I never dreamt or had any dreams of being a fashion designer.
I've never owned a business.
I've never made clothing.
I didn't even know who a fashion designer was.
But I answered a Craigslist ad, and I walked downstairs into this wonderful basement studio in
Williamsburg that had already been set up.
And I didn't know anything about it at all, but I knew I could figure out money from it just by
being the middle person.
My name is Doobie Duke Sims.
I'm 42-years-old and I brought in around $278,000 last year
designing streetwear in New York City.
I grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.
Growing up in Brooklyn was just a wild ride.
There was a lot of craziness, but the craziness really fueled my creativity.
My life in the band was small towns playing show after show, putting out
albums, recording albums.
When I was in the band, the Apex moment was probably I had $1,000 in my
sock drawer. I didn't even have a bank account, but it was beautiful.
I didn't have any money but it was awesome.
In 2018, my daughter was born, and at that time my dad sat me down
and he said, "Listen, you need to figure out some finance." And so I answered a Craigslist ad,
and I walked downstairs into this wonderful basement studio in Williamsburg that had already
been set up, and I didn't know anything about it at all.
So I just taught myself from YouTube and started making clothing, started coming up with different
ideas. I started Snow Milk officially in 2020 with the idea.
In 2021, Mayor de Blasio at the time did a permit outside this
studio where he was doing like mini festivals on the block.
And so I took the rack.
We had one rack of clothing that I printed all myself, all my designs.
I brought it upstairs.
Me and my homie started selling it.
And the first day we made like $300 and that was the first time I was able to see what people
looked like and what they bought.
And that was like just mind blowing to me.
So then we started selling in Washington Square Park, and then we started doing like $300 days,
$400 days, $500 days.
And in 2021, the most that we made was $900.
And we was very, very excited.
So then by the time 2022 came, I was so ready.
We started selling in Washington Square Park again.
But then we had some issues with the Parks Department, and then we started doing street fairs
and festivals and markets.
And then once that happened, it was just like, bang, Now we're in the roller coaster.
We locked into the seat.
The growth from like being that one rack in Washington Square Park, like so excited when we
sold like, you know, nine pieces to like selling 200 pieces in a day was really just
about real estate.
Just being in more places in front of more people and more times.
In 2022, I paid myself just over $12,000.
I took majority of the money and paid employees, built the infrastructure, and I'm still
figuring out how to get the cost of goods down, how to get clothing for cheaper.
I have 11 employees and my weekly payroll is $10,000.
I pay around $3,000 for the use of this space.
My day to day, honestly, is cutting the grass.
I'm the person that cleans the floor and makes sure we have all of our labels, make sure all the
clothes are correctly hung up, make sure all the sellers have clothes, make sure everything is
stocked the way it's supposed to be.
If somebody doesn't show up, I'll do their job.
I still print clothes, I still make clothes.
I use up the time fully to maximize whatever needs to be done.
I'm only looking for blank pieces of clothing to print on, and the best clothing is
upcycled clothing because A, it saves the earth.
Instead of making a new piece of clothing that takes a lot of resource and energy
and B, it's the cheapest.
And the more that I can get at a time is the cheaper I can get the cost
of goods.
Screen-printing is using a screen that has light sensitive emulsion on it that you
put a film negative on, washed it out, and the negative space that has been taken
away from that high powered hose, all the ink goes through that.
Silkscreen is a very easy, awesome way to put images on a screen and
replicate them over and over and over and over, and you can change the colors of them.
You can blend colors, you can change size of it, you can blow out screens.
Screens are reclaimable.
So it's beautiful, like the cycle of life and the clothing that we make.
You can have an image that's been there for a long time and then when you're done with it, you
wash it out. It's a brand new screen, put that light sensitive emulsion on it, and then boom, you
have a new screen, you burn a new image on it, and it lives again.
I grew up loving baseball cards and comic books, and they were both numbered.
So I said, all right, I'm going to do the same thing with Snow Milk.
I'm going to have the numbers clothing so that you like, if you have number 56 or number
560. That's amazing and fascinating and collectible because at this point, we're up to
number 14,000.
The one of one aspect of the clothing is about the imperfection of
art and how I like progress over perfection.
The clothing is like it's all one of a kind.
Like that's how it came out.
It's imperfect. There's no one that's exactly like the other one.
Just like snowflakes, just like people.
We're all a little bit different.
I really take my ego out of the situation.
If I come up with a design and people don't like it, then we're not making that design anymore.
It's what people want.
My life now is much more structured in a different way.
I have two kids now, so like the finances have to be so concrete, like I have to
make financial decisions for my family, for my wife and my kids and for the future.
My life has changed that much.
Like, do I want to sleep on the floor of some random person's house in some town to play
a show in front of 25 drunken people, which I love and it was great.
Or, do I need to make this money now?
And those are two different decisions.
I like to make art and I am an artist and I do this naturally, but I don't need to do it at this
pace. So my short, mid-term goal within the next five-ish years is to sell the
clothing brand completely.
I would not change any decisions that I've made on the short run and beautiful
experience of Snow Milk.
My decisions are based on happiness, not money.
And that's been very beneficial to me because I keep excitement in my sphere at all
times and I keep it contagious because excitement is not something that you can buy in the store,
but you can catch it from somebody.