The video explores the journey of Jerry Lorenzo, a Los Angeles party promoter who transitioned into a renowned fashion designer. Initially inspired by the streetwear culture at his parties, Lorenzo struggled to find a t-shirt that matched his style, propelling him to create his own. This endeavor caught the attention of industry icons like Virgil Abloh and Kanye West, laying the foundation for his fashion career. He launched "Fear of God," a luxury line and its popular offshoot "Essentials," carving a niche for himself in the fashion industry and becoming an influential designer.

Jerry Lorenzo addresses the lifecycle of cultural movements and his brand's strategy focused on sustainability rather than short-lived hype. His brand, Fear of God, aims to create timeless pieces rather than following transient trends, maintaining a presence within the community. Lorenzo shares insights into his personal journey, his upbringing in multicultural environments, and discusses the influence of his parents on his life and ambition. Realizing the importance of staying true to himself and his values continues to be a guiding principle in his creative process and business strategy.

Main takeaways from the video:

Please remember to turn on the CC button to view the subtitles.

Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. intelligentsia [ɪnˌtɛlɪˈdʒɛntsiə] - (noun) - A group of intellectuals or people highly engaged in cultural and artistic pursuits. - Synonyms: (intellectuals, elite, thinkers)

Inspired by the streetwear intelligentsia at his events, and unable to find a simple t-shirt whose cut he liked, Lorenzo decided to make one himself.

2. sustain [səˈsteɪn] - (verb) - To keep up or maintain, especially over a long period. - Synonyms: (maintain, uphold, continue)

our goal has never been to stay at the top of a wave. You know, our goal is to be just to sustain.

3. reverence [ˈrɛvərəns] - (noun) - Deep respect for someone or something. - Synonyms: (respect, awe, veneration)

You know, it's a reverence

4. anticipation [ænˌtɪsɪˈpeɪʃən] - (noun) - Expectation or hope for something to happen, often with excitement. - Synonyms: (expectation, predict, foresight)

There was, like, this anticipation of, like, oh, my God, what's the next Jordan gonna be?

5. resonance [ˈrɛzənəns] - (noun) - The quality of being deep, full, and reverberating; connection or alignment with emotions or ideas. - Synonyms: (echo, reverberation, significance)

And clearly, even though they may have been sort of your demos, that first collection had a certain resonance.

6. conviction [kənˈvɪkʃən] - (noun) - A firmly held belief or opinion. - Synonyms: (belief, view, faith)

But everything I do, everything we do at fear of God is, like, really birthed out of a deep conviction.

7. aesthetic [ɛsˈθɛtɪk] - (noun / adjective) - Concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty; a set of principles underlying and guiding the work of a particular artist or artistic movement. - Synonyms: (artistic, beauty, style)

There’s an evolution of the aesthetic. It’s not like a change of the aesthetics.

8. nuance [ˈnuˌɑːns] - (noun) - A subtle or slight difference in expression, meaning, or response. - Synonyms: (subtlety, distinction, variation)

and designing and creating and the responsibility of being in the nuance of that side of it.

9. perils [ˈperəls] - (noun) - Serious and immediate danger. - Synonyms: (dangers, hazards, risks)

Lorenzo's vision would propel his company to unprecedented heights, but success would not make him immune to the perils of fame and fortune.

10. transparency [trænsˈpɛrənsi] - (noun) - The quality of being easily seen through or detected; openness and honesty in communication. - Synonyms: (openness, clearness, clarity)

I mean, we’re locked in until 25. We have product that’s coming out through 25.

How Jerry Lorenzos Quest for the Perfect T-Shirt Launched a Fashion Empire

In 2011, a 33-year-old party promoter in Los Angeles, California, had an idea. A former college athlete who had dabbled in sports management and retail fashion, Jerry Lorenzo found himself hosting some of the most celebrated parties in town. Inspired by the streetwear intelligentsia at his events, and unable to find a simple t-shirt whose cut he liked, Lorenzo decided to make one himself. That first product landed him on the radar of Virgil Abloh and then Kanye West, jumpstarting a career in fashion. He would launch his luxury line, Fear of God, and its mass-market spinoff Essentials, making Lorenzo one of the most acclaimed and popular designers of a generation.

You launched Fear of God about a little over ten years ago now, at what I would describe as the peak of the hype movement. Things have changed pretty dramatically over that period in a number of different ways. Where do you think we are in the life cycle of that sort of cultural movement? I mean, obviously, the moment of ten years ago is over, right? And I'd like to think it's progressed in a positive way. I think everything through time takes on a new shape, a new form. I think for us as a brand, in the beginning, I always knew whatever that wave was, whatever that time period was, it was gonna come to an end. Our goal has never been to stay at the top of a wave. Our goal is to just sustain so to always be in a position where we have a voice in the community. Setting up the business that way, it just allows us to authentically have something to say that doesn't require such a change in strategy every year, if that makes sense. So, we were blessed.

As the world got cozy during COVID, Essentials was here, right? And as the change from hype sneakers, we're here with something that really performs. You know, it's an honest shoe. It's not here for you to stand in line. It's here for you to go play basketball in it. And so I've always kind of felt as if things that are hype always die, and how are we creating things that kind of sustain the waves? You mentioned the footwear. What is your assessment of the current state of sneaker culture? I was never a sneakerhead. I graduated high school in '95. It was Jordans or nothing. We didn't know what was gonna happen after the ten. We didn't know what was gonna happen after the nine. There was an anticipation of, oh, my God, what's the next Jordan gonna be?

It's a different emotion when the band hits halftime and the stadium's rocking this way. It's like, how do you communicate that feeling through product, through a story we're telling you? I think that's the biggest thing I took from an HBCU was just like, is this gonna make us move as a people? But again, I feel like everyone has that unique perspective. I think my advantage is just like everyone else's advantage. And that advantage is I'm uniquely who I am, and no one can say what I want to say better than me, but that goes for everyone else on earth. And I feel what we do with Fear of God comes from such a unique and honest place, that really, my calling is only to say and do what only I can uniquely do.

But I could compete with anything that I had to do. So if I had to play third, I could play third, I could play second, I could play center. Similar to my dad, it was a utility guy. Wasn't the best at any one thing, but I could do a lot of things well. I was probably a better teammate than I was, like, the MVP player. I was, you know, the guy that's pulling the guys together and, hey, you know, still leading even though I wasn't the best player on the team. I think that was probably my greatest trait in sports. I knew how to lead from the back. I didn't have to lead, like, on the field. I think I learned that also from my dad.

How has that transition been from, you know, playing that position to now being the leader of this company for, you know, over a decade? Again, I think all things inform all things. At that time, I never thought that I would be in this position. When my dad was managing in the big leagues, I just didn't. I was like, oh, my God, what? I'm gonna go get my master's, try and get a front office gig with the baseball team. Because I can't, like, what dreams am I gonna chase that could ever amount to what he's doing? And I think, for me, it was more when I started to really realize that my giftings were different than what my dad's were. I realized that just through working retail, I just knew this clothing thing better than I realized I did.

You mentioned throwing these parties. These are the infamous JL parties. You know about these parties? Yes, JL Knights, exactly. They are definitely well known. The networking that was involved in there, I have noticed a trend, whether it is yourself, Virgil Tremaine, even the "Who Decides War" guys, Ed Bravano, all started in nightlife in one way or another, throwing parties. What is it about that scene and that energy that you think has created this nightlife-to-fashion pipeline? I think it's nightlife to, like, anything you do in life, really. You're working directly with people that are influencing culture at all times. At the same time, you're also serving, you're also providing a product, you're providing a party that you want people to attend because they want to have a good time, not because you're, like, calling them.

It's like, I want to make a sneaker. I want to make a blazer or a leather coat that you just want to wear. I don't want to make it and then call you all the time and say, yo, come get this jacket. I'm telling you it's cool. I'm telling you it's cool. It's like, no, just make the dopest party. So it's sort of foundational storytelling. Yeah, it's just like, just make the best party. It's not about, let me paint this pretty picture of what the party might be. And you're caught up in painting the picture instead of, like, really doing the work to build the party. And I think a lot of times people see the outside of maybe what can get someone interested in what they're doing. And that outside becomes a reality. And then you get inside, and it's empty.

I think the way that I connect with my community is just to be honest, is to be myself. I think as soon as I feel myself trying to get strategic or stepping outside of something I would do authentically, it feels forced, it feels fake, and I feel like I'm playing a game that is not a game that I'm good at. Outside of honesty and authenticity, it becomes strategic, and it becomes something that's not natural for me. So it's a lot easier for me to just approach things from an honest place.

You've talked also about how a lot of your design is informed by your own wants and needs and filling the white space that you personally see in the marketplace. What were the first items that you absolutely felt, I need this to exist in the world? And that inspired you know, that first line, a t-shirt. I just could not find a t-shirt that fit with the swag that I wanted to be myself in. And I just felt like if it was a long tee, it was Rick, and the fabric was feminine and it was skinny, and I looked a little goth. If it was AAA or something, I'm looking like Nelly, right? So it's like, what is this long t-shirt that feels vintage, that drapes in a way that's a little bit longer?

I just felt like I couldn't find it. So I just felt like, oh, I gotta make this. You invested $14,000 of your own money from your savings account to get that first collection made. Obviously, things worked out, and I'm sure that you've made that money back many times over, but in your head, when you made that investment, did you have sort of a cap at what you were willing, like, how far out onto the ledge you were willing to step financially? It's funny, cause we're at a place now where our numbers are similar to last year, but I'm closer to that ledge. Cause I'm investing more and more.

There's something also about being in these uncomfortable waters, as scary as it may seem, that I find more peace. And so, to answer your question, it's like I'm just used to it. Whether it's $14,000 or a couple hundred million dollars, I'm used to, like, Nipsey Hussle, all money in. That's just kind of what, you know what I mean? Because there's not, like, an end goal for me where it's like, oh, I'm trying to get to this number. No, I'm just trying to sustain this thing that I believe God has given me to somehow be an example and inspire. Hopefully, not the next designer, but, like, the next engineer, the next doctor, the next lawyer.

How far into the process of making that first collection did the brand of Fear of God come into focus for you? Again, I wanted this t-shirt. I wasn't really thinking of a brand. I was like, oh, I kind of want my hoodie to feel like this. Oh, I kind of want this, like, flannel to feel like this. But it's gotta be a low hood. It can't be too, too curt. It's gotta have some Riri gold zippers or whatever it may be. All of a sudden, I look up, and I've got a bunch of pieces that, to me, start to represent what a brand could be.

And as the pieces started to inform me, then I was like, okay, like, what's this? Like, I talked about my mom, this foundation. What is this brand gonna sit on? Because I'm not about to make clothes just to make somebody be cool. Like, that's the corniest thing in the world, right? Like, what is the real message that I can, like, build this on top of so that I can always feel as if I'm giving to somebody beyond a solution to their wardrobe. And that's just kind of how Fear of God came to be.

With a clear understanding of his brand and its purpose, Lorenzo received an early crash course in design and celebrity from Kanye West. Lorenzo's vision would propel his company to unprecedented heights, but success would not make him immune to the perils of fame and fortune. You were talking about arriving on sort of the deeper meaning of Fear of God and how that became sort of a north star for the brand, for the collection, everything. What was that meaning? What is the sort of mission statement? I mean, Fear of God is at the essence of who I am. It's a reverence. It's not really a fear. It's a reverence for something, someone greater than yourself.

I think, again, it was like, hey, here's this thing that's foundational to what I base my life on. I can always feed this clothing company this message, because at the end of the day, this is the essence of who I am. At the same time, having conviction that the well from which these ideas came from, these first few or five pieces, I felt was just barely scratched. I also look at those collections and, like, oh, my God, I was, like, learning in front of the world. My first collection is literally the first pieces I ever designed.

And clearly, even though they may have been sort of your demos, that first collection had a certain resonance, and famously, you gifted it to Virgil, who then put it in front of Kanye, and you were summoned to Atlantic City and enter the whirlwind that is Kanye West. Obviously, you were in a very formative stage of your own development of your creative process, and he was at a moment where he was operating at sort of peak powers. How did that experience sort of change how you thought about creation?

I learned a lot. I learned a lot. Extremely thankful for that time. I had just started. When I went and met with Ye that night, all I had was my samples and a campaign that we shot with those samples. Then he asked me, hey, can you be in Paris in a week or two? He's like, I'm working on this APC collab. I was like, sure. So that whole time we were working together, we were trying to figure out how I run my business that I started that attracted him to me coming on board, to how am I serving what he's building? How do I separate the two?

And it was like the first collection with APC where he didn't feel any lines getting blurred. It was me. I was like, oh, my God, this is very similar to what I just showed you, kind of with Fear of God. Then I'm talking to my boy Ivan, and I'm just like, yo, like, what do I do? Should I say something? And he was just like, hey, bro, that's why you're here. Like, do you want this experience or not? He just kept it really real with me. And I was just like, all right, I understand. So from then, it was like, okay, I gotta serve what he's trying to do, because there's no doubt that the school of Kanye West was probably the best school that I could have ever gone to.

And trying to learn how to do this on my own, you know, being exposed to so many different parts of not only the clothing business but everything else, obviously, that he was attached to, being able to give ideas to that and watch those ideas blossom. And, you know, it was three and a half years of doing everything from APC to the merch to Yeezy seasons one through three, to day to day, you know, what's he wearing to a fashion show, and just being in those rooms and every other creative conversation that we had that I'm super grateful for, but, like, everything, you know, ran its course.

What happened? That sort of set you guys on separate paths. If I look back now, I mean, it was just destined to be that way. God gave me a vision to start Fear of God. He didn't give me a vision to build someone else's empire. God gave him a vision to build his own empire. At some point, you know, we have to follow that direction, other than trying to find a synergy for both to work within these realms. I think, quite simply, that's kind of how it ended. I think he, as you can see, his point of view is so different than what we were doing in that era.

And mine is very similar because the thing that I'm chasing hasn't changed. And you can see that through the aesthetics. There's an evolution of the aesthetic. It's not like a change of the aesthetics. I think Kanye is creative in a way where he changes the aesthetics. You hear 808 H and then you hear Yeezus, right? And there's a harsh change in how he redirects, and that's just how he is creatively. Some of those changes, I just didn't really fit.

I've seen recent interviews where people are speaking a little bit more vocally about those times, but they also don't understand the weight and pressure that someone like that is under when you have that much influence. So I have a lot of grace and understanding because what little influence I have has created problems for me in my personal life. When you start to think that you're responsible for things, when it's really given to you from God. So, I'm really careful with judging someone that's given that much influence and that much gifting. That's a heavy weight that very few people really understand.

All of my mistakes, big or small, inform me to constantly make sure I'm in a place where I'm in the will of what God has for me to do. I can feel when I'm outside of that. I can feel when it's too much Jerry Lorenzo, not enough of the calling on my life. I think that's when my biggest mistakes happen, when I think it's all me or it's all relying on my shoulders. When you did step out on your own, was that an anxious or were you filled with trepidation?

I think in the beginning, I was. I almost felt like I kind of had lost myself within those three and a half years and was further and further away from what I felt like God really had directed and set me out to do. So I was really just kind of chasing, okay, God, I just want to be in your plan and purpose. I never wanted to be in the cool kid club. To be in that world with these super cool, influential guys is like, I didn't really feel like I fit in. I feel like I kind of lost my way in who I was.

So right after that, I was just trying to get back to, okay, I'm gonna get back to Jerry. What is Jerry founded on? Jerry's founded on God, purpose, intention. Then months later, I get reached out to by Justin Bieber. Me and my kids are rocking this album. Do I like his swag? Oh, it's so. I do. I feel like I can help. Yeah. And I believe what he's trying to say with purpose and how he's trying to change his life. Like, let's go. I'm down. I'm down to help you.

I felt like, had I still been in that cool kid mentality, I'd be like, oh, nah, I'm too cool. It's too popular, or whatever it may be. To answer your question, there's always been these moments in my life, wherever I doubt myself, I'm no longer working with the coolest group in the world. But God has always shown me that, hey, I got you. As soon as you get back, back on track. Hey, I got you. And that's the one thing that I just hold on to. Whether it's personal problems that I'm dealing with, stopping drinking again or like, as soon as I get back and in kind of the pocket with him, I feel covered. I feel at peace. So that's why I chase that feeling more than I do anything else.

You mentioned stopping drinking again. Now, obviously, you went sober. It was actually right after I stopped working with Ye. It was like eight years ago, coming off throwing parties and then on Peace's tour, partying. Like I'm the one on stage, backstage. Like, I just was a mess. You know what I mean? Like, I gotta get back to Jerry. Then you go through this rise of building a brand, and you start to get recognition, and you start to become influential in your own space. And then you start to think that it's you instead of this relationship, the spiritual relationship that's been directing you. You start to carry the weight of everything you're building with weight, with pressure.

Comes the need to medicate, the need to, like, how do I forget that I've got all of these financial issues with the company to deal with? I have HR issues. I have to let go of this person. How does their family gonna feel? Designing and creating and the responsibility of being in the nuance of that side of it. It can get very heavy. And as it got heavy, I just said, okay, let me. How do I medicate? How can I sleep? How can I turn this thing off? It just was a place that in that I never found peace. I might have found, like, a night's sleep, but the next day, like, the demons and the responsibility are, like, just as heavy, right?

Crazily enough, like what's been built is even more fragile and larger, right? So any type of decision, all of this comes crumbling. Fast forward to the beginning of this year, I was just like, all right, God, I gotta get back to Jerry. I gotta get back to me and you. Cause this Jerry Lorenzo dude, like, I'm cool on him. I never wanted to be that dude anyway. I don't even want to be that character. I just want to be in line with you and be where you want me to be, and I can trust that.

So, you know, now I'm on my second stint of putting that down, and I just feel like drinking. You become loved by the party. You become loved by everyone that really doesn't matter. But drinking kind of hurts the people that you love the most, and it hurts the people that you really, that care for you the most. Again, that's why it's like, I would never point a finger at Kanye. No one knows that weight. No one knows. I don't know. That man was built to have that type of influence and fame and notoriety. Like, the weight of that is just insane if you don't give it to the one that gave you the gift.

So this is my back off of it. Since January, I feel better. I feel like Jerry again. After returning to a more grounded approach, Lorenzo navigated the mixed response to a high-profile collaboration with Adidas. While continuing to push Fear of God outside its comfort zone, branching into new markets, Lorenzo and his brand continue to be driven by a singular sense of purpose.

You've scaled the team and the business from basically yourself and then a small staff, to now 70, 80 people. What has been the part that you've felt the most challenged in learning and overcoming? I've always had the vision of where we're going. I've been driven by that t-shirt, what it cost me to make that t-shirt, I didn't care about. Unfortunately, I'm still driven by this vision and in getting to what I think is a finish line. There's a lot of things that I do that are not efficient, are not managed properly, and we have now been products of some of those bad business decisions.

Having a CEO that can help design the play and how we get to the vision, I'm finding peace again and being able to continue to dream a little more freely without also being bogged down on what our organizational chart looks like, who reports to who and who is responsible for what. You mentioned the weight, and in watching and listening to many of your interviews in the past, you talk about HR issues a lot just in passing, but do I? That maybe I should. I just care about my. I care about people, man. Like, I care that people have bought into this thing that started off as a dream. I care that someone wants to come here and help me build this.

When things aren't working, I really care. I really carry that with me. Those are hard decisions for me to make, and I just had to get to a place where, hey, is this person taking you further away from where God is calling you to take this? Is your responsibility this person and their family, or is your responsibility to answer this call? That's been one of the toughest things as a brand owner because I don't have investors. It is me. At the end of the day, it's like, Jerry, let me go. You know how that person feels.

I feel like I failed a lot. That's what drives me to consistently want to achieve, consistently want to be better. I feel like I could be a better husband, I could be a better father, I could be a better brother, a better friend. I see myself failing the word fail more in important areas of my life, not so much in the business. Those are more like learnings. It's like, okay, I've learned that now. I've gained the wisdom to attack that or approach that in a different way with relationships or those deeper responsibilities. That's when you really feel the weight of whether you showed up the right way or not.

I think it's incredibly impressive that you've essentially self-funded this thing. You've never taken on money or investment from outside. When we entered the relationship with Essentials, the relationship was a license. Pacsun wasn't doing well at the time. We were only in Pacsun before we took it and distributed it ourselves. I said, if you want to continue this relationship, like, this is mine, and I'll give you a percentage, but no longer am I going to be the one taking a small percentage on all of my ideas. That switch was, I would say, an extremely baby investment in order to help us kind of make that switch. But 99% of this is ours.

I don't say that with pride, because that doesn't mean it's the only way or the best way to do things. It also comes with a lot of weight. I watched all of my peers with partners, I watched Off White become Off White when he went and partnered up with those partners, and I watched all of these brands take off. But something about that partnership, if it's not really, really right, I just don't have the capacity to answer to someone else's, like, because they invested, they have a point of view on where I'm taking this, and I know that where I'm taking this is always going to be an unorthodox new way that I have to go back and sell you on. I don't have capacity to do that and run a company and design next season and the seasons after that. So, in some way, shape, or form, it's easier for me to just carry the weight of that. But at the same time, the weight of that is like, it's heavy.

Well, some decisions are bigger than others, and one of the ones that stands out to me was you launched the Fog line with PacSun to a lot of success and acclaim, and fairly quickly pivoted and rebranded it as Essentials. Some people would say, what is it? A name, right? Because the clothes are the clothes. But clearly, for you, that rebranding was essential, no pun intended, for you to sort of bring that idea to its logical conclusion. What was it about Fog as a name that just didn't sit right with you? Number one, I hate the way. I hate the word fog. It just doesn't sound cool.

Then two, it just feels like a watered down version of a real thing where Essentials felt like something necessary, it felt like something foundational, something you needed, something that you could grab and put that against, something luxury and aspirational. They work together, not that you were wearing something luxury and something that was a watered down version of that. Essentials needed to be accessible aspiration. It couldn't just be aspiration at a low price and not really be aspirational because it's trying to be something else, like H&M and Zara. For me, it needed to be true to what its intended purpose was, couldn't just be a business play. So the call on what we do is, is this product what it was intended to be? Does it do exactly what we designed it to do? That's how it's considered good. Forget if it's cool. Forget if it's hot. Is it good?

And that's what we're trying to do. We're just trying to make good, honest product. I feel like the first sneaker was positioned as basketball, but it's heavy. This was for the Adidas sneaker. It was some dishonesty there. To me, it's the most beautiful shoe, but does it do what it's intended to do? It's not. Finally, we're at a place with this two where I feel like, okay, we got a basketball sneaker. You can, for real, hoop in it, and it's gonna do what it's intended to do, and that'll be the judge of where athletics goes and what is next for athletics. We finally delivered on this promise of what this is going to be.

This is our latest ready-to-wear mainline collection that's up here, and a little peek at our first performance basketball shoe that's on the way. I know shape is something that is very important to you when it comes to footwear. Can you tell me a little bit about both the psychology and then also the engineering to achieve this? I think that's where I have to credit the Adidas team into, like, taking this, taking my shape, and putting it into a performance shape that allows for the athlete to do what he needs to do. I think from my seat, shape is so important just because if you want this shoe to transcend the court, you know, it's got to work beyond just with your uniform.

What is it, like, design-wise about most basketball sneakers that you think makes that prohibitive? The toe, the toe box. You could look at, like, all the retro Jordans, right? You look at, like, the first Jordan and three, and it's like the other ones are wider. They kind of lift up a little bit. Obviously, that's need for you to be able to run. That's just a difference from, I think, when I wore those in high school, junior high, today, where it's just kind of like, something wrong with that toe that I just can't unsee.

You spent a considerable amount of time and energy working with the Adidas team, I would imagine, to figure out how to sate your aesthetic concerns but also their performance requirements, 1000%. And this time, I don't feel like we compromised one or the other. I feel like we were honest in both the shape and the performance of the shoe. That was the goal, where maybe the first shoe shape was probably dead on, but the weight performance wasn't all the way there. This time, I feel like we landed where we always wanted to land.

A very long time ago, you mentioned this sort of evolved thinking around the Adidas collaboration. Obviously, when you signed that deal, it was a huge news story and there was quite a bit of fanfare around the show you did at the Hollywood Bowl. Here you now have some distance from that rollout and how it was received. How do you feel about it? How does it inform the decisions that you're making moving forward? Again, everything informs everything.

I think we were just really put in a very tough spot. I signed a contract, and there was an announcement made two days later. We hadn't even found a way of working together. We hadn't even found a rhythm. There were some bullets of here's how we'll creative direct and here's how we'll build athletics and here's how we'll meet in between and create a halo to inform the category. But we still need to figure out what does that look like? It took years to figure that out. When we released the Nike shoe, that was two and a half years of work done.

When we announced that shoe came out two weeks later, we had done the hard work. You have all this anticipation, and then you have something that doesn't do what we promised it was going to do. That reception was somewhat expected in a way. Even though I love the shoe, even though I think it's the most beautiful shoe on the market, just selfishly or narcissistically, if it's not doing what we promised it to do, then how can we expect anything else? I'm not an entertainer. I don't have a new song coming out. I'm not gonna go host a party. I don't have a TV show. I'm not an influencer in that way.

I make products, and my following is expecting me to make what I tell them I'm going to make. There's nothing else other than that that allows Fear of God to be here. So if this relationship isn't operated in this way where we deliver on this at a baseline, then it's not going to be what you're expecting it to be, unfortunately. That's probably something that I feel like Adidas may not really have understood.

Speaking to that, I read somewhere recently you were talking about the partnership with Adidas, and you sort of floated a certain level of uncertainty about the future of the partnership in the quote that I thought was interesting because you don't usually hear people be that transparent about sort of where these things that go on behind closed doors are. Where are you with that partnership now? I mean, we're locked in until 25. We have products coming out through 25.

I'm focused on the relationship and the agreement that I signed, and I'm delivering on that. What happens after that? Of course, it's uncertain because our agreement is only up to a certain part. As a business owner, I'm fully responsible for Fear of God. I'm fully responsible for Essentials. I think in the first probably two years of our relationship, I probably gave that way more than I gave the things that we have because I knew it had so much writing on it.

This is not a jump from Nike to Adidas for a better deal. No, I believe this is written. I believe this is a third pillar in our business. I believe three stripes means something more than three stripes to me. It's the trinity. I believe there's something deeper here, and I went about it in that way, with a lot of things that I did not have control over other than how much I gave to it.

I think fundamentally, how companies operate fundamentally. Fundamentally, Fear of God never was on season. We deliver collections when they're ready because I can't afford for it not to be ready. Fundamentally, we just operate differently. Fundamentally, Adidas has a board of investors, a board of directors that they have to answer to different things. Their deadlines are different. There are different things there that sometimes battle with how we just approach the product. And so we've had to find this consistent rhythm for the past three and a half, four years of how we can work together.

But it's not like, oh, bad blood. It's just grown man talk. Hey, this is my business. I'm responsible for this. I'm not talking to anyone there that's responsible. Those are their jobs, but it's not their babies. You know what I mean? This is my given. This is my life.

So I'm coming to this at a whole different way. Whether you're the CEO or whoever at any company, you're not coming from the same seat that I'm coming from. That's where I have empathy for someone like Kanye. Kanye's like, I'm giving you me. Who am I talking here to that has this much on the line that I do? No one.

Success is peace. Success is like being at home without worry, concern. I think what we're all chasing is peace more than anything. I think once you start to define success based on anything external, then that external circumstance or that external reward becomes a false measure, and you chase that instead of inner peace. I think inner peace is really what we're all striving for.

You said that you would never sell the business, which, you know, for many entrepreneurs is the goal, is to build something and then hand it off to somebody else for a nice bag. Given that this is sort of an endless marathon that you are now running, how do you keep yourself focused? You asked me that question today. It's like a different hat because it's like, I actually may need some assistance if I want to keep this thing going. I actually can't do this all on my own, depending on where I feel like I want to go with it. At some point, your internal team needs to get better.

Your external resources, how those resources come in and invest for it to be what you want it to be, everything is constantly being evaluated on, hey, in order for us to go here, maybe able to get there quicker. This way doesn't change where we want to go. But I think the methods, whether it's investment, whether it's growing your team or whatever it may be, those things may change.

Where we're trying to go, where I'm trying to take, this thing hasn't. But I have to be honest and open to, okay, what's the best way we're getting there? What is that goal? Where is it that you want to go? I mean, we have a piece of the brand called Eternal. I just want this thing, Rolex perpetual. I just want this thing to keep going, Ralph Lauren, I want this thing to be beyond Jerry getting a fit off, and it be about myself. It needs to get beyond that. That's the goal.

That's the goal for this thing to just again, be sustainable, for this thing to continue, for it to always be in a position where it has the right to dream big. If we want to say, hey, we want it to be that we've done the work that allows us to dream there. I never want to be in this thing where I feel like we're at a position where we don't even have the ability to dream. And I think that's what I'm kind of fighting for. This place where I can always dream of what this can be. As long as I'm there, then I'm good.

Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Inspiration, Jerry Lorenzo, Fashion Industry, Streetwear, Bloomberg Originals