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Why podcasting?

Mr James Harris: Lawrence and I have worked together and been friends for 10 years. When we were at Complex Style, we had a YouTube show called Fashion Bros, which was a lot of fun to do, but it was just more work on top of our regular jobs. About three years ago, we thought, why don’t we just do a podcast? It seems like a low barrier of entry. All you need are some f * * * ing mics and a laptop, right? Which is not true. It was just an excuse for us to get together, drink some brewskis and tell stories.

Mr Lawrence Schlossman: James and I had been looking for a way to monetise our relationship for a long time. We’ve had a lot of misses, but it seems like we’ve finally settled on the sweet spot, which is working for ourselves and letting the fans and listeners directly support us [ via subscription platform Patreon ] as opposed to getting ourselves into some 50/50 or almost 50/50 relationship with the media.

Mr Harris: Lawrence ran Four Pins, which was a very influential voice in menswear. I ran Complex Style when it was kind of like a scrappy underdog. We felt like we held up a mirror to the fashion industry, both to lampoon it, but also express our enthusiasm for it. And when Lawrence went to Grailed and I went to Snapchat, we just no longer had the outlet to talk trash.

Mr Schlossman: We’ve always acknowledged that the people most qualified to take the piss out of this higher culture are those who are most enthusiastic about it. So, yes, you can be a superfan, but you can also acknowledge how f * * * ing ridiculous the resell market is. How f * * * ing ridiculous collaboration culture is.

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Where do you look for inspiration?

Mr Schlossman: What I love about where Instagram has gone in the past year or so is that it’s kind of back to that highly curated, super tasteful Tumblr-style mood boarding. That’s what I’m doing with the Grailed social media. That, for me, has always been what’s the most inspiring. As much as I appreciate a thoughtful, long-form thing, I do understand that social media and Instagram specifically, have taken over the world and people’s attention spans are shorter.

Mr Harris: Yeah, Instagram’s great. But getting out of that echo chamber and going somewhere else is valuable, just going into a place where you discover something that’s cool because you are alien to it. I went to Japan recently. You see people doing things, wearing things and making things, where, in a vacuum, you might not get it.

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You both have passionate perspectives on what is good and it doesn’t seem to be driven by the attention market or trends. So, what is good? What’s on your radar for spring?

Mr Harris: We joke about the post-sneaker world, but Lawrence and I are very interested in seeing the world beyond just sneakers. What we’ve become good at, and maybe we’re just old, but we don’t fall for hype.

Mr Schlossman: We have a healthy distrust of major trends and the hype cycle. We have the pedigrees, the contacts and the knowledge. We’re not just being haters. We are just honest. We are transparent and we’re not taking money from any brands.

Mr Harris: It comes from failing so hard. I’ve wasted so much money on shit that I thought I really wanted and then never wore. It’s like finding new music you like. You’ve got to really dig and discover shit, and try it out, and test it, versus just play what’s in the top 40.

Mr Schlossman: People get so caught up in the flexing that they’re missing the point, which is the personal growth and self-fulfillment you can get from discovering your own style sweet spot. I get excited when I discover a uniform. I know that, when it’s spring and summertime, I want shorts, I want loud, flowing shirts and I want some spicy loafers.

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Let’s talk about brand building. You stalked a celebrity onto your show. You not lackadaisical in the hustle department. What’s the game plan?

Mr Harris: The podcast will be always be the mothership, but then it’s kind of what are the derivatives of that? My dream is to do a group closet sale with a season’s worth of guests. Let’s say season one is 10 guests. We then put their closet up for sale in a space and you might not have known who some of them were before they came on our podcast, but after listening to these super interesting guys speak for two-and-a-half hours, you are fully invested in them and know that they have incredible knowledge and taste.

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What are you guys into right now?

Mr Harris: I’m really excited about Angelo Urrutia’s new brand, 4s, and Our Legacy.

Mr Schlossman: We’re both huge Nepenthes heads. I love its AïE brand. It’s like turbo-charged Needles meets Engineered Garments, utilitarian workwear staples done in crazy fabric and crazy patterns. Another kind of maximalist brand I’m a fan of is Cobra S.C. It’s almost like TOM FORD, but younger and kind of 1970s and pimped out. And I love Aries.

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