Telfar Clemens

Telfar Clemens (born 1985 in Queens, New York) is a Liberian-American fashion designer and the founder of Telfar, a fashion label based in Bushwick, Brooklyn.[1]

Telfar Clemens
BornJanuary 1985
Queens
Alma materPace University
OccupationFashion designer

Early life

Clemens was born to Liberian parents in Lefrak City, Queens. His family briefly moved back to Liberia but returned to Queens in 1990 to avoid the Second Liberian Civil War. While studying at New York's P.S. 206, a teacher wrote monograms for all of the students on the board. Clemens' monogram would become the Telfar logo.[1]

Career

In 2005, while still a student at Pace University, Clemens founded his eponymous, unisex fashion brand, Telfar.[1] In 2017, Clemens designed uniforms for 400 White Castle franchises[2]. All proceeds from the partnership went to bail funds for teenagers imprisoned on Rikers Island[3]. The same year, Clemens won the CDFA/Vogue Fashion Fund. The $400,000 prize allowed him to steadily produce Telfar's popular Shopping Bags.[4]

In early 2020, Clemens announced a collaboration with Gap Inc.. The collection was postponed indefinitely in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic[5]

Clemens counts Vivienne Westwood, Jean Paul Gaultier and Yohji Yamamoto as influences,[6] along with "life style" brands such as Calvin Klein, DKNY, and Polo Ralph Lauren.[1]

Notable designs

The Telfar Shopping Bag has been called an "it-bag" and "the decade's most important accessory" by major fashion publications.[7][8] The bag, originally modeled after shopping bags from Bloomingdale's, is colloquially known as the "Bushwick Birkin" due to its combination of it-bag status and accessibility.[1][9] In 2018, singer Kelela featured the bag in her "The Story of a Thing" column for T (magazine).[10]

Awards and honors

In June 2020, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first LGBTQ Pride parade, Queerty named him among the fifty heroes “leading the nation toward equality, acceptance, and dignity for all people”.[11][12]

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References
  1. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/16/telfar-clemens-mass-appeal
  2. "Telfar's enduring love of White Castle". Interview Magazine. 2017-09-06. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  3. Newswire, MultiVu-PR. "WHITE CASTLE INDUCTS FASHION DESIGNER TELFAR INTO CRAVERS HALL OF FAME". Multivu. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  4. Newswire, MultiVu-PR. "WHITE CASTLE INDUCTS FASHION DESIGNER TELFAR INTO CRAVERS HALL OF FAME". Multivu. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  5. https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/news-analysis/kayne-west-yeezy-gap-collab-telfar
  6. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2016/09/123092/telfar-nyfw-spring-2017
  7. Dazed (2019-08-08). "Why the Telfar Shopping Bag is this decade's most important accessory". Dazed. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  8. Smith, Ray A. (2019-05-14). "An 'It Bag' That Broke Fashion's Rules". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  9. https://www.them.us/story/telfar-shopping-bag
  10. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/t-magazine/kelela-telfar-clemens-tote-bag.html
  11. "Queerty Pride50 2020 Honorees". Queerty. Retrieved 2020-06-30.
  12. Bull, Chris (2020-07-27). "These style-makers are changing how the world sees gender, one outfit at a time". Queerty. Retrieved 2020-08-13.
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