Playback: Claima Stories Discusses Uplifting BIPOC Creatives for HYPETALKS

HYPETALKS returned on February 28 with a conversation about “Creating with Purpose” alongside leading career podcast Claima Stories and other BIPOC creatives to discuss entrepreneurship and creating community.

Moderated by Felix Young and co-hosted by Bimma Williams, the roundtable discussion featured a number of industry-shifting creatives, including Gavin Mathieu, Laci Jordan, Essie Golden, Chris Echevarria and Kacey Lynch.

The conversation kicked off with each panelist explaining the origins of their brands and their impact on the community.

“I started Bricks & Wood based off of the things that I felt were missing within the industry that I was familiar with — which is streetwear,” said Lynch, adding that his previous experience in the fashion industry helped him to pinpoint areas for improvement. “I started to identify with the things that I didn’t like and the things I felt could have been run better … whether that was [having] cultural conversations or Black employees or a Black narrative.”

Golden, the co-founder of Thicklaces, spoke about creating a space for plus-size sneakerheads and streetwear enthusiasts. “I was buying sneakers like crazy and posting them on social media,” she said. “I was following other plus-size women who were also doing it and killing it within the sneaker community and streetwear culture.”

“It’s been interesting to see the reaction from brands and other communities who didn’t see the plus-size woman as a valuable customer,” she added.

Echevarria detailed his journey from working in the retail industry to utilizing his fine tailoring skills to ultimately create his Brooklyn-based brand Blackstock & Weber.

“I thought ‘where can I make some change in the market or you know what’s really important to me?’” he said. “I want to change the way that people look at formal menswear, I want to change the way that people dictate what Americana and formal menswear look like.”

Mathieu, founder and creative director of SUPERVSN Studios, spoke to the importance of collaborating with other creatives across industries to push ideas forward. “I really just saw this like this sort of special energy of collaboration and community of people that I was tapping into to do something that I couldn’t just do by myself.”

Jordan, a multi-disciplinary artist, discussed the added pressures of being a person of color in the entrepreneurial space. “I’m very tapped into the fact that I have the ability to inspire people, and that’s something that I don’t take lightly,” she said.

Listen to the full HYPETALKS: Creating With Purpose here.

And tune in to the next HYPETALKS: Community Building in Web3 with the founders of the Azuki NFT project at 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday, March 15, via HYPEBEAST on Twitter Spaces.