Wale Adeyemi

VIPER MEETS WALE ADEYEMI.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY BEN HARDS

Your designs became iconic very early in your career. What was it like going viral in the 2000s?

It was kinda crazy because I was known for streetwear and I worked a lot on the underground scene, so I was working with a lot of unsigned acts that were up and coming in the music industry. It was kinda cool so I must’ve moved to the Brick Lane area in 1996 or 1997. That area was really run down at the time, that was where all the creatives were so there were musicians, artists, and so I was born out of that scene. Obviously at the time streetwear wasn’t really recognised as it is now, as fashion. People would say, “he’s a designer, but he’s not a designer because he does streetwear.” It wasn’t on the catwalks or anything like that, it was just in the underground scene. So when it blew up, it was a great thing. I think everyone felt part of it, who’d been part of the streetwear scene, or part of that music scene in the 1990s. it was a collaboration of a lot of different celebrations really. I remember buying Vogue in 2000 and your jeans were in there as art, which denim hadn’t really been before. Yeah definitely, it was weird ‘cause everyone was like, “how did you manage to get your product to this stage? Because you’re like the rest of us.” So it was like a ‘Them and Us’ kinda thing. So I think that’s why everyone was supporting it ‘cause I was a regular guy doing streetwear that happened to get a couple of good gigs and it worked for us.

You’ve stayed in the Brick Lane area with B-Side, is the area still inspiring for you?

Yeah definitely because for me I’ve seen it change so much. Originally I was living in west London before I moved to Brick Lane and when I moved, everyone was just like, “how can you go to east London, it’s dirty!” Because it was the end of the end really in those days but that’s where a lot of the manufacturers were so I’d go there. I was living at my mum’s house and I’d come all the way back to West London and think I need some

‘USHER WAS PRETTY AMAZING. HE CAME TO OUR STUDIO ON HIS WAY TO MTV AND HE WALKED OUT HEAD TO TOE IN ALL OF OUR STUFF’

more fabric, I’d have to go back. So I thought let me just get a place there and I got a place above the bagel shop, just opposite the bagel shop. It was a studio but my live in apartment as well, all the musicians used to come there like M Beat, people like that. It was a good time, but I’ve got a lot of history in Brick Lane and I’ve seen it develop, it’s always a place I found inspiring because there were so many creatives in the area at the time.

You’ve dressed so many musicians, is there one design that stands out to you as your favourite?

It’s weird ‘cause most of the acts that I’ve worked with, whether they’ve been unsigned or they’ve been big stars, obviously the big stars have made the biggest impacts - like the Beyonce’s and the Usher’s - that was a great turning point. I think Usher was pretty amazing because he came to our studio in Brick Lane and was on his way to MTV just to have a look at the stuff and he walked out head to toe in all of our stuff and went to TRL. He was really into what we were doing and had all these ideas. He said he hadn’t seen anything like this outside America, so that was a great time. There’s been so many to be fair, but I loved doing music videos like for Roni Size. Obviously in my early days I worked with Brand New Heavies, when I first started which was more doing sort of tailoring stuff so I’ve done lots of things across the board. So it hasn’t always been pure streetwear, it’s always evolved around music and that’s always been my approach.

Is there a different approach when doing a music video, like more custom pieces?

Yeah definitely, I think when we were doing a music video in the past, you worked with a tight brief with the director and the artist and then you just have to create to that brief. I remember I did Missy Elliott for the MOBO Awards which was really interesting. The label called me and said, “Missy’s in town and we want you to do an outfit for her.” But it’s always really quick - like lastminute.com and this was on the Friday and then they said, “but she’s coming from Germany with the sneakers and the sneakers need to match the outfit.” So she got the sneakers, a pair of baby blue Adidas shell-toes with a navy strip. So she gave me one of the sneakers and I had to go round to the fabric shops, match the fabric and they gave me her measurements. Then I went to her hotel to do the fitting once the stuff had been made and the MOBOs event was that evening, so that was quite cool and quite mad. Sometimes that’s quite good when it’s an adrenaline rush - you gotta get things done, just call everyone up, “ok we’re gonna work all night tonight to get this done,” so it’s a sense of achievement when you actually finish it.

Dressing Missy Elliott is definitely a bucket list goal for a lot of designers!

Yeah definitely, I remember going into her hotel room and there must’ve been about 200 pairs of sneakers in there ‘cause she just collects sneakers, like suitcases. I was just like, “wow!” This was the time when her videos were crazy, all the Hype Williams stuff. For me it was a real honour to get the opportunity to work with her.

How do you feel about the way fashion has embraced streetwear when it was previously so unwelcoming?

I think it’s good because streetwear to me doesn’t just mean rap inspired or that, everything comes from the streets, all styles come from the streets, so it could be skate, it could be rock, it could be indie, it’s more like culture really. I think it’s good because now it’s in our day to day lives, it’s very commercial now. Whereas before it wasn’t really that commercial, it was a really small sect of people that were into it. Even if you look at sneaker culture back in the day before the Internet, there were people that were into sneaker culture, they would go to certain stores or to the states to get their sneakers. Also record stores, going to a record store and getting records, it wasn’t as easy as the press of a button. But when I initially first started designing, and started selling clothing, I wasn’t selling in any clothes stores, it was all record stores because obviously I didn’t see myself as a designer in that sense. It was natural to go where the people that I wanted to wear my clothing were going, and they were going in record stores. So I was selling in a legendary record shop on Beak street, Unity Records, I used to sell in there and a few other places, that’s where I started and that’s where I built up my clientele base. Then I had a stall on Camden market, and there was one stall where they used to sell Drum & Bass, which everyone used to go to on a Saturday afternoon, they used to play really loud music. People just used to hang out and my stall was dead opposite there, so again that’s where I built up a lot of clientele. People used to come down to get records and they’d come to my spot and get the clothes. It was a cool, nice little community, it was fun times. I wasn’t really thinking about a business and stuff like that, it was just part of the culture that I embraced and that I was part of and to see it changing and going where it was going was a good time.

When do you feel the change in attitude began? Were you an early sign of the change of guard?

I think the change was probably about 2004, the real sort of change maybe 2005. I think it kinda went in stages really, obviously at the time there was a lot of American streetwear, there was the Karl Kani’s, the Sean John’s, the Ecko’s, LRG, so there were mostly American inspired brands. That’s what brought the serious global wave, obviously that was really big in places like Germany and around Europe. I think the British scene changed a little bit later because the British style was quite different. It was still streetwear but it still had that British touch to it. What we were doing, how we were dressing, it was still slightly different. So it had its own feel but yeah I like to think I was part of the movement and saw the change. I think when I talk to people about their experiences of when my brand came out and what they were doing, I mean we had a full window in Selfridges which was unheard of. A friend of mine was walking down Oxford Street and they were like, “oh my god, we’ve been in Selfridges!” I knew they had the order but I didn’t know what they were gonna do with it and she was like, “have you seen Selfridges’ window?” And I was like, “No” and she said, “you’ve got a full window!” I went there, they had these massive live kids, cause I was doing kids wear as well as the time, it was really cool. So for me that sort of time for streetwear, we hadn’t seen much like that so it was nice to be part of that time in that culture.

You got started in the fashion world working with Joe Casely-Hayford. What were your early years of design like?

Yeah that was one of the first places, I worked for Joe when they were based in Whitechapel and that was an amazing experience, I think that’s where I learnt my foundations of everything about how tough the fashion industry was, how hard you had to work, so that was my schooling in a sense. If I hadn’t worked at Joe’s, I probably wouldn’t be doing what I do now because that prepared me for the journey in a sense and just seeing how hard and how dedicated and how professional Joe and his wife Maria were, was a great example for me which I needed. I think I needed to see how serious this was and how far I could take it.

How long did you work with Joe?

I started off as an intern then I worked there for two years on and off, doing summer holidays. All the holidays I had, I would go there ‘cause I was absorbing so much. In those times, if you walked into a place and they said, “where did you work?” And you said, “Joe Casely Hayford,” it was like, “oh my god,” that was like saying you worked at Vogue. I was very proud to say I worked there and I was dedicated to what they were doing and I was learning a lot, they had a lot of time for me, they were very patient with me, they put me on the right track in a sense.

Besides Joe, were there many black people working in the industry at the time?

Yeah Joe was probably the one that was most influential to me because obviously he was Ghanaian and came from the same background, so that inspired me. But then also there was another guy called Hassan [Hajjaj] who had a label called RAP. He was really into the fashion and arts and stuff, and he had a store in Covent Garden which was a beautiful streetwear store back in the day. It was beautiful wooden floors, he had really nice expensive leather jackets, everything was beautifully made. So that whole scene, with these guys being older than myself, they set the foundation of how things should be done, so I was inspired by a lot of that scene.

With your own brand, what was your entry into the industry like? Did you face obstacles?

When I first started, I used to say yes to everything and take offers and try to work out how to do things but I didn’t really see it as a job and as a business, it was something I loved doing. So imagine if you just love making music, but you’re not making music to become an artist, you’re just making music because you love it. I think that’s what happened to me on the fashion side, I didn’t go into it thinking I can make some money out of this. Before, I used to ride skateboard, BMX, I used to dance and I would get bored of each thing, but when I got into fashion it just kept moving and changing, because it kept evolving. Obviously the more you learn, the more experience you have so that was the way I started. I wasn’t under the pressure like I’ve got to do well, I’ve got to make a success of this, I was just enjoying the ride at the time. Now it’s different because when people say they want to start a clothing line, they’re under pressure because they know what the competition’s like and they know what everyone else is doing. Remember this is before socials so I didn’t really see what everyone else was doing that much, it was just about my journey and me and my friends. If my

friends said they liked something then that was it, that was enough for me, I was cool. It was a very different time, so I wasn’t really under that pressure of success.

Plus you stood out in the UK scene, as all the other streetwear designers were American… Exactly, cause even when I went to America first, I went to New York and showed them my stuff and they couldn’t quite work it out. They were like, “it’s not really streetwear but it’s not really hip hop, but then it’s in the middle.” And that’s why we described it as somewhere between the curb and the boutique because we didn’t quite know where to put it, it didn’t fit in anywhere, there would be a bit of tailoring in there, but a bit of streetwear, But a lot of the streetwear brands were 100% streetwear, whereas mine was never really like that, it was a mixture of everything.

Do you feel the streetwear market is oversaturated in 2020?

Not necessarily, because these are different times. I enjoyed the journey that I was on and I think things change and things evolve. What people are doing with their brands now on a small budget, in a short amount of time, is incredible. Everyone’s so far advanced visually and how to sort concepts is great. So there’s so much creativity coming out of everywhere which I love. I think what’s good about it as well - it’s not just London, New York, LA, Paris, there’s great stuff coming out of everywhere which is healthy for everyone, to be fair.

Plus people work harder to stand out when there are more brands.

Yeah, you’ve got to be hard and work hard. I think since the lockdown and this whole COVID thing came up, I think it’s been good for everyone’s creativity, ‘cause me I was finding the pace too fast and I was like, “wow I don’t think I can keep up with this.” Every day was something new, something new. I’m not really from that school so you don’t really get to go through the process and that’s the bit I love, the process, going through the motions of creativity and living with things for a while. But now it’s like you do something on Monday, on Tuesday you post it on Instagram. But sometimes it’s not just about the product, it’s about the movement, the audience you have. It’s different times now, so you’ve got to try a bit of both.

Launching B-Side after your Wale Adeyemi brand, what led to the change in brand?

So the first label I had was my name, the second one was B-Side because B-Side was the other side of the record. So basically, that was when I was getting confused when I was trying to differentiate, the other side was a bit more clean, soft tailoring and styles like that. The other side, B-side was more street-style inspired. Going back to that music influence, when people used to buy records, you’d get the A-side, then you’d get the B-side which wasn’t often released by the record companies but that’s the side that had the heat on it, the best track. So that’s why I called this the B-Side, that’s where the reference came from.

Was it a new narrative for you as a designer? Would you ever do that again?

Oh 100%, I think sometimes as a designer, you need to have certain guidelines or everything becomes blurred. For me personally, it’s very hard to segregate different sections so when you come up with a different name, and different concept under the same homepage, it’s easier because you can say, that one doesn’t go in there, it goes there. It’s still part of the family but you’re gonna go in that room and you’re gonna go in that room. So it helps you be a little bit more precise with your work.

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