THROUGH THE EYES OF THE CULTURE: K. MICHAEL
INTERVIEW KB Tindal
“you're only as good as your last design and you're only as good as your last dollar.” -K. Michael
When you talk about Black Designers, people tend to focus on street oriented urban brands, but no one ever really talks about sunglasses. Yes, there have been Black celebrities that have produced sunglasses in addition to clothing lines, but only one brother is an eyewear designer and focuses strictly on eyewear. Spanish Harlem New York native Khristian Michael has been bringing you his unparalleled brand of eyewear for several years and now he’s back with his newest collection TheEverCollection.com
The last time I interviewed K. Michael in 2013 we spoke on an array of topics and this time was no different. We touched base on everything from losing money to build your brand, clout chasing on social media, the disrespect Gucci has for Black people our finances and our culture, old Jay-Z vs. new Jay Z, brand ambassadors vs. celebrity brand ambassadors, overseas musical influences, Kanye West, Shaquille O’neal, Colin Kaepernick, Cardi B, Fashion Nova and more. Come take a ride with an eyewear visionary as Validated Magazine brings you up close and personal with a clear view into the world of K. Michael.
VALIDATED: Now let's just jump into it. First of all, as a designer, what do you think about this whole situation that went on with Gucci and the blackface sweater that they put out on the market?
K. MICHAEL: It was tasteless, man. I don't know who was working on the PR team, you know, but given the history of blackface and understanding how, you know, it's been for black people and what it was used for, it was done in poor taste. It was tasteless. Meaning that I'm not sure if anybody at Gucci, we know that blacks were a good consumer of high end products, but it just goes to show that they don't care. So I don't know if anyone did it on purpose. Could be, maybe not, but it shows that blacks are a big supporter of Gucci, you don't hear of any Caucasian rock artists, singers, opera, nothing. The only company you ever hear being mentioned when it comes to music is in hip hop is Gucci and hip hop is a huge, it's huge. It's the number one, number one consumer for music in the world is hip hop. It’s the most streamed, it’s the most downloaded, it's got the most viewed it’s,hip hop and R&B. Chris Brown just broke like a billion streams. He just, he just broke that. So it just goes to show you, he's the most streamed artist since Michael Jackson or most listened to artist since Michael Jackson. That's incredible. Yeah. So it is man, it just goes to show the power of black culture and the power of Black music and the fact that you know, Gucci is insensitive and doesn't take the time to know their consumer is a problem. If you have a product and you have to know your consumer.
VALIDATED: How should we as a culture approach these kinds of things? Is it as simple as just doing a boycott of a brand or is it something more that we should be doing on our end to bring more awareness and not endorse these brands as a whole. What do you think we should be doing?
K. MICHAEL: Your money, man. The United States of America is a capitalist country. You know, the world functions around money, but especially in the US. So you got to hit them where it hurts and that’s in their pockets. And even if they don't know and they weren't educated in it, when their pockets are hurting, they're going to know. You just have to make it your business. Especially when you're taking people's money. You know, gays is a legit term. You can't go around calling people queers and fags. You can't do that, right? You have to educate yourself in that space on what is the right term and what is not the right term, what is incorrect, what is hurtful, and you have to educate yourself in that.
I'm from Spanish Harlem, right? So I can't go around and call everyone Dominican or Puerto Rican and Mexican.You need to know the difference. You know, or you want to call them, you know, Latina, Latin, you need to know, so we live in an era or we live in a time where things can be really sensitive and you have to educate yourself. And Gucci is no exception to that especially with how much money they make off of Black culture.
Yeah. You know this is not to disrespect the company. I had a meeting with them a while ago actually. I remember them totally. When I signed with them, they thought that I was actually Italian, and I said well why would you think that? And they said, well, because your name is Michael and Michael's an Italian name. Michael is not a Black name. So when I got there and we signed anyway,and they said, we think this may work. And I said, well, why is that beyond my talent? And they said, well, you're Black. Black consumers spend a ton of money, but your name was Italian. He said, they don't spend money on black brands. I said, well what do you mean by that? And these guys are filthy rich. And they said, well, we did a test with eye wear where we were selling through the licensing, we were selling Sean John, Phat Farm, Baby Phat ENYCE, Marc Ecko, we were selling it all, and he goes, they didn't want it. They wanted Gucci Prada, Fendi, Ferragamo, Coach, Michael Kors. And he says with your name being Michael, you know and you being Black, maybe we’ve got the best of both worlds here. So I think my point is that some of these companies they know what they are doing.
VALIDATED: The last time we spoke it was 2013. I'm glad to see that your still out there doing exactly what it is that you do. So the last time we spoke you were in 40 countries and 1500 malls, with The Forever Collection. Tell me where the business is at now. Tell me about the new collection and how it's grown over the years.
K. MICHAEL: Well, right now what we've done is we've pivoted. So we were licensed by NYS Collection and they put us through their distribution channel and their distribution channel was 42 different countries, 1500 malls worldwide. They are number one in mall franchises for eyewear and number two as far as eyewear out there in retail behind the Luxottica, which no one's ever going to touch them because they own 90% of the market. Well, what we did was we said, okay, I'm getting a royalty rate and this is why I want to educate. So they were giving me a royalty and here I am going on all these years there. I'm still licensed there, but to me I wasn't really, I was hanging out with Millionaires, but I'm still not a Millionaire. But I’m hanging out with them or hanging out with NYS Collection, I'm meeting Mary Gleason and the owners or the president of Judith Leiber the most expensive custom jewelry person in the world. So I’m feeling some kind of way, man. I gotta find a way to, in essence cut out the middleman. So my company is being licensed. My brand's being licensed by NYS. I pivoted and I ended up going overseas myself to China, sourcing products myself with my elite team that has been with me for about 10 years. The same team that helped build Forever K. Michael, the same team that help build Shaquille O'Neal’s Dunkman Eyewear, the same team that did everything, in Dubai, London, Germany. We sourced through China and we went and we spent six figures. And I say that not to brag but I say it because it's f****** real. I didn't say made it. I said I f****** spent it. So we went overseas, we sourced it ourselves. We brought it back here and opened up in some high end locations in United States of America, San Francisco, Virginia, DC, Hawaii, Texas, Colorado, Seattle, Washington. And uh, we're currently an e commerce also. So we have a brand called The Ever Collection and we launched our brand where I don't want to continue to give up and just get a royalty, you know, I can only do it for so long. I think I really want it to be what I claimed to be on social media. And I think I believed for years that I wasn't that, even though I was building, I wasn't that. Now I can truly say I'm a real boss doing it my way. NYS helped me build it up. They licensed it, they put it out there, they made it f****** real. But now we've got to make real money and I’m not just getting a royalty every three months.
VALIDATED: It's good that you pointed out how people use social media to portray something that they're not, or something that they aspire to be and sometimes that causes a lot of harm to the youth that see this stuff and they believe that everything that they see is real. What was that turning point for you where you said my image per se is not really living up to the person that I am and now I need the two to match up?
K. MICHAEL: Being on social media has been great. So here's the thing, real life is happening to people and you know, starting off in the Myspace days and going into Facebook was cool but now with Instagram and Snapchat is cool but then growing up watching Jay Z and Diddy and watching videos and watching everyone else go through real life, right. Where it just was information was shared. You know, and this may sound a little bit, I don't know how it sounds, but it's my perspective. So what helped me was looking at people I looked up to, who were pouring out their hearts because they could no longer hide behind their stardom. It was too real. Everything's so transparent. So let me give you an example. I used to love Fat Joe, and I remember back in the day hearing Fat Joe in the Barbershop talk about how no one would call out his name and how he would beat your a** if you called out his name. But to see him go to prison for tax evasion and hear him cry and plea about why he shouldn't go to prison and to see people like Lauryn Hill locked up, to see Beyonce get cheated on by Jay Z, and I don’t mean to blast, I love these people, but this is real life and they’re human right? But real life was happening and i’m thinking, wait a minute, as I'm growing up, ‘cause I've been doing this 10 years and I'm 10 years older than I was in 2009 when I started, so with me growing up and with social media and seeing people's lives being exposed, you go, wait a fucking minute, wait, stop everything. I was sold on something that I believed was real and I can admit to that. I was sold on something I believed was real and as I begin to go through real life and see my own challenges and see my heroes melting under pressure, crying out to God, and Beyonce putting out a whole f****** album about why Jay Z cheated on her and asking the world to see it basically, you know what I mean? I started saying, wait a minute, I had to take a step back and look at my own life. Like I said, I can't feed into this. Social media has exposed everything. When Puff lost Kim Porter, you see this man deleted all those posts he was crying out to God like please God help me, help my heart. Real life is happening to people and you go, oh s***, who the f*** am I?
If they're going through it at that level, with all that money, oh my God. I better reevaluate my situation, reevaluate my priorities, reevaluate what’s real, you know, and then when you give it 100% and you work really, really hard and you spend all this money, you’re doing all these things and now you're designing on the side for a company, you're going into an office in a cubicle, and you’re the great K. Michael, and you're designing for someone and people go, hey man, what happened? You used to be on Instagram traveling around the country. Now you're in a cubicle designing for us and ‘cause you need extra money and then you go, wait a minute man, I have worked too f****** hard for somebody to f****** play me and talk to me like this where I've spent six figures, I battled, you know, Shaquille O'Neal's people to keep them in a deal when they wanted out when I didn't reach my $1.1 million quota, right? You know what I mean? And kept them in a contract and then you started saying, wait, a f****** minute, real life has happened. I have battled for real. And you just get a whole different perspective on life and what's real and what's not. And I think everyone will come to that point and this depends on when you're going to come to that point, and when you’re going to be honest with yourself. And that's what happened for me, it was just a series of things and watching people growing up, going through real life, going through growing pains, watching my heroes at the same time and them not hiding behind the video and great makeup and some slow motion music in a music video when they were going through real life.
VALIDATED: When you witnessed all of these things happening did it make you look down on certain people in the industry or did it make you look down on how certain people conducted business? Being that you started this brand and then you ended up in a place where you weren't comfortable and you were having to do things that didn't sit well with you and you had to reevaluate your whole process. Did it make you say I want to do things differently?
K. MICHAEL: Great question. It didn't make me look down on people as it may be. I was more disappointed in myself and not believing my true heroes, which was my mother and father telling me certain things because they were just hardworking people who were just farmers and who were hard working. My Dad was a farmer and my mother was in financial banking and explaining to me certain things, because they didn’t have to understand business, because they knew real life. I didn't look down on people as much as I was disappointed at myself that it took me till I was d*** near 40 to figure it out. And I was mad at myself and I go, what happened? How did you all allow social media, the facades in music videos, the facades in meetings make you believe these things were real?
Kanye West said it the best. He said in an interview once, he said, “marketing is done at such a high level, we don't know what the f*** to believe is real.” I think for me it was like Kanye West saying he was going to run for President like three years ago and me going hell yeah, I'll get behind him! And then watching him go say that Trump hat made him a superhero and make me go, well, wait a f****** minute man. I'm no longer running behind these people. I'm being my own g****** man. It took me until they were just constantly letting me down to go, Jesus, man you know I wanted to believe in you. Now I believe in my own d*** self, I'm my own man and you know no one is gonna influence me on s***. I used to be influenced by these things, being influenced helped me grow my brand. It's helped me be who I am. So it takes that balance.
VALIDATED: How did all of that influence your business practices? How did that make you step your game up?
K. MICHAEL: It made me see that I have to be independent. I better put up my own money. I better use my own marketing money. My own design money. I better get two, three jobs. I better deliver newspapers and do everything I have to do. Who cares what people think, until I get my own and I can be my own man and have my own money and do it my way.
When I wanted to sign Colin Kaepernick, when he got let go and Shaq goes on TV and says, “I just don't know why he just couldn't find a different way to support. Why did you have to take your knee? Like I don't, I don't understand that, he could have found a different way and I don't agree with him taking a knee.” And I said, my God man. You know, I took you over Jennifer Lawrence when she had three number one movies. They said to me, what do you want? We can get you Jennifer Lawrence or we can get you Shaquille O'Neal. I said I want Shaq! But seeing that made me go, oh my God, man, what have I done? So yeah, people's opinions and their business practices and what they decide to do, you know, how they're functioning in the real world, not throwing a basketball around and not doing a commercial for Icy Hot or The General, I'm talking real life, has made me and it has shaped me, and it has molded me, defined me, and beat the brakes off me all in one.
VALIDATED: I bet it has man. Going through all of that and having family or having a significant other and, having people that you care about and people that look up to you and look to you for guidance, how has this whole thing made you stronger?
K. MICHAEL: You know it's made me realize what's important. It's given me the ultimate chin check for humility because I was built up to believe that I was this big designer and when it didn't get as big as I wanted it to be or deals weren’t going where I thought they were going to go, you know, it put me in a place of humility, you know, for people who are striving to be at a fraction of where I am but yet I'm not treated like an elite like I want to be, like around the people who I can do business with and who have I have on speed dial. You know, it's like being sonned. So it just gave me a reality check. Like, d***, I better get my priorities right. I better check myself and put myself in a place of humility. I better understand what's important is the only people who were around was Kelvin and Dominic Hamilton, my partners, you know, the woman that I'm dating, my mom and dad, so the real people who were around because everyone else who I was making money with or doing designing with, you're only as good as your last design and you're only as good as your last dollar. So it was about the real people who kept it 100 with me such as yourself, you know, who still want to talk to me and do an interview with you, you know, or give you their platform where they’ve got 3 million followers or 3000 followers. Man, I just found that being in a place of humility and putting my priorities in check were the best route to go.
VALIDATED: In the past when we’ve talked you expressed that a lot of the music that came out of SouthSide Jamaica, Queens influenced you. Musically, right now, what are you listening to and what's influencing K. Michael?
K. Michael: I've taken it overseas. Man, I'm listening to a lot of stuff that I'm finding. Again, these powerful tools like Instagram, you know, where I'm following people like Nicolay and the Foreign Exchange, Phonte from Little Brother, has a group called the Foreign Exchange. I know The Breakfast Club features a lot of stuff like Tekashi 69 and Blueface but I’m really out of the loop on that stuff. I’m listening to a lot of stuff from the Netherlands, Europe, Dubai. I'm overseas or wherever and I'm on another planet with my music.
VALIDATED: I'm sure you have kids that look up to you and kids that aspire to be designers and stuff like that. When they look at a situation like the Tekashi where everybody from Fat Joe to a ton of other people were telling him, look, you're moving the wrong way. These people are watching you and they're gonna come after you. What do you tell the kids about chasing their dreams and how not to fall into some of those pitfalls along the way?
K. MICHAEL: You know, it's so powerful, man. The music is so powerful. The culture is so powerful. I honestly didn't think that, you know the real thing is, not saying I'm a complete street guy, but you know, I come from New York you know, and I’ve had some tussles and I've seen some things and done some things, you know, but the reality is he's not even built like that. I see right through that. A real street cat or a real hood cat or a real gangster man, who’s in the streets man, who’s earned his stripes and put in that work, knows Tekashi’s not built like that man. They’re making an example out of a kid who was just entertaining and stupid. My God, man. You know, you're messing with the Feds bro and thank God, the culture has changed so you being a, what they call a snitch or a rat ain't going to matter if he by chance makes it out of a 97.9% conviction rate, If he happens to make it out of there the culture has changed. So I don't think it's going to affect his music as much because they don't care. And they were doing him dirty too. His crew, were doing him dirty so I feel that’s a tit for tat type of deal. But I feel like through the culture, the kids have an opportunity to see on social media and see how real it is because you can front all you want, but there's real information being shared. There's people who are sharing real information and it's all over social media. So you get the fluff, but then you also get the realness, you know, people are recording fights that are happening and people are sharing information and indictments and phone calls are being recorded and put on Instagram. I just heard when he talked about snitching, he was like, Yo, I’m facing mad years and I’m not doing all these years man. He made it clear that he’s not doing all that time. It’s just really sad man, because it's like, really? The Feds picking on an innocent child. Come on man he folded within 45 days. He'll be more in demand when he comes out then he was before when he went in, you know, guaranteed man.
VALIDATED: I was listening to an old Jay Z interview when Charlie Rose interviewed him and somebody in the audience asked him what he thought about going back to Marcy projects and buying the projects and trying to change some things and Jay says that that's not going to make a difference. He said what we have to do is change the mindset of these kids and have them think differently, he said where they live is irrelevant, it's the way that they're thinking that is destroying the generation. How do you feel about that?
K. MICHAEL: I was talking to a good friend of mine who loves Jay Z and they asked me about the 444 album and what I think about it and I have a bittersweet taste in my mouth about it, he said, wow, how could you man with all the gems he's dropping. I said yeah but you sold me on drugs and guns. You sold me on everything. And I bought into it and I'm mad at myself and I'm mad at him. And yes he’s educating the culture, but it took him till he was 50 years old to do it, like he's 50 now, man. And I'm like, he doesn't look it, he doesn't act it but at the same time I can't be mad because you have to give a person time to grow and because he's Jay Z, we're not being fair to him. He's not the same. I'm not the same. But I bought into everything that you said. I bought into you. You know what would Jigga do, you know, Jigga my Nigga, I bought into the whole thing. Right? So a lot of kids are being influenced man. And how you influenced these kids is important and it's really tough. I don't have the answer like, d***, you know, because no one could have told me during my time what I was doing was wrong. No one could have told me that those things weren't real. You could not have told me that. The only thing that told me that was life lessons and watching them evolve and grow while I’m evolving and growing and scratching my head and going, I don't know, this just doesn't feel right. Just don't, I'm tired of looking like this or I'm tired of putting my pants on like this and this is corny man you know what I mean?
VALIDATED: So going forward with the new collection, what's the vision over the next year per se, and what kind of mark are you trying to leave on the culture with this particular collection?
K. MICHAEL: At this point I'm trying to create something and I'm on the black empowerment movement. Ultimately the brand is for everybody, but I’m on that Black Excellence man. I'm about taking something in, believing in the power of Black people. Let me give you an honest reality that I haven't told anybody. When I first got my first six figures and we kind of lost a lot of that money and I say six figures, or this one probably was not entirely six figures, but we, we lost about $60,000 easy man. I went to a white area. I said, I'm gonna go all white. I ain't going with my people because we’re fighting and we’re acting ratchet and going nuts. I would fly in every month and see why sales were so slow and going so bad. And I'm like, what is happening? What is going on out here? So I said, let me get a condo here and stay out here with maybe a couple of employees and what I realized was this, that Black culture and Black women and men and people of culture and not just the color, the color's important because black people are important, but the culture too. We're so cool. Caucasians were so boring, the styles that we had and the stuff that they were wearing, the typical baseball, MLB look, you know, they weren't looking at the Revo, the colored aviators or the candy frames that we had. It was the college kids and millennials who are coming through and we were losing money left and right. And the minute you went to an area of culture, our sales increased by a whopping 40% and that was Black people coming in. I realized how cool black people are. I didn't even know how dope we were until I was around a bunch of Caucasians who didn't know how to dress, didn't know how to look good, who wore Aeropostale and pink every f****** day. You know they weren't wearing s***. I mean we could put on a sweat suit with some Fila’s and throw a chain on and you fresh to death man. And I realized how powerful our culture was and I made a huge mistake. Huge mistake. 60 grand blown in the wind, and I know that may not be a whole lot of money, but I would be losing 60 g's in g****** 90 days. So when I moved in and restructured it, my thing was, Black culture and how we were perceived and some of the generational hatred and the generational ignorance had discouraged me and I thought that going to an all Caucasian area was going to cure it all and they were going to love the look and feel and be respectable, but they weren't staying and spending money like that. They're very stingy with their money. Black people come through and they’re like, how much are these? Two for 40? Oh I’m getting me three pair! They don't care man. They want what they want and they want it now. So I realized how powerful their dollar is, how powerful and great they look in all the colors. So everything you see all these celebrities wearing, the different styles I designed it and we sold it. So the reality for me was that I had to pivot to understand how great our culture is moneywise, style wise, we are so powerful and I missed seeing black people look dope. I miss Black people coming in, you know in the Jordans and sweat suits and the girls with the Jordans with a skirt on with the big earrings and the colored sunglasses. As soon as I go to an area full of culture, it was like (exhales) I took a deep breath. So for me it's about that black excellence. I am interested in the power of what we add and how much we spend and how we will empower each other if it's something good and my stuff is good. When I went back to areas of culture and I see culture, Black, Hispanic even if you’re Caucasian but you’re versed in the culture and you like to look good and you like to be fresh, you like the styles, so it's not just about Black, but I'm about that Black Excellence. But it’s about the culture man, cause I know white people who have styled andare versed in the culture, you know. So once I got that to an area of culture like San Francisco, like Denver, like Seattle things started to pick up. So for me it's about just getting involved in a culture and creating those core styles that the millennials, are going to like, but making sure that people understand it and not being afraid to say Black, I am Black owned, I am a Black designer but I hope you like what I have created for the culture and for everyone. But make no mistake about it, I am Black Excellence.
VALIDATED: Are you using any brand ambassadors at this time or do you feel like you've done that and that just doesn't make a difference on how well the brand works and sells?
K. MICHAEL: Retail is dying, so you've gotta be in high end malls and locations. And E-Commerce is powerful, but it's saturated. So brand ambassadors and celebrities, because I've signed some of them and in 2012 I had 17 signs. I had fresh off Making The Band that had Donnie Klang. I had Nappy Roots I had Crime Mob Fresh off of “Knuck If You Buck”. In 2013 I signed Phil O'neil and in 2014 Shaq and then in 2015 I did MTV’s Jersey Shore with a licensing deal. And I can tell you respectfully, as much as I loved everyone and what they did for me, celebrities are played out.
Right now, the new wave is brand ambassadors. It's the people, the realness. When they signed Cardi B with Fashion Nova, they got Cardi B for mad cheap back in the day. I'll do some brand ambassadors, but my brand ambassadors are normal people who just have a following that people like. The regular people love them. We just had a meeting and we did something with an icon and I was like, man, Cindi Lauper loves our stuff, but I can tell you the number that she wanted I wasn't going to get that in sales. They’ll ask for 30, 40, 50 g's and they'll take the money, they'll put this stuff on, but it doesn't guarantee any sales unless you got like an elite celebrity like Kylie Jenner. That's a whole other monster, man. I don’t think Nikki Minaj can sell what Kylie could sell. Maybe Cardi B might give her a run for her money. Other than that, you really want to get involved with a bunch of regular brand ambassadors. People who have a strong following and it's a lot of them out there on social media. They'll do it from their apartments. They're doing stuff in their cars, you know? So I found out that the slippery roads, not the way to go. We're focusing on the product and as we focused on the product and the branding they’re reaching out to us. And I like it that way. So we're not really dealing with celebrities anymore, we’re looking for brand ambassadors, but we're taking our time and focusing on the product and great presentation and people are just wearing it. I've recently, Corey Taylor from Slipknot was in the mall and he bought a pair and they were like that’s Corey Taylor. I don't even know who he was. On social media, man he’s got 14 million followers. We didn't reach out to him. He just loved the product.
VALIDATED: Anything else that you want our readers and listeners to know?
K. MICHAEL: I'm going to shout out my partner, VP of Operations, Dominic Hamilton. He's been great. Follow us on Instagram @EverCollectionEyewear and on the website at TheEverCollection.com and just stay tuned for great products. We're definitely, you know, making it young and hip and fun. You know, I'm getting older physically, but in my mind I’m still 25 and that's the way I want to look and feel. I’m not quite yet ready to join the 40 plus club, you know, literally I wanna stay young and you stay fly and that, that's important to me.