FLYPRINTS INTERVIEW BENJART CLOTHING

3 Friday August 13 2010 Written by flyprints
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It’s been a while coming but I finally caught up with the minds behind Benjart clothing. In the noisy background that was OFF THE RADAR I sat down with the faceless man himself, Benjamin, to discuss he’s shattered dreams, Nightmares and he’s motivation. Benjamin’s Art (Benjart) is an honest reflection of the designer’s psyche manifested in a street wear brand. Read more to gain a greater understanding of the brand and the man.

Hi how are you sir?

I’m fine sir and you?

Cool

So tell me a bit about yourself?

Basically my name is Benjart, I’ve been doing the brand now for 3-4 years now. It started as an underground brand, first and foremost made T-shirt and then we moved onto crew necks watches, jackets and hats. We’ve done allot of product diversification in the last 3 years. Which has solely been funded by myself and obviously through the brands growth.

How did you come up with the name Benjart?

Well basically my name is Benjamin, it’s a personal brand. Everything the brand represents, represents something that I’ve gone through. So, I decided just to name it after myself. So…. Benjamin’s art, but, it’s not as if I’m an artist and I express myself through drawing. I think art not only represents your artistic nature but it also represents things that you go through and anything that you go through can be portrayed in an art form that’s what Benjart’s about to be honest.

So you’ve touched on this earlier what is the main theme of your brand?

Benjart is a street wear brand but, it’s about the things that people go through in life. Love at first sight…. Nightmares ….. Nightmare on dream street…. shattered dreams, Shatterd dreams was born from the recession. So, at a time when the economy was at its worst and allot of companies folded and It basically stuck in my mind that am I going to be able to make it through. That’s where the concept for shattered dreams came from. Collecting little pieces of shattered dreams and putting them back together to form one. That’s what we’ve done, when the recession came we sat down, we thought, we planned and we basically thought of a way to battle through and we was able to do that.

What did you do to get through that tough period?

Well prior to the recession we only had T-shirts, through the recession we diversified to include products like jackets and hats We also incorporated a theme. The whole shattered dreams and nightmare theme helped because I think it agreed with what people were thinking at the time. So when you can meet the psychological needs of people I think it also helps the brand rather than just putting a print on to a T-shirt. We actually thought of an idea and a plan to psychologically connect with people and with the whole Shattered dreams thing and the nightmare on Dream Street definitely worked.

Like an emotional connection, to create deeper connection with supporters of the brand.

There you go, and evidently though that we actually created a loyal fan base in the recession. Something that we previously didn’t have.

What first motivated you to create your brand?

I was just basically fed up with what I saw on the high street I’d buy a item, I don’t want to name any brands or anything, I’d buy a T-shirt, buy a sweat shirt and you’d see 100 people wearing the same thing and that basically made me think ahh why don’t I try to print a T-shirt. I started with a T-shirt and then it just picked up.

So when you brand becomes big how are you going to balance exclusivity with demand?

See everything we do at the moment is limited to thirty pieces worldwide. Whilst we’re at this stage and at our growing stage we are going to basically keep to that ethos that everything is limited to 30 pieces. So, the brand might be growing however, everything will still be limited. That will help with the brand being collector’s pieces and that’s our aim to keep it at a small steady pace.

I still think it’s possible to maintain exclusivity with a massive brand. I mean you’ve got brands like Stussy, you’ve got limited edition Jordan’s. These are multinational companies but they’re still able to keep a level of exclusivity about them and I think that’s something we’ll be able to do.

[Show as slideshow]

Did you go to university to study fashion and do you think a formal education is necessary?

I think when your tailored into doing something you only create it in that way. Everything that we’ve created, everything that Benjart has made has been from my mind, but I don’t think it’s necessary to go to fashion school. However, if I did go fashion school now I would notice I’d have the ability to finish of a brand in a perfect sense. There may be things that I haven’t done that a fashion graduate would say ahh. He’s done this wrong, he’s done that wrong and maybe if I could get a fashion graduate working with me as well that could help the brand.(hint hint)

You could get an intern.

There you go, I mean we’ve got 1 intern that we’ve bought on now and it going very well with him working with the brand and I want to help people out that have a passion for something like I have a passion for something. Everyone that works with me now has a core passion.

I really like your nightmare designs how did you come up with the concept?

2009 was one of my worst years for me personally. I’m going to be honest. Deaths in the family and I was going university at the time, it was getting to a stage where allot of thing where getting to me. We had the Shattered Dreams which as I said before represented my shattered dreams coming back together into one and then all of a sudden I had personal problems….. which contribute to a nightmare. That’s where the nightmare collection came from so, it’s basically saying that you could be going though your greatest dream and evidently at the click of a finger it could just turn into a nightmare and that’s what basically happened. So as I said previously everything that I go through in life. I reflect it though the clothing. So basically there’s a hidden meaning behind every Benjart release.

[Show as slideshow]

What makes your brand different from the many street wear brands out there?

Instantly what I have noticed is that no one has actually put their name on their brand. I’m one a few whose brand is actually their name. I think the personal connection with the brand, your consciousness of that extends to people and they can actually see it and when you explain what the brand means and where the brand’s come from they understand it . Allot of people create names and obviously if the brand don’t work they can dash it away. Benjart is something that will be with me forever. So the passion through that alone just makes the brand stand out.

So it’s very personal to you then. Would you ever sell Benjart? It’s like selling yourself really.

See this is the thing…. I couldn’t really, it wouldn’t make any sense. Like you said it’s a personal brand I mean obviously if investment came to build it on to a world wide scale you be silly not to consider it but due to the fact that it’s a personal brand it would make me think twice about it. This is something that’s going to carry me through life, when I die it’ll still be here through kids, if I have kids by then so yea man proper personal.

The UK street wear industry must be tough, what keeps you going?

It is very tough, very competitive and there is a lot of brands as you can see there’s a lot of brands here today (off the radar) even outside of here there’s a lot of brands North, west, south and east. Even outside of London. But the thing about me is that I don’t look at other people I just…. I’ve got a goal and my goal is just to provide quality clothing with a meaning throughout the UK.

But their must have been a point where you thought “ I’m going to sack it” or has that never happened with you?

Na, only when I was going through my personal issues and that’s when I had to put Benjart on a back burner. But, I mean going through bad things help. Allot of people when they saw my shattered dreams/nightmares they were blown away, they thought It was some sort of negative clothing. But it’s not negative. Your imperfections are your perfections that’s the way I look at it. Knowing that there’s something positive to look forward to when I’m going through my bad times. I think that’s was keeps me going.

[Show as slideshow]

If you couldn’t make continue with Benjart what would you do?

Well at university I studied business and I’ve always been business orientated. Benjart was inevitable. I still think I would be doing business my intension when I was younger wasn’t to own a clothing brand. It was something that happened through making clothing for myself. So I would definitely be in business in some way shape or form.

Have you done any collaborations if not are you planning to ?

We done a collaboration a graphic designer called Gavin … That was a collaboration that we done in 2008 and It was part of our dead or alive range again, it sounds negative but it was again it was a personal thing that came through something that I went through life. And I put it down to paper. I sat down with Gavin who’s an excellent artist.

Do you think that UK street wear is too heavily influence by US fashion and if so is it a bad thing?

I think it’s easy to presume that UK street wear is influenced by American fashion but I honestly don’t really study what’s going on in America. Whatever I want to make I just make. But then again the whole varsity thing came from America. So, I can’t really say that…. It’s a hard one. I mean there are so many different street wear brands over here it feels kind of new. It may have been going on under my nose before I started Benjart….. Yeaaaa you could say it’s influenced by America.

Would you say it’s a bad thing?

I don’t think it’s a bad thing, I think it’s good to be influenced by something first. Like if you want to compare it with the music obviously over here we was heavily influenced by US music but now Number 1’s and 2’s here in the UK charts has been taken over by UK artists. It’s like you have to be influenced by something first to understand where you going to go.

How do you feel about celebrity endorsements?

It’s mad when we first started the brand we went on holiday to Mexico. When we went there we met Travis McCoy from gym class heroes, Keshia cole, Young jeezy so we were able to give them T-shirts and this was in 2007. That when then….. Not that the hunger for the brand was higher but we was new to it so we were mad excited. But, now I think it’s best to focus on your product and by having a quality product the right people will notice eventually.

What can people expect from Benjart in the near future?

What I always tell people is that we’re only at 30%, I’ve also got other things I do apart Benjart so, it’s not the core focus but it’s getting there, the team’s getting bigger and it just going to get crazy. More crazy ideas, more crazy pieces, we done our first cut and fold piece a couple of months back as well. That was well accepted at Nike Reset and it’s just more catering to people’s needs.

Where can people buy your stuff?

http://benjartclothing.com/ right now we don’t have any stockist. It’s all done independently. We may put it in some stockist we may not. Just taking the smooth with the rough at the moment and just building what we can build. If people notice what we’re doing and approach us then they do.

Thank you for your time