vision morphed into reality during the surreal cultural moment of the Covid-19 pandemic. With the world cooped up on their phones, Telfar’s Shopping Bag went viral and sales skyrocketed. Suddenly, he was making appearances on network television and pioneering a form of “community marketing” that has become an industry playbook. Telfar had already gotten his flowers from the industry via a CFDA Award and the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, but making something for the people was always the real end goal. Success wasn’t a coronation into the elite; it was a ticket out of the fashion system altogether. the brand started a TV station so they wouldn’t even have to be dependent on press. It also stopped having fashion shows, until its 20th-anniversary runway this June. With almost 200 models storming the alleyway behind its flagship store, ­including many friends and family, the show was a toast to the people who had helped Telfar exist against all odds.     

Today, the collective behind Telfar occupies two massive warehouses in New York: one for its newly established Atelier––Clemens himself once spent half the year in China to produce his collections––and one to produce its prolific media output, equipped with everything from photo studios to a soundstage and post-production suite. The brand is led by Clemens and his longtime creative partner, Babak Radboy, but its story is best told by the friends and collaborators who have orbited Telfar since it was just an idea.

Today, the collective behind Telfar occupies two massive warehouses in New York: one for its newly established Atelier––Clemens himself once spent half the year in China to produce his collections––and one to produce its prolific media output, equipped with everything from photo studios to a soundstage and post-production suite. The brand is led by Clemens and his longtime creative partner, Babak Radboy, but its story is best told by the friends and collaborators who have orbited Telfar since it was just an idea.

All clothing and accessories

telfar

INTERVIEW

TELFAR + babak

Thom Bettridge’s interview with Telfar Clemens and Babak Radboy took place in New York on june 5, 2025

Thom Bettridge’s interview with Telfar Clemens and Babak Radboy took place in New York on june 5, 2025

Thom Bettridge’s interview with Telfar Clemens and Babak Radboy took place in New York on june 5, 2025

Thom Bettridge’s interview with Telfar Clemens and Babak Radboy took place in New York on june 5, 2025

T-shirt by TELFAR spring 2012 archive image courtesy of Telfar

T-shirt by TELFAR spring 2012 archive image courtesy of Telfar

THOM BETTRIDGE:

I feel like the Telfar story goes back farther than people realise. I remember 10 years in, people would still write articles about you like it was the brand’s first season.

TELFAR CLEMENS:

Uh-huh. Constantly “emerging.”

THOM:

Exactly. How long can you be “emerging” for? But I will say it blows my mind that it’s been 20 years of Telfar. Tell me about the first clothes you ever made and sold to another person.

TELFAR:

The first thing that I made was deconstructing three Hanes T-shirts to make these different shapes, kind of like a voluminous T-shirt. I started by deconstructing clothes. That was in middle school. Friends used to have Levi’s or Old Navy jeans or Hanes T-shirts. I would chop their jeans up and wash them in different styles, and chop T-shirts up into different shapes, and I would sell them to my classmates—or they would give me the pair of jeans and $20, and I would do the thing and give it back to them. It was like this $20 service: “Bring me jeans and a T-shirt, and I’ll do that.”

Babak Radboy:

What was your awareness of fashion when you were growing up ?

TELFAR:

Mostly just on the street. I would read every magazine on the weekend, because that’s the thing I was into. I would read Arena Homme +, Vibe, and all the magazines that had men’s fashion in it. I didn’t know what the brands were, because it’s not like you could go see it, you know what I mean? I knew what Karl Kani was. I knew what Iceberg was. I knew what everything was at the mall. Diesel was one of the stores that I had access to. I could afford to buy it if I saved up for months and months.

babak:

Hearing you say that is crazy.
I had the same thing when I was just growing up in Seattle. I knew where I was couldn’t be everything, so I would travel for hours to look at magazines.

TELFAR:

For me, it was Vibe. There was this person from Vibe, Emil [Wilbekin, former Editor-in-Chief], and he was the person you would see in every single thing. They would just mix all of this shit together. It was relatable as fuck, because it was like they’re wearing this Helmut Lang thing, and this Gaultier thing, and this Issey Miyake thing, but it’s in Harlem. It was specifically that magazine, really. Every weekend, I would be in Barnes & Noble, because they have a fashion section, and then also a gay section. At the same time, I was looking at just gay shit, because you couldn’t find it anywhere. I didn’t really use the computer like that.

THOM:

It was all right there. The fashion aisle and the gay aisle.

babak:

Right next to each other!

MONIQUE McWILLIAMS

(STYLIST AND CREATIVE)

I met Telfar in the elevator in the building where we both lived in Brooklyn. He just cut straight to the point and said, “Hey, do you like fashion?” And it was kind of perfect because I did love fashion and making clothes a lot when I was in high school. Then he asked me if I knew how to sew and I was like, “No, but I can make some shit.” And so he was like, “Well, I have a sewing machine in my room. You want to come to my room?” So he took me to his room and showed me clothes that he had been making while he was in high school. And there was one thing that I was like, “Oh my God, yes.” He had this Tupac-Biggie hoodie that he had made, like with old concert tees, and constructed it into a hoodie where it’s almost like they’re battling on each side of the zipper. And I was like, “Oh my God, this is everything.”

KHALID AL GHARABALLI

(STYLIST AND ARTIST)

I met Telfar in 2005? I was the first Telfar customer. [Laughs.] I bought a hoodie with these kinds of cut-outs——and I was at a party at The Hole or The Cock and he walked up to me and said, “I made this.” And I didn’t believe him.

LEILAH WEINRAUB

FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

I was the first customer. I’ve seen every show. I would see his shows from LA and ask for them. I’d be like, “I want to buy the collection right after the show——the whole thing.”

IAN ISIAH

(MUSICIAN AND ARTIST) 

My first Telfar piece was an orange iPod shirt. It was a turtleneck actually. Tight——with an iPod sleeve. You do the math and the history of when an iPod came out.

HAWA CLEMENS

(TELFAR’S MUM)

When he left high school, he had three of his classmates come over that night to design clothes for them. He made their clothes that night and these girls left so happy. They had some different pieces with them and they were just so excited. So after they left, I went and looked at the scraps and everything he had in the basement, and he had a basement full of stuff that I had never seen. So that was the first time I realised that

 this is going somewhere.

AKEEM SMITH

(STYLIST AND ARTIST)

I remember when I first saw him. He used to DJ this party and he used to DJ naked.

RYAN TRECARTIN

(FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

I met Telfar in 2004. That’s when he was DJing naked.

RAUL LOPEZ

(DESIGNER AND FOUNDER, LUAR)

I think when I met Telfar… he was wearing a tank top and I know it was in the Lower East Side, and he probably had on some shorts with no underwear, and I think he had on flip-flops or something like that. This was 2004, 2003 maybe.

MONIQUE McWILLIAMS

(STYLIST AND CREATIVE)

I met Telfar in the elevator in the building where we both lived in Brooklyn. He just cut straight to the point and said, “Hey, do you like fashion?” And it was kind of perfect because I did love fashion and making clothes a lot when I was in high school. Then he asked me if I knew how to sew and I was like, “No, but I can make some shit.” And so he was like, “Well, I have a sewing machine in my room. You want to come to my room?” So he took me to his room and showed me clothes that he had been making while he was in high school. And there was one thing that I was like, “Oh my God, yes.” He had this Tupac-Biggie hoodie that he had made, like with old concert tees, and constructed it into a hoodie where it’s almost like they’re battling on each side of the zipper. And I was like, “Oh my God, this is everything.”

KHALID AL GHARABALLI

(STYLIST AND ARTIST)

I met Telfar in 2005? I was the first Telfar customer. [Laughs.] I bought a hoodie with these kinds of cut-outs——and I was at a party at The Hole or The Cock and he walked up to me and said, “I made this.” And I didn’t believe him.

LEILAH WEINRAUB

FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

I was the first customer. I’ve seen every show. I would see his shows from LA and ask for them. I’d be like, “I want to buy the collection right after the show——the whole thing.”

IAN ISIAH

(MUSICIAN AND ARTIST) 

My first Telfar piece was an orange iPod shirt. It was a turtleneck actually. Tight——with an iPod sleeve. You do the math and the history of when an iPod came out.

HAWA CLEMENS

(TELFAR’S MUM)

When he left high school, he had three of his classmates come over that night to design clothes for them. He made their clothes that night and these girls left so happy. They had some different pieces with them and they were just so excited. So after they left, I went and looked at the scraps and everything he had in the basement, and he had a basement full of stuff that I had never seen. So that was the first time I realised that

 this is going somewhere.

AKEEM SMITH

(STYLIST AND ARTIST)

I remember when I first saw him. He used to DJ this party and he used to DJ naked.

RYAN TRECARTIN

(FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

I met Telfar in 2004. That’s when he was DJing naked.

RAUL LOPEZ

(DESIGNER AND FOUNDER, LUAR)

I think when I met Telfar… he was wearing a tank top and I know it was in the Lower East Side, and he probably had on some shorts with no underwear, and I think he had on flip-flops or something like that. This was 2004, 2003 maybe.

MONIQUE McWILLIAMS (STYLIST AND CREATIVE)

I met Telfar in the elevator in the building where we both lived in Brooklyn. He just cut straight to the point and said, “Hey, do you like fashion?” And it was kind of perfect because I did love fashion and making clothes a lot when I was in high school. Then he asked me if I knew how to sew and I was like, “No, but I can make some shit.” And so he was like, “Well, I have a sewing machine in my room. You want to come to my room?” So he took me to his room and showed me clothes that he had been making while he was in high school. And there was one thing that I was like, “Oh my God, yes.” He had this Tupac-Biggie hoodie that he had made, like with old concert tees, and constructed it into a hoodie where it’s almost like they’re battling on each side of the zipper. And I was like, “Oh my God, this is everything.”

KHALID AL GHARABALLI (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

I met Telfar in 2005? I was the first Telfar customer. [Laughs.] I bought a hoodie with these kinds of cut-outs——and I was at a party at The Hole or The Cock and he walked up to me and said, “I made this.” And I didn’t believe him.

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

I was the first customer. I’ve seen every show. I would see his shows from LA and ask for them. I’d be like, “I want to buy the collection right after the show——the whole thing.”

IAN ISIAH (MUSICIAN AND ARTIST) 

My first Telfar piece was an orange iPod shirt. It was a turtleneck actually. Tight——with an iPod sleeve. You do the math and the history of when an iPod came out.

HAWA CLEMENS (TELFAR’S MUM)

When he left high school, he had three of his classmates come over that night to design clothes for them. He made their clothes that night and these girls left so happy. They had some different pieces with them and they were just so excited. So after they left, I went and looked at the scraps and everything he had in the basement, and he had a basement full of stuff that I had never seen. So that was the first time I realised that

 this is going somewhere.

AKEEM SMITH (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

I remember when I first saw him. He used to DJ this party and he used to DJ naked.

RYAN TRECARTIN (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

I met Telfar in 2004. That’s when he was DJing naked.

RAUL LOPEZ (DESIGNER AND FOUNDER, LUAR)

I think when I met Telfar… he was wearing a tank top and I know it was in the Lower East Side, and he probably had on some shorts with no underwear, and I think he had on flip-flops or something like that. This was 2004, 2003 maybe.

All clothing and accessories

telfar

THOM:

Were there pop cultural figures of this time, style-wise, that you were drawn to?

TELFAR:

All the R&B divas. Specifically, I would say that any pop culture person that identified as lesbian is on my list of style icons. It was just like, “Are they a lesbian? I see myself in them.”

THOM:

Missy Elliott?

TELFAR:

Obviously. I’ve said it a million times. TV is so impressionable on style, and it was specifically music videos, because that was the medium. That was the main event for everything.

THOM:

I’m curious, as you moved from making clothes to starting the brand, what was New York like at that time? You were obviously close with the people working on DIS Magazine2 and Hood By Air3. Did it feel like you guys were collectively working side by side on something?

TELFAR :

Not really in that kind of way. I was definitely doing the thing, but kind of quiet about what I was doing with other people. I wasn’t talking to Shayne [Oliver, the co-founder of Hood by Air] about what I was making. I was just making stuff. I don’t remember there being a conversation about what I was going to make.

babak:

I was doing stuff for DIS. I was at the first meeting with DIS, because I was already doing a magazine4, and they thought it was going to be a print magazine.

TELFAR:

It wasn’t really work yet, like, “I need to make a living.” It was like, “I’m trying to figure out how to make this thing.” I just remember being like, “Oh, I want to make this thing because it’s not around. I want to make this thing because I really want to wear it. I want to make this thing because that thing doesn’t exist.” That was the exciting thing about it.

THOM:

When did you realise that making clothes could be your job?

TELFAR:

I didn’t even think that it was a job. I was going to be an accountant. I stayed in business school because I didn’t trust that fashion was sustainable at all. I still kind of don’t trust it. At that time, I was selling stuff on consignment. There was this Lower East Side thing of people who made clothes and sold other people’s clothes, which supported them being able to make their own clothes. I was like, “I want to be like that.” At this point, I decided that I’m not going to be an accountant, because I want to make clothes and figure out how to not have to deal with anyone—do it on my own.

babak:

Except for your friends.

AYA BROWN (ARTIST)

Yeah, Telfar loves lesbians bad. He loves a lesbian. He told me that growing up all of his best friends were lesbian. And I met one of his best friends and she’s a fucking lesbian.

KHALID AL GHARABALLI 

When we all met——it was a moment that was interesting because it was kind of a black hole. It was this undocumented moment in history. You have the ’90s, then you have this kind of 2010s, early internet-normcore kind of era. But then in between Y2K and 2010 is a black hole. It’s an under-documented moment. It’s not in the public consciousness, which is cool, because it’s the opposite of what’s happening now. There were subcultures still. There’s people living in these cities and things were happening, but you had to be there and there’s not that much documentation of it. 

JASON FARRER

(STYLIST AND CREATIVE)

I remember when Helmut [lang] stopped, there was a drop of sorts. I could say maybe it had to do with what was going on in New York. Giuliani was really a disaster. It was a disaster for the morale of the art community. The club world was obliterated, and this group of people-——it spans to different kinds of artists: Solomon [Chase], and David [Toro], and the Laurens [Boyle and Devine], and Fatima [Al Qadiri], and Khalid [al Gharaballi]——They had this enthusiasm for everything. And I think that what needed to be re-established and created is really the child of this energy. They really achieved a lot. I don’t know that they knew how dire New York was when they were encountered and when they did their thing. I don’t know that they knew how desperately it was needed.

MONIQUE MCWILLIAMS

He biked everywhere. That’s why his body is popping like it is. He bikes his collection in a giant duffle bag to each show. One year, it was a blizzard. It was snowing like crazy. This man really got on a bike in the snow and biked in the snow to make sure that he had his show no matter what.

JASON FARRER

I remember going to Red Hook once for another reason and he whizzed by me on his bicycle singing Beyoncé at the top of his lungs. He professed to me a fear of the subway at some point, but often he had an Ikea bag, a shopping bag strapped to his bag with pieces of samples in it, like zipping it–God knows where: Queens, Brooklyn, down to appointments downtown.

IAN ISAIAH

That bike. Goddamn that bike. Fuck the bike. She’s still on the bike, actually, now that I think about it. But a brand new one.

AYA BROWN (ARTIST)

Yeah, Telfar loves lesbians bad. He loves a lesbian. He told me that growing up all of his best friends were lesbian. And I met one of his best friends and she’s a fucking lesbian.

KHALID AL GHARABALLI 

When we all met——it was a moment that was interesting because it was kind of a black hole. It was this undocumented moment in history. You have the ’90s, then you have this kind of 2010s, early internet-normcore kind of era. But then in between Y2K and 2010 is a black hole. It’s an under-documented moment. It’s not in the public consciousness, which is cool, because it’s the opposite of what’s happening now. There were subcultures still. There’s people living in these cities and things were happening, but you had to be there and there’s not that much documentation of it. 

JASON FARRER

(STYLIST AND CREATIVE)

I remember when Helmut [lang] stopped, there was a drop of sorts. I could say maybe it had to do with what was going on in New York. Giuliani was really a disaster. It was a disaster for the morale of the art community. The club world was obliterated, and this group of people-——it spans to different kinds of artists: Solomon [Chase], and David [Toro], and the Laurens [Boyle and Devine], and Fatima [Al Qadiri], and Khalid [al Gharaballi]——They had this enthusiasm for everything. And I think that what needed to be re-established and created is really the child of this energy. They really achieved a lot. I don’t know that they knew how dire New York was when they were encountered and when they did their thing. I don’t know that they knew how desperately it was needed.

MONIQUE MCWILLIAMS

He biked everywhere. That’s why his body is popping like it is. He bikes his collection in a giant duffle bag to each show. One year, it was a blizzard. It was snowing like crazy. This man really got on a bike in the snow and biked in the snow to make sure that he had his show no matter what.

JASON FARRER

I remember going to Red Hook once for another reason and he whizzed by me on his bicycle singing Beyoncé at the top of his lungs. He professed to me a fear of the subway at some point, but often he had an Ikea bag, a shopping bag strapped to his bag with pieces of samples in it, like zipping it–God knows where: Queens, Brooklyn, down to appointments downtown.

IAN ISAIAH

That bike. Goddamn that bike. Fuck the bike. She’s still on the bike, actually, now that I think about it. But a brand new one.

MONIQUE McWILLIAMS (STYLIST AND CREATIVE)

Yeah, Telfar loves lesbians bad. He loves a lesbian. He told me that growing up all of his best friends were lesbian. And I met one of his best friends and she’s a fucking lesbian.

KHALID AL GHARABALLI (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

When we all met——it was a moment that was interesting because it was kind of a black hole. It was this undocumented moment in history. You have the ’90s, then you have this kind of 2010s, early internet-normcore kind of era. But then in between Y2K and 2010 is a black hole. It’s an under-documented moment. It’s not in the public consciousness, which is cool, because it’s the opposite of what’s happening now. There were subcultures still. There’s people living in these cities and things were happening, but you had to be there and there’s not that much documentation of it. 

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

I remember when Helmut [lang] stopped, there was a drop of sorts. I could say maybe it had to do with what was going on in New York. Giuliani was really a disaster. It was a disaster for the morale of the art community. The club world was obliterated, and this group of people-——it spans to different kinds of artists: Solomon [Chase], and David [Toro], and the Laurens [Boyle and Devine], and Fatima [Al Qadiri], and Khalid [al Gharaballi]——They had this enthusiasm for everything. And I think that what needed to be re-established and created is really the child of this energy. They really achieved a lot. I don’t know that they knew how dire New York was when they were encountered and when they did their thing. I don’t know that they knew how desperately it was needed.

IAN ISIAH (MUSICIAN AND ARTIST) 

He biked everywhere. That’s why his body is popping like it is. He bikes his collection in a giant duffle bag to each show. One year, it was a blizzard. It was snowing like crazy. This man really got on a bike in the snow and biked in the snow to make sure that he had his show no matter what.

HAWA CLEMENS (TELFAR’S MUM)

I remember going to Red Hook once for another reason and he whizzed by me on his bicycle singing Beyoncé at the top of his lungs. He professed to me a fear of the subway at some point, but often he had an Ikea bag, a shopping bag strapped to his bag with pieces of samples in it, like zipping it–God knows where: Queens, Brooklyn, down to appointments downtown.

AKEEM SMITH (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

That bike. Goddamn that bike. Fuck the bike. She’s still on the bike, actually, now that I think about it. But a brand new one.

All clothing and accessories

telfar

TELFAR:

Except for my friends because I wanted to make my friends clothes. At that time, Shayne made clothes too. It was the beginning of everybody actually just making their own clothes.

THOM:

At some point, around that time, DIS wrote something that I think defined that era. They had this manifesto “not being Downtown and not being Uptown”

TELFAR:

It’s cooler to be Midtown than Downtown.

babak:

The way regular shit actually looked crazier than all these projections of the future.

THOM:

Exactly. One of your early slogans was: “Not for you, for everyone.” There was also the proliferation of “normcore” as a concept at this time. I don’t know if it was about the rise of social media or what, but it felt like the first time that something mainstream could be the subject of high fashion.

TELFAR :

The most high fashion. At that time, I remember working in Midtown, so I would literally be coming from Red Hook into the city, and you would see every kind of silhouette. You get to Midtown, and then it’s New Jersey––and all of these inter-borough, hotel-visitor-type people that you could spot from a mile away. The one item that you see in every single borough is the one item I wanted to fuck with, you know? Because you just saw every version of it. It’s like the ballet flat.

babak:

You ask yourself what are my raw materials? Telfar’s raw material is the ballet flat, the polo shirt––the stuff that’s already here that’s raw as hell.

TELFAR:

Totally, it’s raw, it’s so available and people also don’t even know what they’re wearing. It’s just available. It’s so quick and it’s so easy. I remember at that time people weren’t wearing leggings. The person wearing leggings outside was wild.

babak:

It was crazy to go outside like that. That moment was actually before social media, before this hyper-individualisation of today where we don’t even see the same world because we all see a different feed. And somehow, we thought individualism was retro. We were so profoundly wrong when we imagined the future because it felt like this idea of individual distinction was already so tired. We were interested in the mass—now everything is individualised while getting less and less distinct at the same time, do you know what I mean?

MONIQUE MCWILLIAMS

I told him at times, “Don’t you think you should get a lil’ job?” And he’s like, “Absolutely not. I should just keep making my clothes.”

LEILAH WEINRAUB

With Telfar——I think that embedded in the designs is something that is radical. The way that this is happening is happening by any means necessary. And how is it going to get done? I’m going to do it myself. And who is this for? It’s for us. 

RAISA FLOWERS

(makeup artist) 

I met Ian, Shayne, Telfar… I believe in 2014. I didn’t really hear much about him. I just knew that people loved him——and they loved his bags and the clothes that he was wearing. Like before I could afford a Telfar bag, a lot of my friends had them, either because they were friends with him, really close with him, or just, you know, bought a bag.

LAURA RYSMAN

(JOURNALIST)

The day I met Telfar, we were both selling at this little shop on the Lower East Side——he didn’t even really have his line yet. Telfar must’ve been 18 then. Even at such a young age, I had never met anyone with that much wherewithal. I was really fascinated. Right at the store on the Lower East Side, he was already doing the kind of things that he’s doing now. He’d sew two tank tops together. Suddenly, you have a tank top hanging off your shoulder and something that’s very normal, very mainstream is suddenly so strange and such a challenge to the mainstream. And he just had that instinctively. He was so sure of his language, and it fit with his whole philosophy of life. He knew how to challenge the mainstream by using the mainstream itself.

LAUREN BOYLE

(DIS MAGAZINE CO-FOUNDER)

The Telfar DNA is extremely normal. It was always about just taking that ubiquitous item and pushing it to a place that made it a little uncomfortable. DIS and Telfar connected because we were not trying to bridge high and low——we were into medium. Mass. The middle. There is no hierarchy. There was this kind of fetishisation of commercial products and imagery taken just a little too far. 

LEILAH WEINRAUB

Telfar is a very easy person to collaborate with. It’s just easy to riff. Some things just come from jokes, “I saw this person and I can’t believe the way they looked.”

MONIQUE MCWILLIAMS

I told him at times, “Don’t you think you should get a lil’ job?” And he’s like, “Absolutely not. I should just keep making my clothes.”

LEILAH WEINRAUB

With Telfar——I think that embedded in the designs is something that is radical. The way that this is happening is happening by any means necessary. And how is it going to get done? I’m going to do it myself. And who is this for? It’s for us. 

RAISA FLOWERS

(makeup artist) 

I met Ian, Shayne, Telfar… I believe in 2014. I didn’t really hear much about him. I just knew that people loved him——and they loved his bags and the clothes that he was wearing. Like before I could afford a Telfar bag, a lot of my friends had them, either because they were friends with him, really close with him, or just, you know, bought a bag.

LAURA RYSMAN

(JOURNALIST)

The day I met Telfar, we were both selling at this little shop on the Lower East Side——he didn’t even really have his line yet. Telfar must’ve been 18 then. Even at such a young age, I had never met anyone with that much wherewithal. I was really fascinated. Right at the store on the Lower East Side, he was already doing the kind of things that he’s doing now. He’d sew two tank tops together. Suddenly, you have a tank top hanging off your shoulder and something that’s very normal, very mainstream is suddenly so strange and such a challenge to the mainstream. And he just had that instinctively. He was so sure of his language, and it fit with his whole philosophy of life. He knew how to challenge the mainstream by using the mainstream itself.

LAUREN BOYLE

(DIS MAGAZINE CO-FOUNDER)

The Telfar DNA is extremely normal. It was always about just taking that ubiquitous item and pushing it to a place that made it a little uncomfortable. DIS and Telfar connected because we were not trying to bridge high and low——we were into medium. Mass. The middle. There is no hierarchy. There was this kind of fetishisation of commercial products and imagery taken just a little too far. 

LEILAH WEINRAUB

Telfar is a very easy person to collaborate with. It’s just easy to riff. Some things just come from jokes, “I saw this person and I can’t believe the way they looked.”

MONIQUE McWILLIAMS (STYLIST AND CREATIVE)

I told him at times, “Don’t you think you should get a lil’ job?” And he’s like, “Absolutely not. I should just keep making my clothes.”

KHALID AL GHARABALLI (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

With Telfar——I think that embedded in the designs is something that is radical. The way that this is happening is happening by any means necessary. And how is it going to get done? I’m going to do it myself. And who is this for? It’s for us. 

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

I met Ian, Shayne, Telfar… I believe in 2014. I didn’t really hear much about him. I just knew that people loved him——and they loved his bags and the clothes that he was wearing. Like before I could afford a Telfar bag, a lot of my friends had them, either because they were friends with him, really close with him, or just, you know, bought a bag.

IAN ISIAH (MUSICIAN AND ARTIST) 

The day I met Telfar, we were both selling at this little shop on the Lower East Side——he didn’t even really have his line yet. Telfar must’ve been 18 then. Even at such a young age, I had never met anyone with that much wherewithal. I was really fascinated. Right at the store on the Lower East Side, he was already doing the kind of things that he’s doing now. He’d sew two tank tops together. Suddenly, you have a tank top hanging off your shoulder and something that’s very normal, very mainstream is suddenly so strange and such a challenge to the mainstream. And he just had that instinctively. He was so sure of his language, and it fit with his whole philosophy of life. He knew how to challenge the mainstream by using the mainstream itself.

HAWA CLEMENS (TELFAR’S MUM)

The Telfar DNA is extremely normal. It was always about just taking that ubiquitous item and pushing it to a place that made it a little uncomfortable. DIS and Telfar connected because we were not trying to bridge high and low——we were into medium. Mass. The middle. There is no hierarchy. There was this kind of fetishisation of commercial products and imagery taken just a little too far. 

AKEEM SMITH (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

Telfar is a very easy person to collaborate with. It’s just easy to riff. Some things just come from jokes, “I saw this person and I can’t believe the way they looked.”

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Today, the collective behind Telfar occupies two massive warehouses in New York: one for its newly established Atelier––Clemens himself once spent half the year in China to produce his collections––and one to produce its prolific media output, equipped with everything from photo studios to a soundstage and post-production suite. The brand is led by Clemens and his longtime creative partner, Babak Radboy, but its story is best told by the friends and collaborators who have orbited Telfar since it was just an idea.

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THOM:

With most independent brands, the goal is to create a niche energy and sell very expensive things to a small cohort of clients. But it always felt like you guys were creating a prototype for something that could be mass-produced. Even when it was niche, it still had ambitions that were more mainstream.

babak:

What was different about what Telfar was doing from the general-postmodern-deconstruction thing that was in fashion in the early 2000s, is that it wasn’t about elevation. The framework wasn’t taking a common thing as an ironic joke, then elevating it into a luxury item. 

THOM:

That’s more the Margiela or Demna vibe.

babak:

It was coming from a different place that wasn’t a joke about mass production. It was a provocation of what could be mass—that what could be mass could actually be different. When we started working together, when I look back on it, everything we did from the very first shoot was projecting [Telfar] as Isaac Mizrahi. Actually, at the first show, the quote [we used] was, “I want to be Michael Kors, but on purpose.”

TELFAR:

Again, people don’t even know what they’re wearing when they’re wearing it. At that time, you would just see a Michael Kors bag everywhere. That’s what I consider fashion to be. If you saw it on six or seven different types of people that are going in all these different directions, that’s fashion.

THOM:

Early on, you were plugging the brand into different things besides the fashion system. You did projects at art museums long before you had a show in Europe. For example, the New Museum show you did in 2014, which if I remember correctly was where your famous bag debuted. And they were sponsored by Kmart! At that time, a fashion brand being plugged into the art system versus the fashion system wasn’t really happening. How did that come about? Was it just the path of least resistance?

TELFAR:

Sort of. People in art appreciate what I do more than fashion.

babak:

This year has really made me go back to that time period, and I realised something kind of funny. Pre-2008, we’re all doing our thing, and we are the next generation and we have a certain vision of the future, right? Then the financial crash of 2008 happens ——

THOM:

—fashion really regressed in the recession.

TELFAR :

Regressed! That’s when Rag & Bone became popular. 

THOM:

I think of selvedge denim when I think about that time.

TELFAR:

Completely. It was like, “No, people can’t really take a risk and buy clothes like [ours].” It got really conservative.

babak:

It got really conservative. If we bring ourselves back to that point: My whole plan was I was going to be a commercial art director, and then I would have lots of free time to do the shit I liked. DIS was trying to have a magazine. Telfar was trying to have a fashion brand. Fatima [Al Qadiri] was trying to make music. Ryan [Trecartin] was trying to make TV or a big vampire movie. We wanted to be part of mass culture—but the masses were getting squeezed. So we all ended up in art museums. All of us ended up as art refugees.

TELFAR:

The fashion world was very rigid. And also, I hated it just as much as it hated me, you know what I mean?

babak:

But these were also survival strategies. We had to innovate because whatever the normal route was not open to us—so the Telfar bag was actually born in an art museum6. It was an art object, an art installation.

THOM:

At this time, you were doing a lot, but when you look back at the press archive, a lot of things weren’t really captured. Did you just not care about press? Or did you feel like they were ignoring you?

TELFAR:

I feel like that’s one of the reasons that video became such a big part of the work. Because I was like, “No one’s going to see the collection at all. No magazine wants to shoot it.”

MARCO ROSO (DIS CO-FOUNDER)

The counterculture has been commodified. Since the ’70s, ’80s, or forever. And every time has been faster. The trend comes, is commodified,  every year, even faster, to the point that now it is very difficult even to follow. We were not playing with being counterculture.

JASON FARRER

I almost had this sort of feeling [from Telfar’s collections]——an essence that I got from Issey Miyake, almost, which sounds comparative and maybe a little strange——but there was a challenge of shape, the kinds of shapes that we’re used to seeing enclosed, and there was a positivity, which is very unusual or at the time was quite unusual. It also felt a relief to encounter a generation that appreciated the ethos of Maison Martin Margiela.

AVENA GALLAGHER (FASHION DIRECTOR, TELFAR, AND STYLIST)

The first official show I styled was in an old New York-style loft on Lower Broadway. I remember a lot of the clothes. It was kind of the same as what Telfar is now in the sense that it’s like near future, or near past, or something normal but from a dream. I would say that Telfar design is a thing that’s really faithful. It’s like a really long-term relationship with the world and with style. His design is like a meditation on a thing that is ubiquitous to begin with. And that it keeps getting re-expressed and reiterated in this way. It’s almost just the way that Telfar expresses himself. Like, he’s being normal, but he’s singular, you know? So we could be talking about a T-shirt until we die. 

GERLAN MARCEL

I remember I once asked: “What’s your mood board for the season? What are your references?” And Babak was like, “Our reference is Telfar. Telfar is the reference.”

KHALID AL GHARABALLI

There were these GenArt, new-fashion designer fashion shows that they used to do. So if I’m right, I think that was the first runway show. It was fun. It was kind of messy. It was very young, very DIY. It was just the two of us. Shayne Oliver was one of our models! She walked.

JASON FARRER

That [first show] was at Nikki Vassell’s loft5. At the time, coming out of the early ’90s, Nikki was a model who was a friend that we shot together quite a bit, and she was segueing into her art career. I think she was pretty deep in with Jeffrey Deitch at the time and she was living in a loft in SoHo at the time. I’m not exactly sure how I was invited, but I do remember the show really well. The energy was akin to something that Avena and I were fortunate enough to experience earlier in the ’90s, with things like Bernadette Corporation, Susan Cianciolo, and Jess Johnson. And then there were some sort of people that were doing things with the international spin, like Alpana Bawa. It also had this charge of Helmut Lang shows in New York because of the gallery; the fact that it was in Nikki’s apartment. 

FATIMA AL QADIRI (MUSICIAN AND ARTIST)

When Babak and Avena officially came on board Telfar, you could tell the difference that the union of Babak, Avena, and Telfar solidified. It just became a more polished look. It was giving corporate mistress. It was the slickest production I’d ever seen Telfar do up to that point.

FATIMA AL QADIRI (MUSICIAN AND ARTIST)

Telfar instinctively knew——and also Babak knew, because Babak has a business acumen——that they weren’t going to operate the way the fashion industry wanted them to operate, because economically it didn’t make any sense.

RAUL LOPEZ

It was a hard time. People didn’t get it. People don’t want to get it. People didn’t understand it. Also, the discourse was different. It wasn’t about let’s uplift all Black people and the whole thing. So many people shit on him.

RAUL LOPEZ

It was a hard time. People didn’t get it. People don’t want to get it. People didn’t understand it. Also, the discourse was different. It wasn’t about let’s uplift all Black people and the whole thing. So many people shit on him.

IAN ISIAH

Throughout the 20 years or even from the beginning, there was always this idea of independence. And independence in a way where it’s an example for generations of independence and kind of basically saying, “Fuck you, we are here.” But just that idea and that confidence is something that a lot of the fashion world, and definitely as a minority in the fashion world, would be scared to say. If it wasn’t for Telfar, I would still be scared to say: I don’t want that kind of capitalist energy on us. We can do it on our own. Our support is us. The community is the support already. Why do I need you? 

MARCO ROSO (DIS CO-FOUNDER)

The counterculture has been commodified. Since the ’70s, ’80s, or forever. And every time has been faster. The trend comes, is commodified,  every year, even faster, to the point that now it is very difficult even to follow. We were not playing with being counterculture.

JASON FARRER

I almost had this sort of feeling [from Telfar’s collections]——an essence that I got from Issey Miyake, almost, which sounds comparative and maybe a little strange——but there was a challenge of shape, the kinds of shapes that we’re used to seeing enclosed, and there was a positivity, which is very unusual or at the time was quite unusual. It also felt a relief to encounter a generation that appreciated the ethos of Maison Martin Margiela.

AVENA GALLAGHER (FASHION DIRECTOR, TELFAR, AND STYLIST)

The first official show I styled was in an old New York-style loft on Lower Broadway. I remember a lot of the clothes. It was kind of the same as what Telfar is now in the sense that it’s like near future, or near past, or something normal but from a dream. I would say that Telfar design is a thing that’s really faithful. It’s like a really long-term relationship with the world and with style. His design is like a meditation on a thing that is ubiquitous to begin with. And that it keeps getting re-expressed and reiterated in this way. It’s almost just the way that Telfar expresses himself. Like, he’s being normal, but he’s singular, you know? So we could be talking about a T-shirt until we die. 

GERLAN MARCEL

I remember I once asked: “What’s your mood board for the season? What are your references?” And Babak was like, “Our reference is Telfar. Telfar is the reference.”

KHALID AL GHARABALLI

There were these GenArt, new-fashion designer fashion shows that they used to do. So if I’m right, I think that was the first runway show. It was fun. It was kind of messy. It was very young, very DIY. It was just the two of us. Shayne Oliver was one of our models! She walked.

JASON FARRER

That [first show] was at Nikki Vassell’s loft5. At the time, coming out of the early ’90s, Nikki was a model who was a friend that we shot together quite a bit, and she was segueing into her art career. I think she was pretty deep in with Jeffrey Deitch at the time and she was living in a loft in SoHo at the time. I’m not exactly sure how I was invited, but I do remember the show really well. The energy was akin to something that Avena and I were fortunate enough to experience earlier in the ’90s, with things like Bernadette Corporation, Susan Cianciolo, and Jess Johnson. And then there were some sort of people that were doing things with the international spin, like Alpana Bawa. It also had this charge of Helmut Lang shows in New York because of the gallery; the fact that it was in Nikki’s apartment. 

FATIMA AL QADIRI (MUSICIAN AND ARTIST)

When Babak and Avena officially came on board Telfar, you could tell the difference that the union of Babak, Avena, and Telfar solidified. It just became a more polished look. It was giving corporate mistress. It was the slickest production I’d ever seen Telfar do up to that point.

FATIMA AL QADIRI (MUSICIAN AND ARTIST)

Telfar instinctively knew——and also Babak knew, because Babak has a business acumen——that they weren’t going to operate the way the fashion industry wanted them to operate, because economically it didn’t make any sense.

RAUL LOPEZ

It was a hard time. People didn’t get it. People don’t want to get it. People didn’t understand it. Also, the discourse was different. It wasn’t about let’s uplift all Black people and the whole thing. So many people shit on him.

RAUL LOPEZ

It was a hard time. People didn’t get it. People don’t want to get it. People didn’t understand it. Also, the discourse was different. It wasn’t about let’s uplift all Black people and the whole thing. So many people shit on him.

IAN ISIAH

Throughout the 20 years or even from the beginning, there was always this idea of independence. And independence in a way where it’s an example for generations of independence and kind of basically saying, “Fuck you, we are here.” But just that idea and that confidence is something that a lot of the fashion world, and definitely as a minority in the fashion world, would be scared to say. If it wasn’t for Telfar, I would still be scared to say: I don’t want that kind of capitalist energy on us. We can do it on our own. Our support is us. The community is the support already. Why do I need you? 

MONIQUE McWILLIAMS (STYLIST AND CREATIVE)

The counterculture has been commodified. Since the ’70s, ’80s, or forever. And every time has been faster. The trend comes, is commodified,  every year, even faster, to the point that now it is very difficult even to follow. We were not playing with being counterculture.

MONIQUE McWILLIAMS (STYLIST AND CREATIVE)

I almost had this sort of feeling [from Telfar’s collections]——an essence that I got from Issey Miyake, almost, which sounds comparative and maybe a little strange——but there was a challenge of shape, the kinds of shapes that we’re used to seeing enclosed, and there was a positivity, which is very unusual or at the time was quite unusual. It also felt a relief to encounter a generation that appreciated the ethos of Maison Martin Margiela.

KHALID AL GHARABALLI (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

The first official show I styled was in an old New York-style loft on Lower Broadway. I remember a lot of the clothes. It was kind of the same as what Telfar is now in the sense that it’s like near future, or near past, or something normal but from a dream. I would say that Telfar design is a thing that’s really faithful. It’s like a really long-term relationship with the world and with style. His design is like a meditation on a thing that is ubiquitous to begin with. And that it keeps getting re-expressed and reiterated in this way. It’s almost just the way that Telfar expresses himself. Like, he’s being normal, but he’s singular, you know? So we could be talking about a T-shirt until we die. 

KHALID AL GHARABALLI (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

I remember I once asked: “What’s your mood board for the season? What are your references?” And Babak was like, “Our reference is Telfar. Telfar is the reference.”

KHALID AL GHARABALLI (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

There were these GenArt, new-fashion designer fashion shows that they used to do. So if I’m right, I think that was the first runway show. It was fun. It was kind of messy. It was very young, very DIY. It was just the two of us. Shayne Oliver was one of our models! She walked.

KHALID AL GHARABALLI (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

That [first show] was at Nikki Vassell’s loft5. At the time, coming out of the early ’90s, Nikki was a model who was a friend that we shot together quite a bit, and she was segueing into her art career. I think she was pretty deep in with Jeffrey Deitch at the time and she was living in a loft in SoHo at the time. I’m not exactly sure how I was invited, but I do remember the show really well. The energy was akin to something that Avena and I were fortunate enough to experience earlier in the ’90s, with things like Bernadette Corporation, Susan Cianciolo, and Jess Johnson. And then there were some sort of people that were doing things with the international spin, like Alpana Bawa. It also had this charge of Helmut Lang shows in New York because of the gallery; the fact that it was in Nikki’s apartment. 

KHALID AL GHARABALLI (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

When Babak and Avena officially came on board Telfar, you could tell the difference that the union of Babak, Avena, and Telfar solidified. It just became a more polished look. It was giving corporate mistress. It was the slickest production I’d ever seen Telfar do up to that point.

KHALID AL GHARABALLI (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

Telfar instinctively knew——and also Babak knew, because Babak has a business acumen——that they weren’t going to operate the way the fashion industry wanted them to operate, because economically it didn’t make any sense.

KHALID AL GHARABALLI (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

It was a hard time. People didn’t get it. People don’t want to get it. People didn’t understand it. Also, the discourse was different. It wasn’t about let’s uplift all Black people and the whole thing. So many people shit on him.

KHALID AL GHARABALLI (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

It was a hard time. People didn’t get it. People don’t want to get it. People didn’t understand it. Also, the discourse was different. It wasn’t about let’s uplift all Black people and the whole thing. So many people shit on him.

KHALID AL GHARABALLI (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

Throughout the 20 years or even from the beginning, there was always this idea of independence. And independence in a way where it’s an example for generations of independence and kind of basically saying, “Fuck you, we are here.” But just that idea and that confidence is something that a lot of the fashion world, and definitely as a minority in the fashion world, would be scared to say. If it wasn’t for Telfar, I would still be scared to say: I don’t want that kind of capitalist energy on us. We can do it on our own. Our support is us. The community is the support already. Why do I need you? 

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TELFAR:

It was like, so let’s get Jaiko [Suzuki, artist] to take a Super 8. Let’s have DIS actually shoot it and we do a really cool video that actually just means something. Each time I would make clothes, it would be some sort of collaboration. I usually was with someone in the artworld that would help bring it. It was really about how to make things work to our benefit, after all of the work that we put into the thing. We wanted our work to actually just go somewhere that’s appreciated, actually understood, rather than just making it for Style.com and Vogue. People that don’t care.

THOM:

Why didn’t they care?

TELFAR:

When I would look at the European young designers that would come out, they’re on the cover of the magazine the first day. I kept being like, “If I was in London or in Paris, this would’ve been worked out.”

babak:

But it wasn’t just the location. The reality is that fashion is a colonial institution. It’s the same wing of the State protecting regional cheeses and wines. And it’s about a monopoly over a certain product. And the product is cultural. Fashion has to remain French—which is to say white. It doesn’t matter if there’s not even one French designer left in it. They own that category, right? And as long as they have that monopoly, they’re going to be in a privileged position in what is one of their major exports, which is luxury. So if there are 10 years where Telfar isn’t getting covered, it’s because it’s not seen as exploitable, or even relevant to the task of exploitation, which is about controlling a narrative about what is valuable. So you’re looking at the world, you’re looking at who has money, and where the money is, and you look at Telfar—and it’s like, “This has nothing to do with our values.”

TELFAR:

In that period of the 2010s, people could just take the thing. We were presenting new ideas about things and they would end up on other brands’ runways or collections. 

THOM:

Was there a time this happened where you were like, “Damn?”

TELFAR:

I don’t even feel like mentioning them, though, because it would be a long list. [Laughs.] The Jeremy Scott plastic bag one. That was one-to-one. DIS clocked that.

babak:

Our bag as a merchandising strategy did not exist. It’s the core of so many brands now.

TELFAR:

That’s everybody’s. There was that jean... honestly, I could make a list of my jeans on other designer’s runways. 

babak:

The triple boot too. 

TELFAR:

Yes, the triple UGG boot. It was a very specific point in time, where these brands with the infrastructure and the resources could take from anywhere––and it was fine. 

babak:

It was before the comment section. Those brands were under so much pressure to grow—they needed the new ideas, so they took from people who literally just didn’t have the resources to do shit. So we are like a raw material for their mood board––you can just take this. Our entire approach to runway integrated with music and community, that’s every runway show now. The word “community” was probably the central word of global marketing for the last five years. … Alexander Wang came for our half tank. Balenciaga did our jeans a few times. Marc Jacobs foremost—the bag, the marketing, the customer. That’s really shameless. Marc Jacobs was really struggling before that bag. 

JAIKO SUZUKI

(ARTIST)

[Around 2005], I was shooting a lot of Super 8 films of my friends and projecting them at this party at a place called La Caverna. And then Telfar wanted me to do his clothing thing the way I did those portraits. I didn’t know lighting or anything, so it’s just crazy-looking. You can see it on YouTube, it’s like so dark you can hardly see the clothes. But what I really remember is I was so impressed with his attitude, because he would come with the clothes, just himself and maybe somebody he wanted to model them——and just shoot it in my house. I just had one white wall and poster paper and duct tape. And he’s a super, super creative person——but he had nothing to say for how to do it. He was literally like, “Do it.” And I’m like, “Are we doing it?” And he’s like, “Sick.” That’s all he said. “Sick.” 

LAURA RYSMAN

We’d be doing those shows and it was such a big struggle to try to get fashion press there. I don’t really know what happened that made the fashion press pay attention 10 years later, But I know Telfar was thinking about giving up before that. There was a feeling that people weren’t going to get it and he was working so hard. I mean, it was unbelievable. He moved in with his aunt in Lefrak City. It is pretty far from the midtown seamstresses that he needed, and he would bike from Lefrak to Midtown with his collection on his back.

GERLAN MARCEL

Has anyone told you about Mr. Tai? He owned a factory in Midtown, and he had given Telfar the basement of this factory as his studio. There was a sign on the door. I just remember it was like a skull and crossbones and it was like, “Do not come down here if you have a pacemaker,” or something. No windows, down into this basement, and then you went down into a sublevel, and that’s where Telfar’s studio was.

FATIMA AL QADIRI

I think another reason why Telfar has struggled so much with the fashion industry is that there are a lot of racists in the fashion industry. They never saw it for him. And then once he became famous——they were on him like cockroaches. It was crazy. A person who wouldn’t give him the time of day, wouldn’t make eye contact with him, wouldn’t look him in the face, suddenly was like, “Oh my God, Telfar!”

IAN ISIAH

The press were always uncomfortable at a Telfar event. So it’s like, why are you here? And then you would leave and write about the experience from your point of view, which is crazy to me.

LAURA RYSMAN

It took way too long. It took much longer than it should have. People should have discovered him and recognised his talent much earlier on, but it’s not easy. There definitely were not many Black designers then. There definitely were not people doing the kinds of things that he was doing and speaking to the community that he was speaking to, but that’s also why I think he was so important, and when he did break through, it had so much resonance. When I saw huge performances he was doing, everyone was stage diving off of the runway, and I could see it was getting huge. And then he came to Pitti7 and he has Solange flying in for the show. just to be honest, I cried a little. I was just so moved to see it——to witness it for myself and just see him getting all the respect that he deserved. It was just extremely emotional and satisfying. Something is right in the world. 

KHALID AL GHARABALLI

In 2010, we did this show at a friend’s loft. We had dyed all the fabrics by hand. It was very Liberia-inspired, very African-streetwear and he had made that “Thank You” deli bag as a tank top. This plastic bag that he kind of cut out and then mixed with this natural dye, which another designer copied the season after, but made out of silk and totally misunderstood the assignment. Literally the next season.

JAIKO SUZUKI

(ARTIST)

[Around 2005], I was shooting a lot of Super 8 films of my friends and projecting them at this party at a place called La Caverna. And then Telfar wanted me to do his clothing thing the way I did those portraits. I didn’t know lighting or anything, so it’s just crazy-looking. You can see it on YouTube, it’s like so dark you can hardly see the clothes. But what I really remember is I was so impressed with his attitude, because he would come with the clothes, just himself and maybe somebody he wanted to model them——and just shoot it in my house. I just had one white wall and poster paper and duct tape. And he’s a super, super creative person——but he had nothing to say for how to do it. He was literally like, “Do it.” And I’m like, “Are we doing it?” And he’s like, “Sick.” That’s all he said. “Sick.” 

LAURA RYSMAN

We’d be doing those shows and it was such a big struggle to try to get fashion press there. I don’t really know what happened that made the fashion press pay attention 10 years later, But I know Telfar was thinking about giving up before that. There was a feeling that people weren’t going to get it and he was working so hard. I mean, it was unbelievable. He moved in with his aunt in Lefrak City. It is pretty far from the midtown seamstresses that he needed, and he would bike from Lefrak to Midtown with his collection on his back.

GERLAN MARCEL

Has anyone told you about Mr. Tai? He owned a factory in Midtown, and he had given Telfar the basement of this factory as his studio. There was a sign on the door. I just remember it was like a skull and crossbones and it was like, “Do not come down here if you have a pacemaker,” or something. No windows, down into this basement, and then you went down into a sublevel, and that’s where Telfar’s studio was.

FATIMA AL QADIRI

I think another reason why Telfar has struggled so much with the fashion industry is that there are a lot of racists in the fashion industry. They never saw it for him. And then once he became famous——they were on him like cockroaches. It was crazy. A person who wouldn’t give him the time of day, wouldn’t make eye contact with him, wouldn’t look him in the face, suddenly was like, “Oh my God, Telfar!”

IAN ISIAH

The press were always uncomfortable at a Telfar event. So it’s like, why are you here? And then you would leave and write about the experience from your point of view, which is crazy to me.

LAURA RYSMAN

It took way too long. It took much longer than it should have. People should have discovered him and recognised his talent much earlier on, but it’s not easy. There definitely were not many Black designers then. There definitely were not people doing the kinds of things that he was doing and speaking to the community that he was speaking to, but that’s also why I think he was so important, and when he did break through, it had so much resonance. When I saw huge performances he was doing, everyone was stage diving off of the runway, and I could see it was getting huge. And then he came to Pitti7 and he has Solange flying in for the show. just to be honest, I cried a little. I was just so moved to see it——to witness it for myself and just see him getting all the respect that he deserved. It was just extremely emotional and satisfying. Something is right in the world. 

KHALID AL GHARABALLI

In 2010, we did this show at a friend’s loft. We had dyed all the fabrics by hand. It was very Liberia-inspired, very African-streetwear and he had made that “Thank You” deli bag as a tank top. This plastic bag that he kind of cut out and then mixed with this natural dye, which another designer copied the season after, but made out of silk and totally misunderstood the assignment. Literally the next season.

KHALID AL GHARABALLI (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

[Around 2005], I was shooting a lot of Super 8 films of my friends and projecting them at this party at a place called La Caverna. And then Telfar wanted me to do his clothing thing the way I did those portraits. I didn’t know lighting or anything, so it’s just crazy-looking. You can see it on YouTube, it’s like so dark you can hardly see the clothes. But what I really remember is I was so impressed with his attitude, because he would come with the clothes, just himself and maybe somebody he wanted to model them——and just shoot it in my house. I just had one white wall and poster paper and duct tape. And he’s a super, super creative person——but he had nothing to say for how to do it. He was literally like, “Do it.” And I’m like, “Are we doing it?” And he’s like, “Sick.” That’s all he said. “Sick.” 

MONIQUE McWILLIAMS (STYLIST AND CREATIVE)

We’d be doing those shows and it was such a big struggle to try to get fashion press there. I don’t really know what happened that made the fashion press pay attention 10 years later, But I know Telfar was thinking about giving up before that. There was a feeling that people weren’t going to get it and he was working so hard. I mean, it was unbelievable. He moved in with his aunt in Lefrak City. It is pretty far from the midtown seamstresses that he needed, and he would bike from Lefrak to Midtown with his collection on his back.

KHALID AL GHARABALLI (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

Has anyone told you about Mr. Tai? He owned a factory in Midtown, and he had given Telfar the basement of this factory as his studio. There was a sign on the door. I just remember it was like a skull and crossbones and it was like, “Do not come down here if you have a pacemaker,” or something. No windows, down into this basement, and then you went down into a sublevel, and that’s where Telfar’s studio was.

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

I think another reason why Telfar has struggled so much with the fashion industry is that there are a lot of racists in the fashion industry. They never saw it for him. And then once he became famous——they were on him like cockroaches. It was crazy. A person who wouldn’t give him the time of day, wouldn’t make eye contact with him, wouldn’t look him in the face, suddenly was like, “Oh my God, Telfar!”

IAN ISIAH (MUSICIAN AND ARTIST) 

The press were always uncomfortable at a Telfar event. So it’s like, why are you here? And then you would leave and write about the experience from your point of view, which is crazy to me.

HAWA CLEMENS (TELFAR’S MUM)

It took way too long. It took much longer than it should have. People should have discovered him and recognised his talent much earlier on, but it’s not easy. There definitely were not many Black designers then. There definitely were not people doing the kinds of things that he was doing and speaking to the community that he was speaking to, but that’s also why I think he was so important, and when he did break through, it had so much resonance. When I saw huge performances he was doing, everyone was stage diving off of the runway, and I could see it was getting huge. And then he came to Pitti7 and he has Solange flying in for the show. just to be honest, I cried a little. I was just so moved to see it——to witness it for myself and just see him getting all the respect that he deserved. It was just extremely emotional and satisfying. Something is right in the world. 

HAWA CLEMENS (TELFAR’S MUM)

In 2010, we did this show at a friend’s loft. We had dyed all the fabrics by hand. It was very Liberia-inspired, very African-streetwear and he had made that “Thank You” deli bag as a tank top. This plastic bag that he kind of cut out and then mixed with this natural dye, which another designer copied the season after, but made out of silk and totally misunderstood the assignment. Literally the next season.

All clothing and accessories

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THOM:

It still is. But before we get to the present let’s talk about the White Castle moment. It felt like a project that brought a lot of new people into the brand

TELFAR:

It was a really nice moment that actually was true to exactly what the brand was. I actually eat there. It was actually down the street from my house at that time. Babak met this guy from White Castle, and said, “He is so cool.”

TELFAR:

It was a really nice moment that actually was true to exactly what the brand was. I actually eat there. It was actually down the street from my house at that time. Babak met this guy from White Castle, and said, “He is so cool.”

TELFAR:

It was a really nice moment that actually was true to exactly what the brand was. I actually eat there. It was actually down the street from my house at that time. Babak met this guy from White Castle, and said, “He is so cool.”

JAMIE RICHARDSON

(VP, WHITE CASTLE)

So the story of Telfar x White Castle started a long time ago, in a land kind of far away——in Columbus, Ohio——where we received this wonderful message on our 800 line, typically reserved for customer complaints. It was kind of hard to classify, somehow, and ended up in my email inbox, and it was about a fashion show. Well, White Castle had done a lot over the last 95 years, but no one had ever asked us to jump into high fashion. So it seemed kind of fun. And so we called back and said, “Yeah, let’s figure it out.” We don’t have much money. We don’t have much time, but here’s what we do have. So I flew to New York for the event and met with Babak, and we had scoped out a lot of fun things to do. We ended up sitting in a White Castle restaurant, in this little teeny-tiny manager’s office and I (whimsically, not thinking they’d think it was a good idea) tossed out to Telfar and Babak: What if we had the after-party at the White Castle? And that was 10 years ago. It was amazing. Babak would later refer to it as a sense of licensed trespass.

IAN ISAIAH

White Castle was amazing and it was also a shit show. That party was intense. I lost a lot of clothes at that party. I think I left in sweatpants. I couldn’t find my shirt and my knees were really, really just destroyed from just dancing.

SK LYONS

(artist)

I was like, “Damn, they’re smoking weed in
the White Castle!”

jAMIE RICHARDSON

It was in the midst of all the hullabaloo around the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Award, so we did a capsule collection. This was going to be launched with a party on the roof of a White Castle in Lefrak [City]——Telfar’s White Castle. And we had it all set to go. Literally, we had bands coming in. All Telfar’s musical family was going to be there, and then the New York City police would not give us the permit at the last second. They said they were concerned about violence or something ridiculous. But then we moved quickly and we were able to do this in Brooklyn. It was really, really amazing. I think the capsule sold out that night, and we used it to pay bail for minors on Rikers.

LAUREN BOYLE

White Castle was a turning point for the industry to start paying closer attention. You just couldn’t deny the energy——the energy and the magnetism of the brand for the people. They couldn’t keep making it all about these other brands that have no energy, no community, no nothing——they might sell clothes, but they’re not a thing. They’re not culture. They’re not part of anything. So I think that the shows that happened right after White Castle——the industry started paying attention. Then Alex Wang tried to do a White Castle party. I’m not even kidding.

AVENA GALLAGHER

I was so terrified because they brought in Anna Wintour and all those zombies. So they came in and they had all those white people on one side of the table and then all of us. We sat them opposite each other to like...break bread and eat White Castle. And these fancy old ladies thought, “Oh my God, this is so amazing. We’re eating White Castle sitting with you all. This is so great.”

JAMIE RICHARDSON

(VP, WHITE CASTLE)

So the story of Telfar x White Castle started a long time ago, in a land kind of far away——in Columbus, Ohio——where we received this wonderful message on our 800 line, typically reserved for customer complaints. It was kind of hard to classify, somehow, and ended up in my email inbox, and it was about a fashion show. Well, White Castle had done a lot over the last 95 years, but no one had ever asked us to jump into high fashion. So it seemed kind of fun. And so we called back and said, “Yeah, let’s figure it out.” We don’t have much money. We don’t have much time, but here’s what we do have. So I flew to New York for the event and met with Babak, and we had scoped out a lot of fun things to do. We ended up sitting in a White Castle restaurant, in this little teeny-tiny manager’s office and I (whimsically, not thinking they’d think it was a good idea) tossed out to Telfar and Babak: What if we had the after-party at the White Castle? And that was 10 years ago. It was amazing. Babak would later refer to it as a sense of licensed trespass.

IAN ISAIAH

White Castle was amazing and it was also a shit show. That party was intense. I lost a lot of clothes at that party. I think I left in sweatpants. I couldn’t find my shirt and my knees were really, really just destroyed from just dancing.

SK LYONS

(artist)

I was like, “Damn, they’re smoking weed in
the White Castle!”

jAMIE RICHARDSON

It was in the midst of all the hullabaloo around the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Award, so we did a capsule collection. This was going to be launched with a party on the roof of a White Castle in Lefrak [City]——Telfar’s White Castle. And we had it all set to go. Literally, we had bands coming in. All Telfar’s musical family was going to be there, and then the New York City police would not give us the permit at the last second. They said they were concerned about violence or something ridiculous. But then we moved quickly and we were able to do this in Brooklyn. It was really, really amazing. I think the capsule sold out that night, and we used it to pay bail for minors on Rikers.

LAUREN BOYLE

White Castle was a turning point for the industry to start paying closer attention. You just couldn’t deny the energy——the energy and the magnetism of the brand for the people. They couldn’t keep making it all about these other brands that have no energy, no community, no nothing——they might sell clothes, but they’re not a thing. They’re not culture. They’re not part of anything. So I think that the shows that happened right after White Castle——the industry started paying attention. Then Alex Wang tried to do a White Castle party. I’m not even kidding.

AVENA GALLAGHER

I was so terrified because they brought in Anna Wintour and all those zombies. So they came in and they had all those white people on one side of the table and then all of us. We sat them opposite each other to like...break bread and eat White Castle. And these fancy old ladies thought, “Oh my God, this is so amazing. We’re eating White Castle sitting with you all. This is so great.”

MONIQUE McWILLIAMS (STYLIST AND CREATIVE)

So the story of Telfar x White Castle started a long time ago, in a land kind of far away——in Columbus, Ohio——where we received this wonderful message on our 800 line, typically reserved for customer complaints. It was kind of hard to classify, somehow, and ended up in my email inbox, and it was about a fashion show. Well, White Castle had done a lot over the last 95 years, but no one had ever asked us to jump into high fashion. So it seemed kind of fun. And so we called back and said, “Yeah, let’s figure it out.” We don’t have much money. We don’t have much time, but here’s what we do have. So I flew to New York for the event and met with Babak, and we had scoped out a lot of fun things to do. We ended up sitting in a White Castle restaurant, in this little teeny-tiny manager’s office and I (whimsically, not thinking they’d think it was a good idea) tossed out to Telfar and Babak: What if we had the after-party at the White Castle? And that was 10 years ago. It was amazing. Babak would later refer to it as a sense of licensed trespass.

KHALID AL GHARABALLI (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

White Castle was amazing and it was also a shit show. That party was intense. I lost a lot of clothes at that party. I think I left in sweatpants. I couldn’t find my shirt and my knees were really, really just destroyed from just dancing.

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

I was like, “Damn, they’re smoking weed in
the White Castle!”

IAN ISIAH (MUSICIAN AND ARTIST) 

It was in the midst of all the hullabaloo around the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Award, so we did a capsule collection. This was going to be launched with a party on the roof of a White Castle in Lefrak [City]——Telfar’s White Castle. And we had it all set to go. Literally, we had bands coming in. All Telfar’s musical family was going to be there, and then the New York City police would not give us the permit at the last second. They said they were concerned about violence or something ridiculous. But then we moved quickly and we were able to do this in Brooklyn. It was really, really amazing. I think the capsule sold out that night, and we used it to pay bail for minors on Rikers.

HAWA CLEMENS (TELFAR’S MUM)

White Castle was a turning point for the industry to start paying closer attention. You just couldn’t deny the energy——the energy and the magnetism of the brand for the people. They couldn’t keep making it all about these other brands that have no energy, no community, no nothing——they might sell clothes, but they’re not a thing. They’re not culture. They’re not part of anything. So I think that the shows that happened right after White Castle——the industry started paying attention. Then Alex Wang tried to do a White Castle party. I’m not even kidding.

HAWA CLEMENS (TELFAR’S MUM)

I was so terrified because they brought in Anna Wintour and all those zombies. So they came in and they had all those white people on one side of the table and then all of us. We sat them opposite each other to like...break bread and eat White Castle. And these fancy old ladies thought, “Oh my God, this is so amazing. We’re eating White Castle sitting with you all. This is so great.”

All clothing and accessories

telfar

babak:

My job was to communicate what the clothes were saying and what they were doing—which was something radical—into other mediums; videos, words, runway shows. But also into a way of operating in the real world. So if the clothes are making this impossible claim around scale—around being mass—we need to make impossibly big shows. Videos that look like Gap ads, spaces that look like malls. ... So that was the impetus for starting to work with Kmart and put it in the New Museum. Suddenly, journalists could write about what the clothes were doing because it was reflected in the whole experience. All of a sudden we got press—and it also looked big even though we were broke. All that shit was done by just sponsor-decking our asses off. Before targeted ads, brands had to sponsor shit. So all you had to do was convince brands you’re the shit by making a fucking PDF. It was on purpose that we started seeking out these types of sponsors who nobody else wanted to touch. But it was also a necessity because we couldn’t go to beauty brands—that was a Caucasian industry. The idea of making anything for non-Caucasian skin––you’d be wearing foundation that’s so many shades lighter.  So you sell the idea of the New Museum to Kmart and the idea of Kmart to the New Museum.

TELFAR:

That was right before the CFDAs.

THOM:

What made you guys decide to do the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund?

babak:

I looked through all my old emails trying to find the exact message, but basically someone emailed me that we should apply to the Fund. We were hesitating about entering because we barely had resources for the regular shit that we were trying to do, but then we had this idea to not just design the uniforms for White Castle but to produce them. That was a 20,000 unit order. White Castle meant a check big enough that we could actually be a company. That’s how we got Spencer [Morgan Taylor, producer] to come on for all the things we were doing. Instead of just getting together for the show twice a year, we were going to work together every day and we were going to win this fucking thing.

THOM:

The CFDA is part of the institution you guys were outside of for a long time. When you won, did it feel like you were inside the machine? Or did that happen when you showed in Paris for the first time in 2019?

TELFAR:

We had to almost not even say we were showing in Paris. People in the CFDA did not want us to. They block you from doing that. The French people didn’t want us there, either.

babak:

But we were being promoted like this up-and-coming “diversity” thing, and we were very aware of that and of the limitations. It wasn’t only happening to us. That was a cultural initiative of diversity with very specific goals to benefit those in power—not us. You would get tons of press and no sales, and it was clear we were being used. We started to get more and more intentional and challenging—we would say in our press release: “If everyone in this show is Black, how can you say it’s inclusive?” And they would say it was a shining example of inclusivity. So what does that mean? The only way an all-Black show is inclusive is if you assume that the viewer or reader must be white. That it is all done for white people to watch and consume. Which is exactly what it is. They have a diversity quota—and that is the only reason they are covering our show. So you get a glowing review, and reading it is actually disgusting.

TELFAR:

Just being in that entire system is where you see your place—who you’re sitting next to at any dinner. It’s like, “Oh, y’all at the Black table?” Then, when they want to mix, it’s like you’re there for a specific purpose to make them feel something. I would leave those events feeling really annoyed. Also, I didn’t have fun. Nobody there is having fun.

RYAN TRECARTIN

I think that Babak and Telfar have a magic partnership, and I think that I would also describe babak as a genius. I feel like his medium, how he works——needs somebody who is making things, but who is also open to collaborating in the rawest, most open, most malleable way possible. And Telfar is the perfect partner for Babak’s way of thinking. He’s like an inventor inside a business, but not business like numbers. I mean, he’s good with that stuff, but he’s always doing these things that seem like they would undermine their ability to grow, and it does the opposite. It’s beautiful and inspiring, the way they work together and what they’ve grown. They’ve taken unusual paths, saying no to things that people wouldn’t say no to. They’re really brave.

LAUREN BOYLE

Babak was very reactionary against being an artist. He is an artist, but he hates the title and whatever that means, you know? So for him, he is basically a worker. He is a deck master for sure. They needed so many decks and he was just like whipping them out. He knew what he was doing. He believes he can contort any situation to make it sound good. And you could see that at the New Museum show——where they debuted the bag. That show was so big, And it was all sponsored by Kmart. How did he get Kmart and how did they agree to that? I absolutely would love to know. But I do think it was a bit of a light-bulb moment, you know, in terms of how to frame and market Telfar when you’re being basically stonewalled by the industry. That was where Babak realised this is how he can sustain the business. They would sell the shows and make money off the shows because they can’t make money off the
clothes because no one’s gonna accept them in fashion. Vogue isn’t coming, nobody’s coming——but my decks can get us 40 grand from Kmart.

GERLAN MARCEL

Somebody should do a Whitney Biennial of Babak’s decks. These decks are off the fucking chain. His deck puts every other deck to shame. No one has seen a PDF like these PDFs. 

AVENA GALLAGHER

This [was] the dawn of when corporate sponsorship wasn’t even totally a thing yet. But Babak was really good at making these sponsorship decks that made you feel like a chump if you didn’t give us $50,000 or $100,000. But it was just actually really exhausting and really always down to the wire. If we don’t have a sponsor, there’s no show. There’s no nothing. It was dawning on us that, like, actually——we don’t have a business. We’re just doing all of this to have a sample sale. There’s gotta be a change.

SPENCER MORGAN TAYLOR

(PRODUCER)

When Telfar entered the CFDA, it was like——let’s put absolutely all the muscle into this. I remember for those early conversations around any show, I never knew how much time I would have, but it would have to arrive to Babak and Telfar, creatively. I remember Babak telling me, “It’s going to be crowd surfing, and it’s going to be through a torn American flag, and it’s going to be at a stage, and we’re going to just tear the shit out of it and just have all the models jump into the crowd.” And, of course, from a production standpoint, it’s enough to make one have a heart attack.

IAN ISAIAH

It was cute to see him win, but in the end, we all know the truth. And to us, it was like, “Finally, you’re catching up.” Cool. But where I’m from we’ve always recognised Telfar. He’s a New York native. So, unfortunately, there’s nothing a white woman can tell us about how and when to recognise a Black man that we’ve been recognising for 20 years. So yeah, it was a chill night. We might’ve smoked.

RAUL LOPEZ

That’s just how the industry is, right? First they hate, then they congratulate.

JORGE “GITOO” WRIGHT

(CREATIVE AND CASTING DIRECTOR)

But I do remember that whole CFDA moment in time where it was like they were trying to speak for Telfar, and I know that Telfar was not happy about that. I don’t think anybody over here was happy about that. Like, Black has been excellent, you know what I’m saying? Like, Telfar has been excellent. We’ve been saying that and seeing that, experiencing that and living that. So, the fact that you wanna do this now? we’re side-eyeing. What meeting did you have? Why now? Where were you in the beginning? ’Cause I was Black back then too. If it’s not real, and there’s a hidden agenda, then I don’t want a part of that. And I feel like that’s kind of how Telfar felt. Like, “Listen, if you guys want to pedestal me——fab——but now you’re gonna do it on my terms. And we’re gonna do it our way.” And those industries don’t like that. 

AVENA GALLAGHER 

We got the award, even though he probably doesn’t like to think about it at all.

aya brown

The fashion world is big, but Telfar’s community is also this big. So when you step into that space, it’s like, “N****, I’m already coming deep. I don’t need you.” 

spencer morgan taylor

On one hand the CFDA gave a lot of exposure and opportunity, but it did feel, especially within the cultural moment at the time, that there was something very kind of self-congratulatory and opportunistic about the organisation. Their press opportunities or their requests felt sometimes quite invasive. Who knew if the motives or intentions ever were [genuine]? I think it was just really because of the overall zeitgeist. We’re talking Trump term one. It all just started to feel like a grab for Telfar’s cultural capital. 

RYAN TRECARTIN

I think that Babak and Telfar have a magic partnership, and I think that I would also describe babak as a genius. I feel like his medium, how he works——needs somebody who is making things, but who is also open to collaborating in the rawest, most open, most malleable way possible. And Telfar is the perfect partner for Babak’s way of thinking. He’s like an inventor inside a business, but not business like numbers. I mean, he’s good with that stuff, but he’s always doing these things that seem like they would undermine their ability to grow, and it does the opposite. It’s beautiful and inspiring, the way they work together and what they’ve grown. They’ve taken unusual paths, saying no to things that people wouldn’t say no to. They’re really brave.

LAUREN BOYLE

Babak was very reactionary against being an artist. He is an artist, but he hates the title and whatever that means, you know? So for him, he is basically a worker. He is a deck master for sure. They needed so many decks and he was just like whipping them out. He knew what he was doing. He believes he can contort any situation to make it sound good. And you could see that at the New Museum show——where they debuted the bag. That show was so big, And it was all sponsored by Kmart. How did he get Kmart and how did they agree to that? I absolutely would love to know. But I do think it was a bit of a light-bulb moment, you know, in terms of how to frame and market Telfar when you’re being basically stonewalled by the industry. That was where Babak realised this is how he can sustain the business. They would sell the shows and make money off the shows because they can’t make money off the
clothes because no one’s gonna accept them in fashion. Vogue isn’t coming, nobody’s coming——but my decks can get us 40 grand from Kmart.

GERLAN MARCEL

Somebody should do a Whitney Biennial of Babak’s decks. These decks are off the fucking chain. His deck puts every other deck to shame. No one has seen a PDF like these PDFs. 

AVENA GALLAGHER

This [was] the dawn of when corporate sponsorship wasn’t even totally a thing yet. But Babak was really good at making these sponsorship decks that made you feel like a chump if you didn’t give us $50,000 or $100,000. But it was just actually really exhausting and really always down to the wire. If we don’t have a sponsor, there’s no show. There’s no nothing. It was dawning on us that, like, actually——we don’t have a business. We’re just doing all of this to have a sample sale. There’s gotta be a change.

SPENCER MORGAN TAYLOR

(PRODUCER)

When Telfar entered the CFDA, it was like——let’s put absolutely all the muscle into this. I remember for those early conversations around any show, I never knew how much time I would have, but it would have to arrive to Babak and Telfar, creatively. I remember Babak telling me, “It’s going to be crowd surfing, and it’s going to be through a torn American flag, and it’s going to be at a stage, and we’re going to just tear the shit out of it and just have all the models jump into the crowd.” And, of course, from a production standpoint, it’s enough to make one have a heart attack.

IAN ISAIAH

It was cute to see him win, but in the end, we all know the truth. And to us, it was like, “Finally, you’re catching up.” Cool. But where I’m from we’ve always recognised Telfar. He’s a New York native. So, unfortunately, there’s nothing a white woman can tell us about how and when to recognise a Black man that we’ve been recognising for 20 years. So yeah, it was a chill night. We might’ve smoked.

RAUL LOPEZ

That’s just how the industry is, right? First they hate, then they congratulate.

JORGE “GITOO” WRIGHT

(CREATIVE AND CASTING DIRECTOR)

But I do remember that whole CFDA moment in time where it was like they were trying to speak for Telfar, and I know that Telfar was not happy about that. I don’t think anybody over here was happy about that. Like, Black has been excellent, you know what I’m saying? Like, Telfar has been excellent. We’ve been saying that and seeing that, experiencing that and living that. So, the fact that you wanna do this now? we’re side-eyeing. What meeting did you have? Why now? Where were you in the beginning? ’Cause I was Black back then too. If it’s not real, and there’s a hidden agenda, then I don’t want a part of that. And I feel like that’s kind of how Telfar felt. Like, “Listen, if you guys want to pedestal me——fab——but now you’re gonna do it on my terms. And we’re gonna do it our way.” And those industries don’t like that. 

AVENA GALLAGHER 

We got the award, even though he probably doesn’t like to think about it at all.

aya brown

The fashion world is big, but Telfar’s community is also this big. So when you step into that space, it’s like, “N****, I’m already coming deep. I don’t need you.” 

spencer morgan taylor

On one hand the CFDA gave a lot of exposure and opportunity, but it did feel, especially within the cultural moment at the time, that there was something very kind of self-congratulatory and opportunistic about the organisation. Their press opportunities or their requests felt sometimes quite invasive. Who knew if the motives or intentions ever were [genuine]? I think it was just really because of the overall zeitgeist. We’re talking Trump term one. It all just started to feel like a grab for Telfar’s cultural capital. 

HAWA CLEMENS (TELFAR’S MUM)

I think that Babak and Telfar have a magic partnership, and I think that I would also describe babak as a genius. I feel like his medium, how he works——needs somebody who is making things, but who is also open to collaborating in the rawest, most open, most malleable way possible. And Telfar is the perfect partner for Babak’s way of thinking. He’s like an inventor inside a business, but not business like numbers. I mean, he’s good with that stuff, but he’s always doing these things that seem like they would undermine their ability to grow, and it does the opposite. It’s beautiful and inspiring, the way they work together and what they’ve grown. They’ve taken unusual paths, saying no to things that people wouldn’t say no to. They’re really brave.

MONIQUE McWILLIAMS (STYLIST AND CREATIVE)

Babak was very reactionary against being an artist. He is an artist, but he hates the title and whatever that means, you know? So for him, he is basically a worker. He is a deck master for sure. They needed so many decks and he was just like whipping them out. He knew what he was doing. He believes he can contort any situation to make it sound good. And you could see that at the New Museum show——where they debuted the bag. That show was so big, And it was all sponsored by Kmart. How did he get Kmart and how did they agree to that? I absolutely would love to know. But I do think it was a bit of a light-bulb moment, you know, in terms of how to frame and market Telfar when you’re being basically stonewalled by the industry. That was where Babak realised this is how he can sustain the business. They would sell the shows and make money off the shows because they can’t make money off the
clothes because no one’s gonna accept them in fashion. Vogue isn’t coming, nobody’s coming——but my decks can get us 40 grand from Kmart.

KHALID AL GHARABALLI (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

Somebody should do a Whitney Biennial of Babak’s decks. These decks are off the fucking chain. His deck puts every other deck to shame. No one has seen a PDF like these PDFs. 

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

This [was] the dawn of when corporate sponsorship wasn’t even totally a thing yet. But Babak was really good at making these sponsorship decks that made you feel like a chump if you didn’t give us $50,000 or $100,000. But it was just actually really exhausting and really always down to the wire. If we don’t have a sponsor, there’s no show. There’s no nothing. It was dawning on us that, like, actually——we don’t have a business. We’re just doing all of this to have a sample sale. There’s gotta be a change.

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

When Telfar entered the CFDA, it was like——let’s put absolutely all the muscle into this. I remember for those early conversations around any show, I never knew how much time I would have, but it would have to arrive to Babak and Telfar, creatively. I remember Babak telling me, “It’s going to be crowd surfing, and it’s going to be through a torn American flag, and it’s going to be at a stage, and we’re going to just tear the shit out of it and just have all the models jump into the crowd.” And, of course, from a production standpoint, it’s enough to make one have a heart attack.

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

It was cute to see him win, but in the end, we all know the truth. And to us, it was like, “Finally, you’re catching up.” Cool. But where I’m from we’ve always recognised Telfar. He’s a New York native. So, unfortunately, there’s nothing a white woman can tell us about how and when to recognise a Black man that we’ve been recognising for 20 years. So yeah, it was a chill night. We might’ve smoked.

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

That’s just how the industry is, right? First they hate, then they congratulate.

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

But I do remember that whole CFDA moment in time where it was like they were trying to speak for Telfar, and I know that Telfar was not happy about that. I don’t think anybody over here was happy about that. Like, Black has been excellent, you know what I’m saying? Like, Telfar has been excellent. We’ve been saying that and seeing that, experiencing that and living that. So, the fact that you wanna do this now? we’re side-eyeing. What meeting did you have? Why now? Where were you in the beginning? ’Cause I was Black back then too. If it’s not real, and there’s a hidden agenda, then I don’t want a part of that. And I feel like that’s kind of how Telfar felt. Like, “Listen, if you guys want to pedestal me——fab——but now you’re gonna do it on my terms. And we’re gonna do it our way.” And those industries don’t like that. 

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

We got the award, even though he probably doesn’t like to think about it at all.

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

The fashion world is big, but Telfar’s community is also this big. So when you step into that space, it’s like, “N****, I’m already coming deep. I don’t need you.” 

HAWA CLEMENS (TELFAR’S MUM)

On one hand the CFDA gave a lot of exposure and opportunity, but it did feel, especially within the cultural moment at the time, that there was something very kind of self-congratulatory and opportunistic about the organisation. Their press opportunities or their requests felt sometimes quite invasive. Who knew if the motives or intentions ever were [genuine]? I think it was just really because of the overall zeitgeist. We’re talking Trump term one. It all just started to feel like a grab for Telfar’s cultural capital. 

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babak:

That’s the lesson: How do we do this for each other—not for some viewer.

TELFAR:

—and actually enjoy it?

THOM:

It was interesting, because at that time, it was like there was this idea that the industry was going to reinvent itself by finding avant-garde geniuses and then elevating them. That was like when Demna was taking off with Balenciaga, and Virgil at Louis Vuitton, and all the rumours around Martine Rose—

babak:

It became exploitable.

THOM:

To me, another turning point feels like the transition from The Gap project you started in 2020.

babak:

We were trying to move forward from this trap that we were in. When we showed at Pitti Uomo [in January 2020], we were pretty sure we were going to stop showing after that. Period.

THOM:

Really?

BABAK:

Gap was supposed to give us a gap year—a bridge to exit the fashion system and wholesale and just go direct with our own people. They rolled out the red carpet—but when they finally made their proposal it was literally an appearance fee as part of a diversity initiative. I was really disgusted, and I made them a crazy proposal. I asked them, “What is the budget for this entire diversity proposal?—which is actually going to some white ad agency, and not us? Give us that whole budget, and we will come on as the designer and the agency. We will make the clothes, the campaign, the billboards, and the TV ads—it’s a bold move—and you will see the cultural impact.” They were on board.

TELFAR:

I just don’t know what would have happened if that happened, but I’m glad it didn’t.

babak:

When Covid hit—The Gap was the only incoming check. And then nothing...

THOM:

They just ghosted you guys?

TELFAR:

They had shut down.

babak:

“This email address no longer exists.”

THOM:

Wow. Then all of a sudden, Kanye is doing it.

babak:

That’s what actually happened.

TELFAR:

That’s literally what happened, but I don’t regret it at all.

THOM:

But Covid ended up being the supernova moment for you commercially with the bag. Did you guys consciously engineer that as a way to get money in? 

babak:

We didn’t.

TELFAR:

At that time, we were acting differently on social media. We were just reposting whatever people posted with Telfar in it. When the bag started selling out in minutes, we were reposting every single story.

SPENCER MORGAN TAYLOR

(PRODUCER)

We brought in 50 kids who’d never even had a passport to come to this production [in florence]. Telfar felt passionately about that——Making sure that we could bring in the opportunity to have all these kids not only on the cast, but as guests to the party.

CARRIE STACKS

(MUSICIAN)

Somebody should do a Whitney Biennial of Babak’s decks. These decks are off the fucking chain. His deck puts every other deck to shame. No one has seen a PDF like these PDFs. 

FATIMA AL QADIRI

All of our beautiful friends were there, in this ring at this dinner table. That was a legendary show——Seeing Carrie perform, seeing Solange perform, Eating Precious [Okoyomon]’s food. It was just very beautiful. And then waking up the next day after the party, with all the food melting on the table——it smelled crazy, but it was so beautiful to have the models stomping on it.

SPENCER MORGAN TAYLOR

(PRODUCER)

We brought in 50 kids who’d never even had a passport to come to this production [in florence]. Telfar felt passionately about that——Making sure that we could bring in the opportunity to have all these kids not only on the cast, but as guests to the party.

CARRIE STACKS

(MUSICIAN)

Somebody should do a Whitney Biennial of Babak’s decks. These decks are off the fucking chain. His deck puts every other deck to shame. No one has seen a PDF like these PDFs. 

FATIMA AL QADIRI

All of our beautiful friends were there, in this ring at this dinner table. That was a legendary show——Seeing Carrie perform, seeing Solange perform, Eating Precious [Okoyomon]’s food. It was just very beautiful. And then waking up the next day after the party, with all the food melting on the table——it smelled crazy, but it was so beautiful to have the models stomping on it.

MONIQUE McWILLIAMS (STYLIST AND CREATIVE)

We brought in 50 kids who’d never even had a passport to come to this production [in florence]. Telfar felt passionately about that——Making sure that we could bring in the opportunity to have all these kids not only on the cast, but as guests to the party.

KHALID AL GHARABALLI (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

Somebody should do a Whitney Biennial of Babak’s decks. These decks are off the fucking chain. His deck puts every other deck to shame. No one has seen a PDF like these PDFs. 

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

All of our beautiful friends were there, in this ring at this dinner table. That was a legendary show——Seeing Carrie perform, seeing Solange perform, Eating Precious [Okoyomon]’s food. It was just very beautiful. And then waking up the next day after the party, with all the food melting on the table——it smelled crazy, but it was so beautiful to have the models stomping on it.

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babak:

Other brands basically went offline—but we were just reposting, reposting, and reposting. So many people started posting pictures, and they were really funny, because people are basically documenting Covid, right? I remember there was a newsreel thing from BBC about airports shutting down, and this girl walks by with a Telfar bag. Post that. People in line for groceries and toilet paper. Post that. The brand didn’t stop. It was taken over by people. So, it just started to do its own thing, you know?

THOM:

You were like, “Okay, I’m just going to make the community the content.”

babak:

It’s not that simple. In retrospect, it’s easy to forget that the actual experience of Covid was this radical opening of the unknown. The media, the State—could not project images of the future. The future was unknown—and people had to fill in the blank, and the stakes were literally life or death. Okay—so there was an unleashing of the imagination. We had zero strategy around the bag and Covid—our strategy had started a year before—and it was about freedom from self-exploitation: to be able to just depend directly on people like us, instead of selling people like us to the power structure. That was what we were doing—and then, at a certain moment—when the world is upside down—all of a sudden, masses of people wanted that, too. The bag became this symbol.

TELFAR:

Also, people just didn’t want to keep spending their money on things that meant luxury. It was kind of like this: accessibility, easiness, and the Covid energy of people dressing very easily.

SK LYONS

There is a belonging in that bag. It’s a belonging you already have. The bag just woke it up. I think it also creates this interesting dynamic where individualism is kind of squashed. It’s more of a group movement inside of you that comes out with the bag. That’s how I think of it.

PRECIOUS OKOYOMON (ARTIST)

For me, it’s my “go bag.” You know what I mean? It’s my packed bag that’s always there when I’m running around. How Octavia Butler’s like, “have your bag packed.” That’s literally my Telfar bag.

LAUREN BOYLE

What was crazy was the ubiquity——where it’s like everybody down the street has a Telfar bag. And the crazier part was when you’re in an airport, you’re seeing multiple Telfar bags in line, because the large bag became a big carry-on bag.

RAUL LOPEZ

I was sitting at Marlow & Sons and I was just getting coffee. It was just crazy to see all these tech-bro wives from the neighborhood and it being their new diaper bag hanging off their strollers. I was like, “Okay, you made it.” Once those girls get into it, it’s a wrap.

AYA BROWN

It was a lot of Caucasians carrying that bag. And then I think in 2020 it turned into some other shit. It turned into the whole Black business thing. I know for a fact Telfar wasn’t running around saying “buy Black”——not that there’s anything wrong with that, you know what I mean? But I don’t think that’s his story.

GERLAN MARCEL

It felt really meteoric, because it was this totally insular thing——and then the next thing you know, Oprah and Gayle are calling Telfar to kiki. There was some Good Morning America [segment] where Telfar kept on getting the dates wrong, and then he didn’t know what the price was of the bag or something——but he looks amazing.

HAWA CLEMENS

My friends started to call all day long. “Is that your son? Is that your son?” Yeah, that’s my son.

SK LYONS

There is a belonging in that bag. It’s a belonging you already have. The bag just woke it up. I think it also creates this interesting dynamic where individualism is kind of squashed. It’s more of a group movement inside of you that comes out with the bag. That’s how I think of it.

PRECIOUS OKOYOMON (ARTIST)

For me, it’s my “go bag.” You know what I mean? It’s my packed bag that’s always there when I’m running around. How Octavia Butler’s like, “have your bag packed.” That’s literally my Telfar bag.

LAUREN BOYLE

What was crazy was the ubiquity——where it’s like everybody down the street has a Telfar bag. And the crazier part was when you’re in an airport, you’re seeing multiple Telfar bags in line, because the large bag became a big carry-on bag.

RAUL LOPEZ

I was sitting at Marlow & Sons and I was just getting coffee. It was just crazy to see all these tech-bro wives from the neighborhood and it being their new diaper bag hanging off their strollers. I was like, “Okay, you made it.” Once those girls get into it, it’s a wrap.

AYA BROWN

It was a lot of Caucasians carrying that bag. And then I think in 2020 it turned into some other shit. It turned into the whole Black business thing. I know for a fact Telfar wasn’t running around saying “buy Black”——not that there’s anything wrong with that, you know what I mean? But I don’t think that’s his story.

GERLAN MARCEL

It felt really meteoric, because it was this totally insular thing——and then the next thing you know, Oprah and Gayle are calling Telfar to kiki. There was some Good Morning America [segment] where Telfar kept on getting the dates wrong, and then he didn’t know what the price was of the bag or something——but he looks amazing.

HAWA CLEMENS

My friends started to call all day long. “Is that your son? Is that your son?” Yeah, that’s my son.

MONIQUE McWILLIAMS (STYLIST AND CREATIVE)

There is a belonging in that bag. It’s a belonging you already have. The bag just woke it up. I think it also creates this interesting dynamic where individualism is kind of squashed. It’s more of a group movement inside of you that comes out with the bag. That’s how I think of it.

KHALID AL GHARABALLI (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

For me, it’s my “go bag.” You know what I mean? It’s my packed bag that’s always there when I’m running around. How Octavia Butler’s like, “have your bag packed.” That’s literally my Telfar bag.

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

What was crazy was the ubiquity——where it’s like everybody down the street has a Telfar bag. And the crazier part was when you’re in an airport, you’re seeing multiple Telfar bags in line, because the large bag became a big carry-on bag.

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

I was sitting at Marlow & Sons and I was just getting coffee. It was just crazy to see all these tech-bro wives from the neighborhood and it being their new diaper bag hanging off their strollers. I was like, “Okay, you made it.” Once those girls get into it, it’s a wrap.

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

It was a lot of Caucasians carrying that bag. And then I think in 2020 it turned into some other shit. It turned into the whole Black business thing. I know for a fact Telfar wasn’t running around saying “buy Black”——not that there’s anything wrong with that, you know what I mean? But I don’t think that’s his story.

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

It felt really meteoric, because it was this totally insular thing——and then the next thing you know, Oprah and Gayle are calling Telfar to kiki. There was some Good Morning America [segment] where Telfar kept on getting the dates wrong, and then he didn’t know what the price was of the bag or something——but he looks amazing.

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

My friends started to call all day long. “Is that your son? Is that your son?” Yeah, that’s my son.

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telfar

THOM:

So this user-generated-content wave was also what led to Telfar TV. What was the mission of the TV studio? Because you’ve got this bag that’s selling really great, and you’ve got new resources. How did that feel like the place to focus?

babak:

Well, we were exiting fashion, so we did it for our own audience.

TELFAR:

When I would see what the brand was on the internet, I would just want to bundle the energy, take it off Instagram, and have our own platform and our own way of communicating with people.

babak:

That was such a meaningful process, the way that our intentions linked up with a mass change. When the bag just kept selling and selling and selling, I was like––this could just turn into some random product, because the significance-to-sales ratio is being diminished the more it sells. We need to take this money and do something that connects with the actual desire behind why people are buying this bag to begin with. Which is essentially a desire for another world. How do you do that? Not by buying a bag. Not by making one person rich. Telfar TV was supposed to be this experiment, creating a very fucking different set of material conditions. So that’s the same way we exited the fashion industry: What about filmmakers? What about writers? What if they were funded by their own people, and not through some studio, not through some platform? What would happen? Could mass communication make a cultural foundation for mass exit strategies? For real material change? That was the basis of that kind of experiment.

THOM:

Then, that kind of morphs into the store, which is covered in video screens.

TELFAR:

We were asking ourselves, “Do we want the store to make money, or is it more about coming there and actually experiencing what Telfar is?” We had a lot of new customers from the bags who knew nothing about the history of Telfar, and why people were into us. I always thought of the bag as the entry point to the brand, but it also became a situation where people would just buy the bag. 

babak:

Today, the bag is seen as just a product. It’s not even connected to a person anymore. It’s not connected with a story. It’s not connected with intention. And so, with the store, there was this desire to create something small and more intimate.

TELFAR:

And with the show [in June 2025], the first collection made in New York, it’s going to be a show where you can actually go and buy the thing in the store. It’s more one-to-one, being able to touch it, see it right after. I feel like it’s a different scenario now.

THOM:

When I think about this story from start to finish, it’s about shedding everything that sits in between you and the audience. Most brands, they have an audience, but they have investors and retailers and there’s all this shit that’s—

TELFAR:

—blocking the way. We’re finally getting to this place of just being people that know what they’re doing because they’ve been doing it.

babak:

It’s funny because we have gotten so much press for every little thing we did over the years, but there’s never been an article that has even mentioned, by the way, this is the largest Black-owned company in fashion. That’s not press-worthy because that’s not a narrative that serves power. Diversity is a narrative that serves power. But honestly, being the biggest company was never our intention. Our intention was to be able to live and work and express ourselves without just feeding back into this power structure. Our individual success has not made that true. It’s better than being owned by an investor and beholden to the industry—but it’s totally incomplete. The changes we want are not going to come from selling or buying a bag. It’s going to take real organisation and real resistance, which requires a culture. And we want to contribute to that—in any fucking butterfly-flapping-its-wings kind of way we can—and it’s not easy or fast. But that’s what keeps us going. Because it’s not about the money.

LAUREN BOYLE

I mean, particularly in digital marketing——everyone has just copied it. It’s like a playbook now. The big difference is that Telfar is not doing influencer marketing, but that’s all they can see, you know? So that’s how the industry adopted it. And it’s just pathetic, because Telfar isn’t influencer marketing.

Avena gallagher

TV was always an idea. Telfar watches a lot of TV. And Babak was watching this show, Random Acts of Flyness, and I think it really inspired him——about new ways of communicating——and we started working with its creator, Terence Nance. And we got this crazy deal on this space… and then it was like, “Oh, well. Let’s have a TV station.

IAN ISAIAH

To launch Telfar TV, they had a writers’ room. A lot of really cool, cool, cool jokes and some really, really bomb ideas and some really, really cool people were in that room. It’s like the birthing place. It’s like creative sex. It’s like an orgy of creatives writing on a dry erase board with a large TV to explain themselves. It’s actually really fun.

JORGE “GITOO” WRIGHT

It was definitely a moment where everybody was wanting to highlight what Telfar was doing, wanting to highlight the non-gender, and wanting to get him on the show, or figure out his bag——all that was definitely happening. And I think it kind of shifted when Telfar just decided to be like, “Actually, y’all can calm down and I’m gonna do me.” And I think that was kind of like his transfer out of it——him purposely getting out of that fucking multiverse of carrying called Fashion.

AYA BROWN

It was a lot of Caucasians carrying that bag. And then I think in 2020 it turned into some other shit. It turned into the whole Black business thing. I know for a fact Telfar wasn’t running around saying “buy Black”——not that there’s anything wrong with that, you know what I mean? But I don’t think that’s his story.

The first collaboration with Telfar was the Seaport [in February 2022, for the Fall 2022 collection]. I can’t even remember how it happened. All I knew was like, “Hey, come through. We want you to do this thing.” I was late——so when I got there, Raisa [flowers] is like, “Aya, get in this chair right now.” She sounds like a baby who smokes cigarettes——it’s really cute. So I got my beat done. It was so chaotic, maybe because nothing was actually scripted. There was a very loose script. I remember B [Babak radboy] was like, “Hey guys, let’s sit down and read this script.” we sat through this script, and as soon as we started fucking shooting——none of that. None of it happened. I don’t even think Telfar was there for that reading. And I still don’t know what the fuck B [babak radboy] is talking about.

SK LYONS

My favourite part of Telfar TV, or just Telfar in general, is how confusing everything is.

AYA BROWN

Telfar is not a performance; it’s not a joke. We deadass over here. Telfar is not an act. We are acting sometimes, but it’s not a game. We’re not doing it for nobody else.

LAUREN BOYLE

Nobody gets to make up their own rules like they have. The lesson is: if you don’t have a gallery that wants to show your artwork, make your own gallery and show your work. Do it yourself. Don’t wait for someone to let you in——just make your own club over there. Babak hates the word “community.” It’s about rejecting systems. Today, young people think it’s harder now than it ever was. But what’s hard is alienation——Being distracted, inattentive, unable to focus. The systems have always been the same.

GERLAN MARCEL

For Telfar, it’s about the work, and that’s it. You know what I mean? If there were no humans left on earth to make pants for, he’d still be making pants.

LAUREN BOYLE

I mean, particularly in digital marketing——everyone has just copied it. It’s like a playbook now. The big difference is that Telfar is not doing influencer marketing, but that’s all they can see, you know? So that’s how the industry adopted it. And it’s just pathetic, because Telfar isn’t influencer marketing.

Avena gallagher

TV was always an idea. Telfar watches a lot of TV. And Babak was watching this show, Random Acts of Flyness, and I think it really inspired him——about new ways of communicating——and we started working with its creator, Terence Nance. And we got this crazy deal on this space… and then it was like, “Oh, well. Let’s have a TV station.

IAN ISAIAH

To launch Telfar TV, they had a writers’ room. A lot of really cool, cool, cool jokes and some really, really bomb ideas and some really, really cool people were in that room. It’s like the birthing place. It’s like creative sex. It’s like an orgy of creatives writing on a dry erase board with a large TV to explain themselves. It’s actually really fun.

JORGE “GITOO” WRIGHT

It was definitely a moment where everybody was wanting to highlight what Telfar was doing, wanting to highlight the non-gender, and wanting to get him on the show, or figure out his bag——all that was definitely happening. And I think it kind of shifted when Telfar just decided to be like, “Actually, y’all can calm down and I’m gonna do me.” And I think that was kind of like his transfer out of it——him purposely getting out of that fucking multiverse of carrying called Fashion.

AYA BROWN

It was a lot of Caucasians carrying that bag. And then I think in 2020 it turned into some other shit. It turned into the whole Black business thing. I know for a fact Telfar wasn’t running around saying “buy Black”——not that there’s anything wrong with that, you know what I mean? But I don’t think that’s his story.

The first collaboration with Telfar was the Seaport [in February 2022, for the Fall 2022 collection]. I can’t even remember how it happened. All I knew was like, “Hey, come through. We want you to do this thing.” I was late——so when I got there, Raisa [flowers] is like, “Aya, get in this chair right now.” She sounds like a baby who smokes cigarettes——it’s really cute. So I got my beat done. It was so chaotic, maybe because nothing was actually scripted. There was a very loose script. I remember B [Babak radboy] was like, “Hey guys, let’s sit down and read this script.” we sat through this script, and as soon as we started fucking shooting——none of that. None of it happened. I don’t even think Telfar was there for that reading. And I still don’t know what the fuck B [babak radboy] is talking about.

SK LYONS

My favourite part of Telfar TV, or just Telfar in general, is how confusing everything is.

AYA BROWN

Telfar is not a performance; it’s not a joke. We deadass over here. Telfar is not an act. We are acting sometimes, but it’s not a game. We’re not doing it for nobody else.

LAUREN BOYLE

Nobody gets to make up their own rules like they have. The lesson is: if you don’t have a gallery that wants to show your artwork, make your own gallery and show your work. Do it yourself. Don’t wait for someone to let you in——just make your own club over there. Babak hates the word “community.” It’s about rejecting systems. Today, young people think it’s harder now than it ever was. But what’s hard is alienation——Being distracted, inattentive, unable to focus. The systems have always been the same.

GERLAN MARCEL

For Telfar, it’s about the work, and that’s it. You know what I mean? If there were no humans left on earth to make pants for, he’d still be making pants.

MONIQUE McWILLIAMS (STYLIST AND CREATIVE)

I mean, particularly in digital marketing——everyone has just copied it. It’s like a playbook now. The big difference is that Telfar is not doing influencer marketing, but that’s all they can see, you know? So that’s how the industry adopted it. And it’s just pathetic, because Telfar isn’t influencer marketing.

KHALID AL GHARABALLI (STYLIST AND ARTIST)

TV was always an idea. Telfar watches a lot of TV. And Babak was watching this show, Random Acts of Flyness, and I think it really inspired him——about new ways of communicating——and we started working with its creator, Terence Nance. And we got this crazy deal on this space… and then it was like, “Oh, well. Let’s have a TV station.

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

To launch Telfar TV, they had a writers’ room. A lot of really cool, cool, cool jokes and some really, really bomb ideas and some really, really cool people were in that room. It’s like the birthing place. It’s like creative sex. It’s like an orgy of creatives writing on a dry erase board with a large TV to explain themselves. It’s actually really fun.

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

It was definitely a moment where everybody was wanting to highlight what Telfar was doing, wanting to highlight the non-gender, and wanting to get him on the show, or figure out his bag——all that was definitely happening. And I think it kind of shifted when Telfar just decided to be like, “Actually, y’all can calm down and I’m gonna do me.” And I think that was kind of like his transfer out of it——him purposely getting out of that fucking multiverse of carrying called Fashion.

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

It was a lot of Caucasians carrying that bag. And then I think in 2020 it turned into some other shit. It turned into the whole Black business thing. I know for a fact Telfar wasn’t running around saying “buy Black”——not that there’s anything wrong with that, you know what I mean? But I don’t think that’s his story.

The first collaboration with Telfar was the Seaport [in February 2022, for the Fall 2022 collection]. I can’t even remember how it happened. All I knew was like, “Hey, come through. We want you to do this thing.” I was late——so when I got there, Raisa [flowers] is like, “Aya, get in this chair right now.” She sounds like a baby who smokes cigarettes——it’s really cute. So I got my beat done. It was so chaotic, maybe because nothing was actually scripted. There was a very loose script. I remember B [Babak radboy] was like, “Hey guys, let’s sit down and read this script.” we sat through this script, and as soon as we started fucking shooting——none of that. None of it happened. I don’t even think Telfar was there for that reading. And I still don’t know what the fuck B [babak radboy] is talking about.

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

My favourite part of Telfar TV, or just Telfar in general, is how confusing everything is.

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

Telfar is not a performance; it’s not a joke. We deadass over here. Telfar is not an act. We are acting sometimes, but it’s not a game. We’re not doing it for nobody else.

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

Nobody gets to make up their own rules like they have. The lesson is: if you don’t have a gallery that wants to show your artwork, make your own gallery and show your work. Do it yourself. Don’t wait for someone to let you in——just make your own club over there. Babak hates the word “community.” It’s about rejecting systems. Today, young people think it’s harder now than it ever was. But what’s hard is alienation——Being distracted, inattentive, unable to focus. The systems have always been the same.

LEILAH WEINRAUB (FILMMAKER AND ARTIST)

For Telfar, it’s about the work, and that’s it. You know what I mean? If there were no humans left on earth to make pants for, he’d still be making pants.

Models: Aruai and Faith at Kollektiv, Iyanna, Osa, Nando, Lamine at Next, Raheem, Peezy at Wilhelmina, Cranston at Midland, Victoria at Jag

Hair: Jadis Jolie at E.D.M.A.

Makeup: Raisa Flowers at E.D.M.A.

Nails: Dawn Sterling at E.D.M.A. & Danny Tavarez

Props Designer: Margot DeMarco

Photography Assistants: Rowan Liebrum, Alec Luu, Diego Donival, Ian Kline, & Travis Drennen 

Styling Team: Filmon Abraham, Yetunde Ayinmide, Katiuscia Gregoire, Kadeem Lamorell, Gregory Miller, William Morgan IV

Production: TELFAR TV

Post Production: Asger Carlsen

Receipt artwork: Matthew De Palo

WEb: 27b

Models: Aruai and Faith at Kollektiv, Iyanna, Osa, Nando, Lamine at Next, Raheem, Peezy at Wilhelmina, Cranston at Midland, Victoria at Jag

Hair: Jadis Jolie at E.D.M.A.

Makeup: Raisa Flowers at E.D.M.A.

Nails: Dawn Sterling at E.D.M.A. & Danny Tavarez

Props Designer: Margot DeMarco

Photography Assistants: Rowan Liebrum, Alec Luu, Diego Donival, Ian Kline, & Travis Drennen 

Styling Team: Filmon Abraham, Yetunde Ayinmide, Katiuscia Gregoire, Kadeem Lamorell, Gregory Miller, William Morgan IV

Production: TELFAR TV

Post Production: Asger Carlsen

Receipt artwork: Matthew De Palo

WEb: 27b