Bryan Jimenèz
Is Making Heavy
Clothes for
Uncertain Times

When I was in the DR, my mom moved [to New York] and she sent me back this video game. It was Marc Eckō's Getting Up. It's like a graffiti game. When I got to New York and saw that that game was actuality a reality of the environment here, I was taken aback. In a way, that's how I started doing tags, and I almost got in trouble for it once. That messed up a lot of my family dynamic that I had here in the US.

Yeah. And it just put me in a bad spot. I had to move from it. And once I made that move [away from doing graffiti], I started getting around and familiarizing myself with more of the fashion scene here in New York and who the designers were.

I was cool with everyone, actually. At first, it was a bit hard because it was different. But little by little I started fitting into the space and the overall feel of everything and I started becoming friends with the gang members. [Laughs] But I'd be cool with the Dominican Patia n—s, but then like, I'd be also cool with the head of the [Latin] Kings [laughs]. But I was never in the gangs themselves.

Yeah, yeah, I was neutral [laughs].

Yeah, it was funny because we wouldn't actually do anything. We would just go around. When the Virgil [Abloh] Been Trill thing was happening, we would just pull up to the city and do nothing. Like, we didn't know anybody.

I got rejected for a whole year. Partially, it was because I started to sew to fulfill my application portfolio. My grandma taught me a little bit, and then I went to this tailor shop.

The first time I got rejected from FIT, I was kind of like, I'm gonna keep applying. Whether or not I get in, I'm gonna keep learning because I'm already on the path.

The reason I wasn't getting into FIT was because I was an ESL student, and being an ESL student you have to take this exam that tests your English proficiency. It focuses on how quick you can understand, and I always failed that. And through the third time of me applying, someone from the Admissions Office reached out and asked me for my grades from the junior college I was studying fashion marketing at.

They finally admitted me in the middle of the year, so I skipped the period where I was supposed to take electives. I just went into taking straight fashion courses. And then, towards the end of my fourth semester, I didn't get my diploma because I was missing those electives. But Brent Faiyaz had worn a bag of mine at the time, so I was already moving forward with the brand.

Basically, this guy that Gucci Mane signed—Lil Wop? I was in contact with a stylist that was styling him. And I had made the bags, but I had not put them out yet. But the stylist was reaching out and I sent him photos of the bags. So basically, Lil Wop wore the bag before I released it. Brent Faiyaz was at his show, saw it, went backstage, figured out the name [of my brand], and bought it off my site. He was the first person to buy the bag on my site.

Before working there, I saw Rick as this person that's so strong within their own being. They understand things so strongly and in their own way. I think that's the thing that I admire. Going to work there, it just felt heavy. And there's an aspect of heavy that is appealing to me. I think in my clothes too, there's an amount of attention on the weight of the fabric.

I had to see that structure. It inspired me. It gave me a lot of energy. I was working on a collection during that time and I remember having more energy than usual coming back home.

I think it forced me to use my brain in a different way. At the beginning of anything artistic, I think that's necessary. If I gotta go home to my studio and work on luxury clothes, what am I doing during the day that's going to transmit that luxury spirit?

And working at Le Labo, for example, was that. The act of making scents: the oils, the smells that you're around, the environment where it has to be very sharp, very clean—that's all luxury.

I look at attitude a lot, and what certain colors are conceived as in a certain context. And what certain pieces are conceived as in a certain context. I like to think that I'm a designer that you're gonna like for a specific thing that they did, and now [the new thing I'm making] is not necessarily that, but it connects because it all lives under the same umbrella.

My design ethos is that that mask can also be next to these shooting trousers, or the parachute hardware. What I do, I do with an intention of building an overall universe around the clothes. It's only until the most recent collection that that's shown a bit more clearly.

We're consistently looking at specific points of reference, like the military. But we're looking at these references not for necessarily what they are to the world, but for what they represent as an entity, and what are those things saying? Like, the military communicates strength and authority. It communicates power.

And, in this look, the model looks like he could be a pilot in like, 1940. He looks timeless.

I'm building my own rules. How do I compete? How do I manage myself with the resources that I have? We're not going to win the game, the same way LVMH is going at it with their brands. They have the hands to get that done and have it look clean. Bryan Jimenèz is creating a new version of clean with the resources that we have.