I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s and was obsessed with pop music, pop culture and clothes. I spent my first pocket money on records. I always loved comic books, cartoons and anything that was of the moment.
I worked for a commodities company after leaving school at 18. My father got me the job there and I started as a messenger/ tea boy. I worked there for 12 years and I did many different jobs. I often used to go home after work and sleep so that I could go out later and check out music in clubs or concerts and DJ. It is hard to believe but Hip Hop was really underground at the time and there were only about 3 people in all of London who had two decks and a mixer to DJ with, it just wasn’t done. There weren’t that many DJs at the time in London, hardly any at all and I used to play at WAG Club in Soho (now closed), it had two floors, one played house music and we used to play upstairs in what they then called the “Rare Groove” floor. We used to play with the guys from Soul 2 Soul and that was the summer of love in England, people started taking ecstasy and craziness like that.
Sartorial correctness was vital and I was always keen to have the best stuff I could lay my hands on. This could be anything from street stuff to high fashion Japanese stuff to second hand. My parents were living in NYC during this time and I went over a lot. I had a great friend from London – James Lebon who was working there as a hairdresser. We hung out and I met a lot of great people like Jules Gayton, Paul Mittleman, Tim Easton, Albert Ragusa and Lysa Cooper, for example. I got to learn a lot about NYC by being there through the 80’s. James Lebon used to be on the door of the first Hip Hop club in London, the Language Lab – he was the 1st rapping hairdresser (Sexify You). I was always into music. We got into the culture through music. New York was a really exciting place to be in the early 80s.
I used to get boxes of clothes from Stüssy at work, and people, especially those I was working with, just didn’t understand it all. In London to wear Stüssy was a very big deal, wearing American streetwear back then was completely new and different, something, in a way, we could make our own. Stüssy was right in the middle of that. I had a leather track suit from Run DMC that I bought in Fulton St. Market which Tim Simmon borrowed and wore in his Bomb the Bass video. My friend James had custom made MCM track suits, custom made shoes, which, at the time, was crazy, but that was what it was all about. I just really wanted to be involved in the culture.
I thought about what I wanted to do when I was made redundant, and I went over to California to see Shawn and talk to him about what he was doing. I thought that I could probably really make the business work for him here in London.
还有一段
As his business wasn't working in the UK I wanted to work for him. I had some severance money and I started my own t-shirt / distribution company called Gimme5. I represented Stüssy, Hysteric Glamour and Judy Blame. I also brought in Levis jeans and Jackets (the Vintage Japanese collections) over to the UK. There was no going back to wearing a suit every day!
谢谢大家的帮助了