Telfar Clemens

Telfar Clemens (born 1985 in Queens, New York) is a Liberian-American fashion designer, DJ, and the founder of TELFAR, a genderless fashion label based in Bushwick, Brooklyn.[1]

Telfar Clemens
BornJanuary 1985
Queens, New York, United States of America
Alma materPace University
OccupationFashion designer

Early life

Clemens was born to Liberian parents in Lefrak City, Queens. His family briefly moved back to Liberia but returned to Queens in 1990 to avoid the Second Liberian Civil War. While studying at New York's P.S. 206, a teacher wrote monograms for all of the students on the board. Clemens' monogram would become the Telfar logo.[1]

Personal life

Clemens is openly queer.[1][2]

Career

In 2005, while still a student at Pace University, Clemens founded his eponymous, unisex fashion brand, Telfar.[1]

Clemens met Babak Radboy in 2004, who later joined as creative director and business partner in 2013. In Financial Times interview, Radboy was cited to have saw in Clemens' work, "a genuinely unique perspective and approach — one that the mainstream industry seemed unsure what to make of".[3]

In September 2016, Clemens and Radboy worked together to do an installation at the Berlin Biennale, accompanied by a video rendered by artists Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch.[4]

In May 2017, Clemens collaborated with musician Solange Knowles to design the outfits for the dancers and Knowles for "An Ode To" interdisciplinary performance at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.[5]

In September 2017, Clemens designed uniforms for 400 White Castle franchises.[6] In October, 2017, Clemens released a special capsule collection in collaboration with White Castle that year, with all proceeds from the partnership went to bail funds for teenagers imprisoned on Rikers Island.[7][8] The same year, Clemens won the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund. The $4M prize allowed him to steadily produce Telfar's popular Shopping Bags.[9]

In February 2019, Telfar showed his Fall Winter 2019 collection at Irving Plaza in New York City, in the form a mosh pit for a runway and live music on stage where it was filled with 1000 guests in celebration of black future(s) month.[10] The show was co-hosted by playwright Jeremy O. Harris with performances by musicians Ho99o9, Na-Kel Smith, Oyinda, Butch Dawson, and the designer Clemens himself and models were crowd-surfed through the audience for the show.[11][12]

In early 2020, Clemens announced a collaboration with Gap Inc.. The collection was postponed indefinitely in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[13][14]

Clemens launched a line of durags in September 2020.[15][16] Shortly after, Clemens announced a collaboration with UGG that will launch in the fall of 2021.[17]

Clemens counts Vivienne Westwood, Jean Paul Gaultier and Yohji Yamamoto as influences,[18] along with "life style" brands such as Calvin Klein, DKNY, and Polo Ralph Lauren.[1]

Notable designs

The Telfar Shopping Bag has been called an "it-bag" and "the decade's most important accessory" by major fashion publications.[19][20] The Telfar bag is designed in vegan leather, branded with the signature "T" logo for Telfar.[21] The bag, originally modeled after shopping bags from Bloomingdale's, is colloquially known as the "Bushwick Birkin" due to its combination of it-bag status and accessibility.[1][22] In 2018, singer Kelela featured the bag in her "The Story of a Thing" column for T (magazine).[23] In August 2020, Telfar introduced the Bag Security Program, a one-day-only online event that will allow anyone to preorder bags for a guaranteed holiday delivery that year, to ensure a more demographic drop for the high demand of the shopping bags.[24] In November 2020, Oprah Winfrey picked the Telfar Bag as one of her 'Favorite Things'.[4] The bag is also favorited by other notable pop and cultural figures such as Real Housewives of New York City star Sonja Morgan,[25] Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,[26][27][28] Swae Lee,[29] Ashton Sanders,[30] and Dua Lipa.[31]

Awards and honors

In June 2020, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first LGBTQ Pride parade, Queerty named him among the fifty heroes “leading the nation toward equality, acceptance, and dignity for all people”.[32][33]

Clemens also won “American Accessories Designer of the Year” 2020 at the CFDA Awards in September.[34]

References
  1. Witt, Emily. "Telfar Clemens's Mass Appeal". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2020-11-02.
  2. "Telfar Clemens interview: "The clothes I wanted to wear did not exist, especially in the menswear market"". GAY TIMES. 2018-04-19. Retrieved 2020-11-02.
  3. Wray, Adam. "Telfar is rewriting the rules of 'It' bags". Financial Times. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  4. "Inside Telfar's Berlin Biennale Takeover". W Magazine | Women's Fashion & Celebrity News. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  5. Dyer, Deidre. "Designer Telfar Clemens on Creating the Costumes for Solange's Epic New Performance Piece". Vogue. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  6. Benor, Dalya (2017-09-06). "Telfar's enduring love of White Castle". Interview Magazine. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  7. Moran, Justin. "Telfar Launches White Castle Capsule to Bail Minors Off Rikers Island". Out. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  8. Dazed (2017-10-18). "Telfar and fast food chain White Castle release collab". Dazed. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  9. Newswire, MultiVu-PR. "WHITE CASTLE INDUCTS FASHION DESIGNER TELFAR INTO CRAVERS HALL OF FAME". Multivu. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  10. Friedman, Vanessa (2019-02-10). "In the Mosh Pit of American Fashion (Published 2019)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  11. AnOther (2019-02-11). "Telfar Clemens' New Direction for American Fashion". AnOther. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  12. "This Runway Show Sent Models Crowd-Surfing Through Audience". Time. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  13. "Gap Says It Will Pay Telfar for Cancelled Collaboration". The Business of Fashion. 2020-06-26. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  14. Friedman, Vanessa (2020-06-30). "The Real Lessons of Telfar, Kanye and the Gap". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  15. "Telfar Launches Durag Line Centered Around Luxury, Accessibility and Ubiquity". HYPEBEAST. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  16. "Black-owned fashion brand launches luxury durags". the Guardian. 2020-09-14. Retrieved 2020-11-12.
  17. Watamanuk, Tyler. "The Year of Telfar Continues With an Ugg Collaboration". GQ. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  18. Petersen, Lars. "The Rule-Breaking NYC Designer Who Hasn't Received The Hype He Deserves". www.refinery29.com. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  19. Dazed (2019-08-08). "Why the Telfar Shopping Bag is this decade's most important accessory". Dazed. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  20. Smith, Ray A. (2019-05-14). "An 'It Bag' That Broke Fashion's Rules". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  21. Allaire, Christian. "Telfar Clemens Says the Frenzy Over His Bags Is 'Beautiful'". Vogue. Retrieved 2020-10-30.
  22. Cuby, Michael. "Telfar's Shopping Bag Is More Than an Affordable Status Symbol". them. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  23. Spivack, As told to Emily (2018-04-02). "The Singer Kelela on Her Favorite Possession (Published 2018)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  24. Petrarca, Emilia (2020-08-17). "It Just Got a Lot Easier to Secure a Telfar Bag". The Cut. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  25. "Sonja Morgan Is Officially Telfar's 'Sister Wife'". PAPER. 2019-03-22. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  26. Nesvig, Kara. "AOC Just Posted a "What's In My Telfar Bag"". Teen Vogue. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  27. Petrarca, Emilia (2020-08-24). "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Brought the 'Bushwick Birkin' to D.C." The Cut. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  28. Wolf, Cam. "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Wearing a Telfar Bag Is Fashion Diplomacy Done Right". GQ. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  29. Bobb, Brooke. "Watch Telfar Clemens and Swae Lee Talk Backwards Polo Shirts and Bell Bottoms Ahead of the CFDA Awards". Vogue. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  30. "The Intimacy Issue: Ashton Sanders". Office Magazine. 2020-05-22. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  31. Satenstein, Liana. "Dua Lipa's Carry-On Is Fashion's Favorite (and Most Affordable) It Bag". Vogue. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  32. "Queerty Pride50 2020 Honorees". Queerty. Retrieved 2020-06-30.
  33. Bull, Chris (2020-07-27). "These style-makers are changing how the world sees gender, one outfit at a time". Queerty. Retrieved 2020-08-13.
  34. Nesvig, Kara. "Telfar Bags Are Officially the Accessory of the Year". Teen Vogue. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
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