"I've failed over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed."
Designer, photographer, stylist, entrepreneur, and perhaps Toronto's newest urban industry mogul presiding over FashionFreakers.com and AnerdsWorld.com, Chris has achieved every goal he has set his eyes on, and he continues to strive towards perfection.
Born in Toronto, Chris grew up on the Jane street strip, a well known urban area in the west end of the city. After working in retail and under other people, Chris knew it was time for a change. In early 2001, Fashion Freakers was born. His urban upbringing exposed him to the rich cultural diversity that Toronto has to offer. The online company gained widespread attention, as Chris' unique custom Airforce Ones and airbrushed attire was showcased on the international scale in hip hop videos, and was seen being worn by artists such as The Game, Juelz Santana, Paul Wall, JR Writer, Lil Bow Wow, Jadakiss and many more. The following year, Chris took his clothing line to Toronto's infamous Yonge Street and opened his first store. One year later Chris accepted an offer to sell his store location, and decided to focus on Fashion Freakers online to cater to the international market.
After 5 years in online retail, Fashion Freakers decided to incorporate nightly entertainment into its roster. Its now 2008, with over 25 parties, 20,000 people and a growing fan base, you can catch Fashion Freakers hosting the livest parties in the city. Toronto is a sleeping giant, and Chris knew he was the man to wake it up. People in this city come from different cultural backgrounds and various walks of life. Fashion Freakers' goal is to break down the segregation in the city by bringing everyone together. Although people come from different backgrounds, there is one thing that they all have in common, a love for music.
FF: We are here with the owner and founder of FashionFreakers, how did Fashion Freakers begin?
It started a couple years ago, quite a few years actually. I was the district manager of Champs/Footlocker in Toronto, Scarbough Town Center. I saw there was a lot of opportunity to make money with footwear so I decided to start something new, I started with some custom footwear. Pretty much that's where it began.
FF: Where did the name Fashion Freakers come from?
First of all I'm a freak! at Fashion Freakers we freak the fashion, we might take something normal and plain like a white t-shirt and splatter some paint on that, a little airbrush and whatnot. Maybe add a little fabric or rabbit fur or snakeskin or whatever. Basically thats it, we freak the fashions - we are Fashion Freakers.
FF: Tell us about your inspirations for your styles and designs?
My number one inspiration is a rum and coke, you know I have to keep one in this hand and definately a second one in this hand (joking), it inspires me all the time it gets my mind thinking. For inspiration, I watch Hip-Hop videos and I try to predict the next trend. You know we are trendsetters here at FF, and we are where the celebrities shop. So put that hand in hand and hand in hand and that's your answer right there! Whats next?
FF: People think FF is all airbrush, can you tell us about that?
To the people that think FF is strictly airbrush - I say fuck you, fuck you and fuck you! We are a business do you understand? we see an opportunity to make money and that's what we are doing. I get friends telling me "Chris, airbrushing is out of style, its time to try something different..." and I say, listen when we get that order from Iraq a little town in the middle of nowhere, some kid that see's a video like 50 Cent or Lil Wayne and doesn't have a local store to buy an airbrushed shirt they come to FF. We ship worldwide. We still have a big market for airbrushed and hand painted shirts. We are the best in the business! and the reason we do it, its about the money!
FF: What are your thoughts on the Canadian Industry?
I say the Canadian Industry is pretty much worthless, you know there are only a few people that we fuck with and everyone else is pretty much worthless. They live at home with their Mom. You live at home with your Mom! You call yourself successful? but work in a warehouse during the day. This is my full time job since day one, about 7 years ago. We have been very successful, the second year we did over 2 million in online sales. You will see them (the competition) taking the bus and you will see me in the Z3. Pretty much that's it, I have no respect for these people. No respect at all. Everyone wants everything given to them, nobody wants to work for it. We work hard, we are working 8 days a week here, 25 hours a day. You can see I don't sleep, do you see the bags? I don't sleep. For all these people out there that think they can just jump in the game and start making all this money I say fuck them! They're pathetic and that's it, FF says fuck you!
In the Canadian Industry we have a few guys we fuck with like Shanuk, he has a store downtown with Big Blax "Da Corner". He's doing his thing, he's also the newest member of the FF team. Stolen from Africa is doing a highschool tour preaching the word, and working everyday. No sleeping in, no waking up to mom cooked meals. These are people out there actually doing something in this business. We have to shout at Roox, he's been there since day one way back 7-8 years ago when we did our first flyer together. Now he is signed with Universal Records... A-Game also trying to do
something big in Toronto. We limit ourself to the people we mess with, to the Canadian Industry step your game
up!
A print screen of an average months sales on FF:
For the full version click: http://www.fashionfreakers.com/images/worldpay.jpg
FF: Tell us about the Broke Billionaire?
The Broke Billionaire is a new creation I came up with about a year ago. I slept on it a little bit, I didn't do anything with it. I registered the name the Broke Billionaire so all you little theives out there trying to steal my damn idea you cant do it. I spent about 2 months in the hospital this summer, while I was laying in the bed it remotivated me. I thought about Broke Billionaire, and thought it was time to come up with some shirts. We just came out with 1000 new shirts, this is the Platinum edition. This is $25 on my website. That's it, it's the Broke Billionaire.
FF: What do you think about the competition trying to borrow your ideas?
We have a lot of competition out there, all these little kids trying to steal ideas... I saw one shirt already the broke hustler (laugh) those are the little guys in this business, but it's still pathetic when you are stealing other peoples ideas. Whats next?
FF: You had a store, what happend with that?
Yeah... I made a little mistake, I was making too much money online and I thought let's try something new. So I bought a store and put $80,000 into renovations. I'm sure some of you visited the store before, it was on Yonge Street right beside Eaton Center. And I found out there is no money in retail, I'll have guys come up and want to try a shirt on, wear them to the club then return them the next day. Once again this is the Canadian Industry, and it wasn't working for me. I was making my $200-300 a day but in comparison with my $15,000 a day in online sales it just wasn't worth it.
FF: Fashion Freakers isn't the only thing you're doing. You also own AnerdsWorld.com, can you tell us a little
more about that?
Yeah... some of you guys might have seen the ads on the bottom of each page it says anerdsworld, a big dude with glasses. My hobby is photography and I realized there is a lot of business revolving around photography. I started Anerdsworld.com where you can get all your photography needs, you can get a website, you can get some graphic design or your little banner made. Also owned and operated by myself and FF.
FF: What's the present and the future for Fashion Freakers?
Right now it's all about this new website, you see this interview it's going to be on the front page. The reason being, I just want credit for my hard work, I don't want people out there stealing my ideas. I thought I would put a face to the website. This is the new look of FashionFreakers, we are pushing the Broke Billionaire shirts, we are doing the monthly event, we have anerdsworld. We are pretty much taking over, and who knows maybe this spring I will get a new store.
FF: Speaking of events, FF is holding events now, tell us more about that?
It was about 2 years ago, I wanted to throw a FF website launch party, so I thought I would have a little fashion show, and do it at a nightclub. The venue only held 300-400 people and I didnt even expect to fill the club. It was at Housexy Nightclub, I know some of you were probably there. The event went so well, it sold out. The owner wanted me to start doing a once a week event. (Jump to the present) Now we are doing one event a month, The last event was the Golden Ticket, thus far we have had 2 of them. This one (pointing at flyer) was just a couple weeks ago. We had Peedi Crack and the Roots come by, once again go visit the pictures on our website... Money is a good thing, but we are always going to stick with the Hiphop crowd because that is our crowd and the music I listen to. You heard it here, you are never going to see a Techno FF party!
FF: Who is wearing a FF shirt?
In the beginning my goal was to get it on as many celebrities as possible. I'm not really pushing it that hard to the celebrities right now. I'm all about getting it worldwide, getting our name out there. Everybody should know FF! Some of the celebrities in the past, we have Bow Wow, Jadakiss, The Game, Juelz Santana, all of Dipset, JR Writer, Paul Wall, Method Man, Ludacris, we could go on for days but pretty much anybody in the Hip-Hop industry that sold over 1000 records has definately been wearing a FF shirt.
FF: What are some of your struggles, building FF and your personal life?
Not too many big struggles, but in life you know we all have struggles in day to day life. I have a tattoo here (look at tattoo) "I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed", with anything in life, you are going to fail. Now the difference between me and a normal person is they failed 2 or 3 times and gave up on themselves, they said fuck this I'm going to try something different and they go work in a warehouse doing a 9-5. They have given up on themselves, they have given up on life. The difference is, when I go through a little hard time it re-motivates me. I am never going to give up on myself. I'm never going to give up on my business. So all those people out there hating, I'm not going anywhere.
FF: Do you have any final words for the haters and the fans?
I say fuck the haters, whenever you're doing something good in this life you will have people putting you down and I had a gun in my mouth before, and I had people follow me home. What goes around comes around in this world. I am a nice guy, they call me the gentleman hustler. I'm not about violence, I'm a peaceful person. I talk to people with respect and that's how I think I should be treated in return. So FF we are here now and we are not going anywhere. Keep giving us your money! keep giving us your money! That's pretty much it, that's a wrap!
~Interview by Grace Mendoza, Video by Shanuk.
