Earlier this month, one of New York’s most vivid and most successful brands celebrated five years. Despite entering the industry to avoid getting caught up in logos, the Lemar and Dauley trademark has become something synonymous with care, quality and a unique and bold style.

With legions of Rock The Bells attendees donning the gear across the continent this long, hot summer, plus everybody from Soulja Boy to Lupe Fiasco supporting the brand, Hip Hop’s many generations and styles come together under one thorough brand.

Kareem Blair, a founder and Creative Director of L&D took time to discuss the history, the future and the overall greater artistic sensibility of the brand. While so many others are trying to figure out a way to be original and successful, these true artists and culture purveyors are in the museum, the record store and photo album, thinkin’ of a master plan.

The Evil Collector: You’re Lemar and Dauley’s creative director now. Tell me about your overall experience in the fashion game, whether with the company or without…

Kareem Blair: For the most part, it’s all been based on Lemar and Dauley. Prior to that, we didn’t have any fashion experience. We’ve been doing L&D for five years now, since we was probably like 19 [years old], on like graphic design. It morphed into a full-fledged clothing line. I guess the only experience I can say goes beyond L&D is everything we established after L&D. We did the first two seasons of Kid Robot, we did some footwear with Adidas, some footwear with DC Shoes.

TEC: Let’s go back to being 19. What was the vision? Why not the music? Were you guys always fashionable guys?

KB: Actually, one of the things that we were trying to defy was that you had to, as a young African American, you had to do music. We were also artists. We all studied at the LaGuardia High School For Art and Performing Art. That’s how we actually met each other; we’ve known each other since like sophomore year of high school – around 15. We was already artists, so it was just a matter of, “How can we supply something [in an industry] where you typically can’t make too much in?” There’s a lot of people that can draw and things of that nature, but very few can make a living off of it. So we were thinking how can we actually apply that to a business blueprint – and fashion was perfect. Naturally, the first thing we were into was graphic design. We started with t-shirts and then did jerseys, and we started branching off into other items and developing a brand.

TEC: Where does the name actually come from?

KB: The name is my middle name, and then a friend of mine – his middle name. That name actually came ‘cause we ended up doing this custom made jersey, ‘cause that’s how we started doing, during that whole jersey craze. We ended up getting press in VIBE magazine, but, it was a weird situation. My friend was interning at VIBE, and ended up getting fired. When it was time to submit the name, for whatever reason, we was like, “Aw man, we can’t use our real names. What are we gonna use to actually let people know that this is our brand?” Let’s just use our middle names. Even if we don’t like it, it’s our names – we can’t be too mad at it.

TEC: What was the one thing that you really did to prevent, “grand opening, grand closing” in this tough, tough industry?

KB: Aiight, the first thing with us was us knowing what was going on with urbanwear would not be the future. I think it was just us being true to ourselves. We’re artistic dudes. Time flies, but five years ago, some of the things that we did was considered weird at that time. The fact that we didn’t necessarily match our clothes from top to bottom, or the fact that our clothes were a little bit more vibrant due to the color palletes we was usin’ – just the way we wore it. Especially going to an artistic high school, we realized that there’s mad kids that actually think like us and dress like us, they just aren’t really being reflected. We shopped in stores down in SoHo. When we went there, we noticed that in streetwear, almost everybody in streetwear was doing a lot of camouflage and military-inspired graphics. In urbanwear, everybody was doing very logo-driven graphics. So we were like, “Yo, let’s just do something in between.” Not necessarily military, but let’s just choose other things and really go in on them. We’re not even gonna put Lemar and Dauley on our shirts; we’re always gonna be graphics. Plus, we’ll make sure we have this style that people can just identify.

TEC: You mention the color palette. You did it at a time when it was not accepted. As so many people have now gone towards that, do you feel that you’re given proper credit as pioneers in taking that leap?

KB: Yeah, of course. Especially being in New York City, I know for a fact that dudes just not wearing a lot of these colors [five years ago]. This was actually the pre-Cam era, so L&D were actually out there before [Cam’ron] made it okay for dudes to wear pink. We were actually one of the first brands to do it. But there’s no bitterness. That’s something we appreciate. It wasn’t like we set out to be the first to do it. The fact that more people began to reflect the same interests we had is a catch 22. On one hand, you have more competitors that are trying to emulate your aesthetics. On the other hand, we now have a broader audience to capture.

TEC: A lot of people associate the colors with the ‘80s or early ‘90s. Do you use any one reference point as an inspiration?

KB: It’s not ‘80s-inspired. Truthfully, it’s life-inspired. A lot of times people might say that, that’s really just ‘cause the ‘80s and the ‘90s is our muse. We’re just now in our mid-twenties, so the ‘80s and ‘90s is all we have as a reference point. If I wanted to go into the ‘70s, I’d have to start looking in books for it. We’re just drawing directly from our memory bank and directly from our experience.

TEC: You guys incorporate traditional fine arts into your work as well – I’ll use the Campbell’s Soup cans as an example. Touch on some of that…

KB: That’s beautiful. We naturally tried to create something that would stand off the shelf. We knew color was the first thing, especially in a room filled with army-colored clothing. Then it was a cost perspective. Initially, we had to simplify the graphics because we actually had to hand-screen them and hand-paint them. When we did that, we kinda stumbled on an aesthetic [principle] that the more simplified you made it, it naturally became a little bit more understood. At the same time, we couldn’t make it look too simple where it would be boring and cheap. So there’s an aesthetics that we applied to it. That was our natural artistic ability – composition and things of that nature.

As we did it, we started researching it a little more and becoming more in tuned with the whole Pop Art Movement. James Rosenquist, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol. The way they used color and took some of the most simplistic, mundane objects in everyday life and gave them this new value, that’s exactly what we gotta do to the t-shirt, and with our graphics. Give them this value that goes beyond just a logo shirt. The more we studied these artists, the more we picked apart the traits that we felt we were starting to understand. Once we started doing that, it brought back a lot of knowledge that we gained in high school that we never thought we’d even apply in life. A lot of designers at other brands don’t get to show their knowledge creatively because they’re trapped under the brand and in following protocol. We’re able to go to the [Metropolitan Museum of Art] on a Saturday and go, “That’s crazy! Let’s make an image of OutKast and flip it into a Picasso and cook up a Cubism Hip Hop joint!”

TEC: The way you just described that, you almost sound like a Hip Hop producer. To what extent would you compare yourself to one?

KB: That was a great question, because that’s one of things I’ve been [saying] over the last year to all my friends. I’m feeling like we’re producers. When you think about it, it’s exactly the same parallel. The traditional producer will hit the record shops, he would scour through these 100s of records, looking for that song. Truthfully, he doesn’t even know what he’s looking for, he just knows when it pops to him. It is the same thing with us. Whether we go to the library, or the Internet or just scour through old photo albums, you never really know what it is you’re looking for, you’re just looking for that vibe. That something that’s gonna make you say, “Touch this. Flip this.” Sometimes you don’t even know what you’re gonna do with it; you’ll just be like, “Yo, that image is kinda mean!” Sometimes you won’t know an image is right till you put it with another, that dope contrast. You could be taking from children’s books, mixing in something from maybe EPMD, something from Nice & Smooth, and you’re sampling! You’re taking different drums and snares, and you’re cookin’ up a song – but it’s a visual instead of being in audio.

TEC: Years ago, collaborations in fashion would have seemed counter-productive. When you look at Kid Robot, Milkcrate Athletics or Adidas, tell me what that’s done for your brand?

KB: You know what? I can’t really tell you the importance of every brand, ‘cause there’s so many reasons why you’d want to collaborate. I know with us, it’s just like in music – you’re collaborating because I would like to think you have some sort of respect for your collaborator. A lot of times, it’s just to create a mash-up, so to speak. It’s the exact equivalent of what Run-DMC and Aerosmith did [in “Walk This Way”]. When we first did it with DC Shoes, we are two New Yorkers, non-skateboarders, doing a collaboration with a skating brand located in San Diego. What is the correlation between this? We felt like no one from New York had ever brought attention to a skateboarding brand. That’s why none of us wear it, ‘cause we’re a basketball city. But what if somebody that [the people] respect did do that? I wonder what the outcome would be. We did it just to see.

When we did it with Adidas, it was perfect because, we had to finally do a basketball sneak. Adidas is one of the most traditional brands out there. There’s only one that’s more highly-regarded. We definitely have to do that, that’s just part of history.

With Milkcrate, it was one of those things where our brand was alive, it’s submerged in Hip Hop references. Here’s a dude [Aaron Lacrate] that’s been a DJ for a decade-plus, he’s from Baltimore, and on top of that, he was actually one of my influences. When I was 19 trying to figure out if this was even feasible, I picked up a magazine, and there was this 25 year-old who had his own clothing line.

TEC: Recently, online, somebody posted a picture of Soulja Boy wearing your De La Soul shirt. A lot of the comments were people criticizing him for supporting a group his movement is destroying. I’m not asking you on that, but I do want to know to what extent do you think your clothes are educational to this generation?

KB: We obviously didn’t start off to be that. But clearly, in the decay of the quality of music, we’ve actually taken notice to it. There is some degree of information we’re keeping in front of people. The more we continue to do that, the less you can forget about some of these figures within the culture. As far as Soulja Boy wearin’ it, I don’t even know if Soulja Boy knows that that’s De La Soul, but you know what? I think that’s positive because he’s gonna wear that, besides the fact that it’s gonna expose our brand to a wider audience, there’s also young kids that will wear it just because Soulja Boy wore it. Someone older’s gonna tell ‘em. Just like that, it may turn into a discussion. It definitely can be educational. If that’s happening, we’re definitely for that. I can at least be honest though, we don’t design specifically so that can happen.

TEC: What are you working on coming ahead?

KB: I’m excited about this season, because it’s actually our fifth anniversary – it passed two weeks ago. We’re gonna celebrate it this season. We called in some favors. We got some watches coming out this season, we have some ski parkas coming out this season, we have denim for the first time, coming out for the holiday. Off the top of my head, we got hats. Baseball caps and such. More tees that’s really just embodying everything that we’ve been about. We got the new website launching. I would love to see the reaction – we’re working on a music project. We’re adding a music division to Lemar and Dauley that we’ve already been working on called A-Side/B-Side Media. This particular season, we’ve been in the studio all summer working with a ton of producers. I’m very curious to see how the same eye that we have in design, people will see that we have a similar ear in music. We’re finding a lot of producers doing for this era, what the [legends] did for their era. We’re dropping a mixtape that’ll be downloadable from the Lemar and Dauley website, come November. I’m just curious to see the reaction we get.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 21st, 2008 at 2:23 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.