Telfar: Telfar Clemens and Babak Radboy

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 14 February 2022

⏱️ 80 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

As he started to gain a name as a New York fashion designer in the 2010s, Telfar Clemens often joked that he was "constantly emerging." At least, that's how the establishment fashion press saw him: a child of Liberian immigrants, building a small but devoted following with his deconstructed T-shirts and sandals made from hollowed-out Converse. But after Telfar partnered with Babak Radboy as his creative director in 2013, the brand began to reach a wider audience. There were splashy partnerships with K-Mart and White Castle; and in 2018, the wide release of the Telfar Bag, a vegan-leather shopping bag that became the "it"-accessory for everyone from A-list celebrities to the neighbors next door. Today, Telfar and Babak say they've succeeded by designing exactly what they want—and sidestepping a fashion system that was not always welcoming. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
0:07.0	Download the app today.
0:09.0	When you leave home, can you ever really go back?
0:12.0	Made a version!
0:13.0	Soccer legend Leo Messi and I both left Argentina as kids.
0:17.0	You know you're that piece of a puzzle that doesn't fit anywhere.
0:20.0	To so many immigrants, football is a way to reconnect.
0:23.0	Listen to the last cop in the embedded podcast feed
0:26.0	to hear the latest collaboration from MPR and Fuduro Studios.
0:33.0	I would make a show and you know you try to get press people to cover it, they would it.
0:38.0	You try to get buyers to buy it, they would it.
0:41.0	So I'm like, damn, how am I going to do this next thing?
0:44.0	Yeah, my experience of it was to go to shows and then be mad that that wasn't enough.
0:51.0	And you know like fashion is like it's like a more subjective form of like sport, let's say.
0:56.0	And if somebody's really good, then shouldn't they be on the team?
1:01.0	And it's just not happening, like I go to a show and it's just us.
1:04.0	Like there's no press, there's no buyers.
1:06.0	It's like as if it never happened.
1:15.0	From MPR, it's how I built this.
1:17.0	A show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists and the stories behind the movements they built.
1:26.0	I'm Guy Raaz and on the show today, how Telfar Clemens and Boba Gradboy came together to build Telfar,
1:33.0	a fashion brand that started in the clubs and side streets of New York City and grew into a global phenomenon.
	...

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