Welcome back to The Spark, IDEA GENERATION’s weekly newsletter and your source for all things creative entrepreneurship.
Spark Nation,
IDEA GENERATION Season 4 is here. Kind of.
New episodes are right around the corner, but until then, we have a special episode to hold you over.
NCB sat down with designer and creative Tremaine Emory to discuss his journey from retail to landing in Kanye inner circle, to Supreme, to Denim Tears and what he has planned next.
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TREMAINE EMORY
Tremaine Emory is the all around creative mastermind behind his brand, Denim Tears.
Once a retail employee at J.Crew who was hassled out of a job because of his hair, Emory now stands as one of the most influential voices in streetwear and fashion. Once a close collaborator with Virgil Abloh, and a creative consultant to Kanye West and Frank Ocean, Emory eventually became creative director of Supreme, before leaving after just 18 months.
On the latest episode of IDEA GENERATION, Emory breaks down his falling out with Kanye West, what went wrong during his tenure at Supreme, and explains how a near-death experience helped put his own legacy into perspective. He also shares his vision for Denim Tears, and how fashion can spark difficult but needed conversations.
In the excerpts below, Emory touches on his working process with Abloh, why he no longer works with Ye, and what it would take for him to stop doing Denim Tears.
With both your career and Virgil's, you set the table from a curatorial space for the audience through parties and music and DJing before any product that would come.
We all partied and created these DJ lineups, three of us splitting 500 pounds, and we did this for years. The main focus was music and having the right crowd and playing songs that people wouldn't normally hear out. And this Petri dish of culture kept throwing these elements in it and then eventually Off-White crawled out of there, Denim Tears, Matt Williams, Jerry Lorenzo, Sam Ross, and so forth came out of this genuine love of hearing music.
Late at night, V always said, our job is to make the ideas we talk about after 8:00 PM come to reality when we wake up in the morning. But V was always on it. V was the most proficient at talking about something and doing it.
“We all partied and created these DJ lineups, three of us splitting 500 pounds.”
What was the straw that broke the camel’s back while working with Kanye West?
Well, I just saw he wasn't taking care of himself in my opinion as far as on the mental health side of things. And the way he was treating people, talking to people. There was a situation in Uganda he was screaming at to people… he shouldn't have been screaming at them in front of colleagues. And I just was like, “You're bugging. Why are you talking to these two people like this? That ain't it.”
So the thing that was a straw wasn't him. It was the people around him not saying anything to him. I disagree with him about so many things, but the most incestuous thing about him is the people around him that don't challenge him and hear him say these fucked up things. So that's when I just stopped going on trips and that's when I got fired. I was asked to come back but that situation wasn't changing. The yes people and him doing what I felt he should be doing to take care of himself, which I ain't the boss of him.
“So that's when I just stopped going on trips and that's when I got fired.”
You were profiled in GQ and there's a quote in there where you say something to the effect of, as a Black creative, you feel sandwiched between what White Americans want and what Black Americans expect. Have your feelings evolved in the last nine months or so as you've moved through these controversies and kept it pushing?
No, because I've always been the type of person that does what I want to do. For me, pro-Black is part of being human. Everyone should be pro-Black. Everyone should be pro-Jew. Everyone should be pro-Palestinian. Everyone should be pro-Irish. Everyone should be pro-Korean. We're humans.
I hope there's a day where it's such wide knowledge and understanding of what African-Americans have gone through. That would be my happiest day, where it's like, “Don't need to talk about this anymore.” It's understood and they talk about it in school and little kids of all cultures grew up understanding what black folks have sacrificed for America. If it was, I'll shut Denim Tears down the next day, but it ain't like that. So I got a lot more wreaths to print and a lot more stories to tell too.
“I hope there's a day where it's such wide knowledge and understanding of what African-Americans have gone through.”
Watch the entire interview with Tremaine Emory here:
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TAKE THIS JOB!
Cool job listings for creatives.
CJ 4DPLEX is a leading, next-generation cinema technology company creating innovative film technologies for theaters worldwide that include ScreenX and 4DX.
Their creative services team is looking to expand their freelance bench with a seasoned graphic designer who specializes in social media graphic design utilizing Photoshop and Illustrator (not Figma nor Canva). The position is fully remote.
The designer will work directly with the Creative Director to design static graphics for social media posts (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook), including: quote cards, fun editorial and fandom/meme content, infographics, ads and promotions, typography-heavy headline designs, and branded content for film title marketing campaigns.
Ideally you have:
5+ years graphic design experience, ideally in a corporate, agency, in-house creative, commercial and/or production design environment. This is not for entry-level applicants.
Mastery of the Adobe Creative Suite, specifically Photoshop and Illustrator.
A team player who can work collaboratively, take direction, effectively implement multiple rounds of notes, and own a project from end-to-end.
Ability to work quickly and efficiently, turning around deliverables same day or the following day depending on the scope of task.
Sound like you? Apply here.
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CHEAT CODES
The search you didn’t know you needed.
This question came up in our interview with Tremaine Emory… would you rather have $5,000 or 500 blank t-shirts to help start your own brand?
Now, with the infamous “$500k or dinner with Jay Z” question, most advise (including Hov himself) take the money and run. But this variation offers a stronger argument to pass on the cash. Emory weighs in with his opinion:
“In my opinion, take the blanks. Fashion is high stakes poker because it takes so long to make stuff. It's expensive to make stuff. People that make it are the ones that take gambles on themselves.
I think the first thing we sold commercially… Virgil had his exhibition in Chicago and it sold out. Took that money, rolled it into the next thing. Kept rolling it. Like Jay said, “I'm still spending money from 88.” I'm still rolling the money from 2019, you know what I mean? Always invest in your brand.”
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KEEP SHOOTING
Your weekly reminder to keep going.
Supreme is probably the biggest brand in the history of streetwear. And in 2022 Tremaine Emory was appointed the first creative director of the brand, just three years after he’d officially founded his own brand Denim Tears. And then 18 months later he quit.
There’s a lot that went into Emory’s decision to leave Supreme (all of which you can learn about in-depth from our interview with him!), but the simple fact of his leaving can be instructive to young creatives.
The “Keep Shooting” section of this newsletter is typically devoted to telling the early story of a young creative, and especially the part where they had to overcome failure. But it’s important to remember to keep shooting your way, even when you’re at the top.
Emory decided Supreme wasn’t a fit for him. So despite the brand’s legacy, despite the brand’s $2.1 billion valuation at the time, and despite what surely must’ve been a substantial paycheck, he decided to walk away in order to maintain his own vision for himself and his career. Which takes a lot of guts, arguably as much as the determination needed in the early days of an endeavor. So get in where you fit in—and get out if it doesn’t fit.
The thing I love about Tremaine is he's so humble. He's open to receiving feedback, to giving feedback. He just seems like a solid down-to-earth creative who leads with his heart and a level of class and humility that doesn't get punctured by celebrity status or the various egos he's rubbed shoulders with... Respect!