I like to do it the old school way, with respect.
I can take things and put them together and take them apart
and make them better and put them back together.
I respect the craft,
so I don't want to minimize and disrespect
the value of each step of the craft
and do by machine what should be done by hand.
I've made a career out of making colorful clothes.
Like I'm a grown man that makes colorful clothes.
These clothes look so playful and easy,
but it's such an intricate process.
And I want people to know that this is what it is.
This is luxury.
This is luxury athleisure.
For many generations, African-American designers
have not been included within the conversation
of high fashion or considered high fashion.
In recent years, we see that emergence and that movement
to really kind of put Black designers on that same level
that we have cared for European designers in that way.
With Black designers, their work is just as critical,
just as artistic as any European or white designer,
or non-Black designer.
All the Black fashion is inspired by movements,
by the simplicity of what I do,
by how clean my stuff is,
by my ability to just put my flag in luxury and say,
"I'm a Black designer and I do luxury too."
Hello. My name is Fresh.
I'm the creator, I'm the CEO, creative director
for luxury label, Rich Fresh.
We specialize in luxury athleisure and tailored garments.
I'm a tailor by trade.
I'm a designer by choice.
We're downtown in the Garment District,
close proximity to where everything is.
There's just an energy that's downtown.
There's a creative energy.
We knew that we could find the type of factory
we needed to build.
You gotta think about a person
that was homeless at one point,
didn't really have any money coming in.
The fact that this person was relentless
and just determined to succeed
and not let rock bottom define him as an individual.
I look like Puff Daddy.
I always say I'm from Memphis,
but I was born in Germany.
You know, my parents were both military.
They were in the army.
A lot of my early memories are like Germany.
So like the colors on the clothes
that I used to see people wearing,
the font was different.
The advertisements were different.
The architecture was different.
Everything was just different in Germany
than it was in the US.
Subconsciously, it just got planted there somewhere
and I always kind of revert back to,
this doesn't feel like something you see in America.
This feels like something you could see
in Germany or abroad.
Once we moved to the States, my first grade was normal,
but I was bored.
I was bored out of my skull.
The second grade, they put me in this advanced class
with second graders and third graders
who were really performing
on like a fifth and sixth grade level.
And there was this girl who I had a crush on.
Mind you, I'm one of the smartest kids at the school
and math is my thing.
So the teacher asked if I would tutor her.
And then I had this moment where I heard God,
and I have this thing from time to time where
I hear the voice of reason that said,
"You're doing this all wrong."
She has a higher purpose.
She has information that you need to acquire.
So the first day of tutoring, as soon as we sat down,
I just looked the her right in the face.
I'm like, "you need to know math.
I'm very, very, very good at this.
I got you.
I suck at girls.
How about we do an exchange?
I'll teach you this.
You teach me that."
She was like, "honestly, it's the way you dress.
I think if you dressed different, girls would like you.
You dress like a kid."
I said, "What's it called?"
She said, "I think it's called fashion."
I said, "Hm. Well, all right.
Let me see what this fashion thing does."
Sup? Appreciate it.
First thing I do is I meet with the client.
Ellis.
All right, man. All right.
I take their measurements,
39.
44 and three-quarters.
27 and a half.
22.
Track jacket length at a 26 and a half.
Skin ankle at an 11 and a half.
And then we discuss colors, concepts.
Navy, black kinda goes with that, yeah.
And that olive is a popping color nowadays too.
Okay, okay. Yeah, I like that.
Then I'll put together a digital mock up
of the tracksuit with all the various colors
that I'm gonna use for the base, for the top stripe,
the bottom stripe, the piping,
all the different layers of the track suit.
Then I'm gonna send that to Michelle
who's my production manager.
She takes everything from concept to production.
She is responsible for delegating who gets what.
Like I've got a number of jacket tailors.
I've got a number of pant tailors.
I've got a number of hand finishers
who are going to complete the process.
I show a six .
Seven and three-quarters.
The first step of the production cycle is the pattern.
You know, you can't make any garments without a pattern.
So she's gonna take it to our pattern maker
and show him all the various measurements.
He's gonna build out the pattern,
draw every piece out, cut every piece.
It's an old school process of measurements, marks,
measurements, marks, measurements, marks,
drawing lines, drawing lines, drawing lines,
drawing lines, drawing lines, drawing lines.
Cutting.
That's your block.
That's your pattern.
So the pattern has to get transferred to the garment
and oftentimes it'll just get laid on top.
Tailors are so precise, they don't even need to pin it.
And then from there you got to cut out the fabric.
It's a special grade of neoprene, more water repellent.
It's a little bit more dense.
It's a lighter weight.
It absorbs colors really well.
And it has a nice sheen.
It looks really luxurious.
My senior year in high school, I was like,
I'm gonna take home ec,
just to see if there's anything else I can learn.
My teacher was out.
We had another teacher who came in to instruct,
but they couldn't sew,
so I volunteered to be that person
because I could sew better than anyone else in the class.
My kids would call me Ralph.
They would call me Tommy,
because, you know, it was Tommy Hilfiger.
It was Ralph Lauren.
My brother Chase, he used to dress real rough;
camouflage pants, oversized.
And I always saw how he got dealt with.
And so one day I was like, "Hey, bro.
We gotta switch that up."
The first moment I knew there was something different,
like other than the rest of the kids
that were playing basketball and tennis
and baseball in the neighborhood was,
this dude made a pair of moccasins
and then took them to school and was like selling them
to kids and actually taking orders.
So I started like dressing him.
You know, styling him.
Like the whole thing, from head to toe.
You're gonna get your hair cut when I get my hair cut.
We're gonna do this.
Boom, boom, boom.
And so I saw his image shift.
He was perceived differently.
In regarding this new era that we're in,
this new chapter where you have these Black designers
really inserting themselves into the luxury space
is quite a fascinating dichotomy.
I applaud it.
They're really kind of building on the shoulders
of African American designers who couldn't,
and couldn't really stay there for a long time
and have long standing power.
Zelda Wynn Valdes,
very much known in the Harlem realm of dressmaking
and in New York fashion, specifically uptown,
she was credited with producing,
manufacturing the Playboy costume.
Kind of a heralding figure within fashion,
and for African Americans
because really she was a part of several organizations
that really mobilized around the education
of African Americans within dressmaking
and within the garment industry
and giving them new opportunities
that most people weren't even thinking.
You have Stephen Burrows in the 1970s
who rose to fame with one of the most
notorious fashion events on this side of the pond,
the Battle of Versailles in 1973
that took place at the Palace of Versailles,
where you had the American designers
pitted against the French designers.
And Stephen Burrows was the only Black designer present.
A lot of things happened within his journey.
Some things that were out of his control.
You have to chalk it up to the system of fashion
that didn't allow him the standing power
that someone like Ralph Lauren had.
Everything is custom.
Everything is so specific.
We don't have an assembly line system.
When it touches the tailor, it finishes with that tailor.
The pattern maker is also cutting the fabric.
So he's gonna cut the block that's gonna be the trouser.
He's gonna cut the block that's gonna be the jacket.
There are a number of steps that go into it.
We've got to assemble the sleeve panel.
This sleeve is a two panel sleeve.
So this is two different pieces
that have to be sewn together.
It needs a top stitch just to reinforce
the outer seam on the sleeve.
We've got a chest panel which takes into account
each of the track stripes.
We've got a pocket that's cut into the lower panel.
On each side, but again,
this pocket is cut through the stripes.
They've got to put each
of these pieces together very specifically.
We've got our collar assembly, the outer collar.
We got our inner collar assembly.
The back has to be assembled,
so, you know, all of the stripes have to be built into
the back panel as well.
There, the zipper assembly
with the zipper facing is built in.
All the final touches
before it makes its way to hand finishing.
I got married young.
I got divorced young.
I got married when I was 20.
So now I'm 21.
I'm starting this new business doing alterations,
'cause it's the only thing I really know how to do.
And I figured, you know, the goal is to get volume,
and I need to get money.
I started my first business maybe six months later
doing alterations for dry cleaners.
Two years.
I had it and then I closed it,
which was a traumatic experience.
But then I noticed a cool thing.
People started calling me,
not for the cleaning, but for the tailoring.
They were like, "Hey man, sorry to hear about your cleaners,
but can you still alter this suit?
I really loved the way you did this, that and the other."
So I was like,
"Mm, I'm gonna position myself
as a concierge tailor and I'm gonna just travel to people."
Before I got divorced, I had a child.
So right when my daughter was like six months old,
me and her mom split.
That was the first time I just thought about like,
I don't have to do this thing here in Memphis.
Life is gonna change dramatically.
I don't have to do this thing where I've been doing it.
You know, I just got tired of being broke in Memphis.
Then my brother lost his job in Nashville.
So I was like, "Bro, just come back to Memphis.
We'll figure out what it is."
We would talk about dreams and big things,
and like what could one day be possible.
We just came to the realization that it was where we were.
Didn't matter how progressive we moved.
The environment was not gonna lend itself
to the success that we deserved.
We had to be somewhere else.
Let's go to the west coast.
We hopped in the car and we just drove
for three days across the country.
Landed in San Diego, started up our old business,
doing alterations for dry cleaners.
And then, you know, disaster struck.
Our parents got divorced right when my daughter was born.
So up to that point, my dad had never even seen my daughter.
And then out of nowhere we get a call
that he's in the hospital and it's bad, and he dies at 52.
Just out of nowhere.
I ended up losing all my accounts
with the dry cleaning stuff.
Like my brain wasn't there.
I didn't care about any of that anymore.
So one day we decided to just take a drive to Los Angeles.
And I had a client, a rich client.
He said he needed a bunch of suits made.
I was like, you talking my language, Jack.
I used my money to front the cost
to produce all these suits, which is all of the money.
That payment never got made.
So here I am now, I ain't got no more money.
I went from having $8,000 just the other day
to now I got like 200 bucks.
I look up and now I'm homeless.
I hear God.
And I hear this voice that says, "You're so mad.
You're just so mad.
I'm just really disappointed in how you've chosen
to make this man your God and not me.
You go to this dude every day asking for this money.
You ain't came to me not once.
He cannot save you.
I can save you.
You need to talk to me."
And I listened to God.
I don't want to be this guy Rich,
who has just chased the money
but he lost his soul in the process.
I want to be something different.
So I'm gonna change my name to Fresh.
I'm gonna chase that.
The money's gonna come,
but let me just be focused on the business
and being different.
I left the shelter with $300.
And I told God, I'm gonna take this measly ass $300
and I'm gonna turn this into a million dollars in a year.
The real kicker was that tracksuit.
When he dropped the tracksuit, I was like, that was it.
That was game over.
I noticed this lady with a color block sweater on
and I just thought about how cool it was
that whoever designed that sweater could design it one way,
but change the colors and manipulate it
to create 10,000 different variations of that one sweater.
I thought about what I could create like that.
And I came up with this pant that had prominent stripes.
You know, they were like trousers,
but there was some color blocking
and I could design it one way
and make it in a bunch of different colors,
and the material would be super comfortable.
Then I followed up with a jacket.
Just kinda needed a jacket to wear with it,
and I like retro style.
He did some suits for Draymond Green
and some other ballplayers like right out the gate.
He was doing some really dope suits.
Rich Fresh made the suit.
He go by Rich Freshy from LA.
Well he not from LA, but he lives and works out of LA.
He's really good.
A Rich Fresh garment is not a Rich Fresh garment
without two indicating factors.
One is this yellow tab right on the side of this garment.
There's a yellow grosgrain tab.
It's very specific.
It's on the side and every single
Rich Fresh garment in existence,
on the trousers as well as the jacket.
On every garment, whether it's a suit jacket,
whether it's a robe, I don't care.
And then the second thing,
there's always Rich Fresh, made in Los Angeles,
because it is in fact made in Los Angeles
and people should be aware of it.
And then it goes from there
to almost the last step in the production process.
You've got the waistband.
This is a trouser waistband that's got a built-in
hook and eye closure.
If you do lose a little bit of weight,
you can actually cinch this and it'll take it in
three-quarters of an inch on each side.
Once the sewing process is done,
it goes to one of the hand-finishing tailors.
There's a lot of hand work, even on a track suit,
like the hem on these trousers is done by hand.
There's an insane amount of hand finishing
on the insides of the jackets, because it's unlined.
So when you open it, it's beautiful.
Hey, man. Hey, what's good?
What's good with you, man?
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Once I'm presenting the suit to the client,
you know, it's a full on presentation.
So it's a very minimal garment bag.
You don't know what to expect.
I kind of like that element of surprise.
You didn't see it at all, did you?
No. Great, great, great.
Remember what we discussed? Yes.
I'm from Memphis.
I'm gonna say something slick.
What did we discuss?
Navy blue and black. Ooh, and then what else?
A little olive. Ooh!
Is that true?
Is that what you're thinking?
And then I'm gonna open it,
and the client's usually gonna scream.
Oof!
Oh, man! I see some fire.
Or exhale real heavily.
There's always a moment of drama,
every time I unzip and fold it back.
Oh, goodness! It was my chance.
Bro! My chance.
Bro!
something like that?
Man! Put these on,
and when you come back, I'll put this on you.
All right, bet.
So I let them have that moment.
Oh, a hundred percent.
Wow! 100%.
Like, you don't even have to think about it.
Oh! Right?
I'm gonna make sure that everything fits
the way it's supposed to.
And again, if anything needs to be modified, now's the time.
But if not, we shake hands,
we hug it out and they take it with them.
I noticed it, but I'm just taking all of it.
I'm taking all of it in.
My hope is that they will be given more
and more opportunities to flex their skills,
to show how dynamic they are
and what new, fresh elements of art they can bring
to the fashion industry.
Well, it's kind of like
a "Pursuit of Happyness" story almost, you know?
And like that was one of his favorite movies.
I'm not gonna lie.
He watched it so much he used to get on my nerves.
It became part of his story.
But one of the most important things I could take away
on an entrepreneurial level and as a businessman
is just dream big and go after your goals.
The only one that can stop you
from becoming successful is yourself.
When I started, I had no idea
it was going to turn into this.
It's a tracksuit empire.
I don't have any investors.
All this is all money in.
This is me going out and hustling,
bringing that money back and just building it,
building it, building it.
There's so much more beyond this guy.
I was really no telling what he would come up with,
but we do know whatever he comes up with.
It's going to be dope.
So yeah, there's really, there's no limit.
You can't put him in a box.
You can't put a sky over him,
'cause he's gonna bust through it.