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Telfar Clemens
Born (1985-01-21) January 21, 1985 (age 39)
New York City, U.S.
Alma materPace University
OccupationFashion designer
Websitetelfar.net

Telfar Clemens (born 1985) is a Liberian-American fashion designer and the founder of the fashion label Telfar.[1] Clemens won the 2017 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund,[2] and won the CFDA Fashion Award for American Accessories Designer of the Year in 2020 and 2021.[3][4]

Early life and education

[edit]

Clemens was born in Lefrak City, Queens in 1985 to Liberian parents. His family moved back to Liberia for a short period of time, but then to avoid the Second Liberian Civil War, relocated to Gaithersburg, Maryland.[5]

While in high school at New York's P.S. 206, Clemens's teacher wrote monograms for all of their students. The monogram the teacher gave to Clemens would later become the brand's signature logo.[1]

In 2005, Clemens was an accounting student at Pace University and a DJ, where he would go downtown at Century 21 to go shopping in women's European brands such as: Yves Saint-Laurent, Maison Margiela and Hemut Lang. [6] Clemens then founded his eponymous, unisex fashion brand, Telfar.[1] Clemens later graduated from Pace University in 2008 with a degree in accounting.[7]

Career

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Clemens met Babak Radboy in 2004, who later joined Telfar as creative director and business partner in 2013.

In 2014, Clemens released the first iteration of the Shopping Bag, which would go on to become a major it bag.[8]

In September 2016, Clemens and Radboy worked together on an installation at the Berlin Biennale, accompanied by a video rendered by artists Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch.[9]

In May 2017, Clemens collaborated with musician Solange Knowles to design the outfits for Knowles and her dancers for "An Ode To", a no-phones-allowed interdisciplinary performance at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.[10]

In September 2017, Clemens designed uniforms for 400 White Castle franchises.[11] In October, 2017, Clemens released a special capsule collection in collaboration with White Castle that year, with all proceeds from the partnership went to bail funds for teenagers imprisoned on Rikers Island.[12][13] That year, he won the 2017 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund along with a $400,000 prize, much of which he invested in the production of the Telfar Shopping Bag.[14]

In February 2019, Telfar showed his Fall Winter 2019 collection at Irving Plaza in New York City in an exclusive event celebrating black future(s) month, with 1000 guests, a mosh pit for a runway (models were crowd-surfed through the audience rather than walking down a runway), and live stage music.[15] The fashion show, co-hosted by playwright Jeremy O. Harris, featured performances by musicians Ho99o9, Na-Kel Smith, Oyinda, Butch Dawson, and the designer Clemens himself.[16][17]

In early 2020, Clemens announced a collaboration with Gap Inc. The collection was postponed indefinitely in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[18][19]

In August 2020, Telfar introduced the Bag Security Program, a one-day-only online event that would allow anyone to preorder bags for a guaranteed holiday delivery that year.[20] “I created the bag security program so that people could be able to get the thing that they wanted. We just really wanted to know like if we actually gave people the chance to get this bag, how many bags can we sell in one day?” Clemens stated.[21] Two more Bag Security Programs have since taken place, both in 2021.

In June 2020, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first LGBTQ Pride parade, Queerty named Telfar among the fifty heroes “leading the nation toward equality, acceptance, and dignity for all people”.[22][23] Clemens launched a line of durags in September of that year.[24][25] Shortly after, Clemens announced a collaboration with UGG to launch in fall 2021.[26]

In September 2020, Clemens was awarded the Accessories Designer of the Year at the CFDA Awards.[27]

In 2021, GUESS, a large American retailer, produced a bag consumers recognized as a look-alike of the Telfar Shopping Bag, but with a G-logo in place of the Telfar brand. Guess’s handbag licenser Signal Brands voluntarily pulled the G-logo off of shelves and released a statement that "Signal Brands does not wish to create any impediments to Telfar Global's success and, as such, has independently decided to stop selling the G-logo totes."[28]

Clemens counts Vivienne Westwood, Jean Paul Gaultier and Yohji Yamamoto as influences,[29] along with "life style" brands such as Calvin Klein, DKNY, and Polo Ralph Lauren.[1]

Notable designs

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The Telfar Shopping Bag is made of vegan leather, branded with the signature "T" Telfar logo.[30] It has been called an "it-bag" and "the decade's most important accessory" by major fashion publications.[31][32] Originally modeled after shopping bags from Bloomingdale's, the Telfar Shopping Bag is colloquially known as the "Bushwick Birkin" due to its combination of status and accessibility.[1][33]

In 2018, singer Kelela featured the bag in her "The Story of a Thing" column for T.[34]

The bag has sold out within minutes of every restock, with demand crashing the shop site in July 2020. Telfar's team was initially concerned that bots were buying the bags to resell them at a higher price, but concluded that the bot issue was overstated—the issue was real demand.[35][36]

In November 2020, Oprah Winfrey picked the Telfar Bag as one of her 'Favorite Things'.[9] The bag is also promoted by other notable figures such as Real Housewives of New York City star Sonja Morgan,[37] Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,[38][39][40] Swae Lee,[41] Ashton Sanders,[42] and Dua Lipa.[43]

In 2021 Telfar designed the official uniforms for the Liberian team for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.[44]

In 2022 singer Beyoncé mentioned the brand in her song "Summer Renaissance."

Rapper Maiya The Don released the song "Telfy" in October 2022, about the signature shopping bag.[45]

Awards and honors

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Year Award Category Result Ref.
2017 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund — Won [14]
2020 CFDA Awards Accessories Designer of the Year Won [27]
2021 The Fashion Awards Global Leader of Change: People Won[a] [46]

Notes

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  1. ^ Recognized alongside Edward Enninful, Harris Reed, Kenya Hunt, and Samuel Ross

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d e Witt, Emily (5 March 2020). "Telfar Clemens's Mass Appeal". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2020-11-02.
  2. ^ "Telfar Clemens's Mass Appeal". The New Yorker. 2020-03-05. Retrieved 2021-10-11.
  3. ^ "The Scoop on the 2020 CFDA Fashion Awards Winners!".
  4. ^ "Breaking News! The 2021 CFDA Fashion Awards Winners".
  5. ^ "Telfar: Telfar Clemens and Babak Radboy". NPR.org. Retrieved 2022-12-13.
  6. ^ "Michael Bullock | TELFAR CLEMENS". michaelbullock.nyc. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  7. ^ Friedman, Vanessa (2020-12-21). "The Year of Telfar". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-06-19.
  8. ^ Stessman, Emma (2023-11-02). "Telfar's always-sold-out bag is one of Oprah's Favorite Things — and it's back in stock". TODAY.com. Retrieved 2023-11-08.
  9. ^ a b "Inside Telfar's Berlin Biennale Takeover". W Magazine | Women's Fashion & Celebrity News. 7 June 2016. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  10. ^ Dyer, Deidre (19 May 2017). "Designer Telfar Clemens on Creating the Costumes for Solange's Epic New Performance Piece". Vogue. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  11. ^ Benor, Dalya (2017-09-06). "Telfar's enduring love of White Castle". Interview Magazine. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  12. ^ Moran, Justin (17 October 2017). "Telfar Launches White Castle Capsule to Bail Minors Off Rikers Island". Out. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  13. ^ Dazed (2017-10-18). "Telfar and fast food chain White Castle release collab". Dazed. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  14. ^ a b "CFDA".
  15. ^ Friedman, Vanessa (2019-02-10). "In the Mosh Pit of American Fashion (Published 2019)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  16. ^ AnOther (2019-02-11). "Telfar Clemens' New Direction for American Fashion". AnOther. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  17. ^ "This Runway Show Sent Models Crowd-Surfing Through Audience". Time. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  18. ^ "Gap Says It Will Pay Telfar for Cancelled Collaboration". The Business of Fashion. 2020-06-26. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  19. ^ Friedman, Vanessa (2020-06-30). "The Real Lessons of Telfar, Kanye and the Gap". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  20. ^ Petrarca, Emilia (2020-08-17). "It Just Got a Lot Easier to Secure a Telfar Bag". The Cut. Retrieved 2021-04-22.
  21. ^ "Telfar Clemens I TIME 100 Next" – via www.youtube.com.
  22. ^ "Queerty Pride50 2020 Honorees". Queerty. Retrieved 2020-06-30.
  23. ^ 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.
  24. ^ "Telfar Launches Durag Line Centered Around Luxury, Accessibility and Ubiquity". HYPEBEAST. 10 September 2020. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  25. ^ "Black-owned fashion brand launches luxury durags". the Guardian. 2020-09-14. Retrieved 2020-11-12.
  26. ^ Watamanuk, Tyler (18 September 2020). "The Year of Telfar Continues With an Ugg Collaboration". GQ. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  27. ^ a b Nesvig, Kara (15 September 2020). "Telfar Bags Are Officially the Accessory of the Year". Teen Vogue. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  28. ^ Portee, Allyson. "Guess Pulls Telfar Knockoff Bag In Response To Public Outrage". Forbes. Retrieved 2023-05-02.
  29. ^ Petersen, Lars. "The Rule-Breaking NYC Designer Who Hasn't Received The Hype He Deserves". www.refinery29.com. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  30. ^ Allaire, Christian (24 July 2020). "Telfar Clemens Says the Frenzy Over His Bags Is 'Beautiful'". Vogue. Retrieved 2020-10-30.
  31. ^ Dazed (2019-08-08). "Why the Telfar Shopping Bag is this decade's most important accessory". Dazed. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  32. ^ Smith, Ray A. (2019-05-14). "An 'It Bag' That Broke Fashion's Rules". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  33. ^ Cuby, Michael (10 September 2019). "Telfar's Shopping Bag Is More Than an Affordable Status Symbol". them. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  34. ^ Spivack, As told to Emily (2018-04-02). "The Singer Kelela on Her Favorite Possession (Published 2018)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  35. ^ "Telfar Clemens Talks Bots, Resellers, and What Actually Caused His Site to Shut Down". Complex Networks.
  36. ^ "Telfar – Revolutionizing What it Means to Be a Luxury Brand: Samiha Abd-Elazem". MARQUE. 2020-12-02. Retrieved 2023-05-02.
  37. ^ "Sonja Morgan Is Officially Telfar's 'Sister Wife'". PAPER. 2019-03-22. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  38. ^ Nesvig, Kara (24 August 2020). "AOC Just Posted a "What's In My Telfar Bag"". Teen Vogue. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  39. ^ Petrarca, Emilia (2020-08-24). "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Brought the 'Bushwick Birkin' to D.C." The Cut. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  40. ^ Wolf, Cam (24 August 2020). "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Wearing a Telfar Bag Is Fashion Diplomacy Done Right". GQ. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  41. ^ Bobb, Brooke (7 June 2019). "Watch Telfar Clemens and Swae Lee Talk Backwards Polo Shirts and Bell Bottoms Ahead of the CFDA Awards". Vogue. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  42. ^ "The Intimacy Issue: Ashton Sanders". Office Magazine. 2020-05-22. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  43. ^ Satenstein, Liana (10 January 2020). "Dua Lipa's Carry-On Is Fashion's Favorite (and Most Affordable) It Bag". Vogue. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  44. ^ Friedman, Vanessa (23 July 2021). "TELFAR X LIBERIA: How Liberia changed Olympic fashion — with a little help from a Brooklyn designer". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 July 2021.
  45. ^ "TikTok's Rap Girlies Are the Future of Hip-Hop". Teen Vogue. 2023-02-24. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  46. ^ "2021 Winners". The Fashion Awards. Retrieved 21 April 2024.
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