He’s an icon, he’s a legend and he is the moment, come on now! We’re talking about Brandon Blackwood, the Brooklyn-based accessories designer who created the eponymous “It” bag label that you literally can’t escape on social media. Every chic Instagram influencer has one of his bags, we’ve seen it in countless Tik Tok videos, not to mention his End Systemic Racism (ESR) tote went viral on Twitter after Kim Kardashian posted it for her 218 million followers to see. But get ready because on Monday, May 10, at 12 pm EST, Blackwood is releasing 200 styles to shop for pre-order that will ship throughout the month of June.
Below GRAZIA chats with the designer on what customers can expect, his business model, and how he is able able to anticipate the needs of the customer.
GRAZIA: You and a few of your contemporaries have redefined the direct-to-consumer business model with ‘drops.’ How did you know it was time to update your sales model?
Brandon Blackwood: Once we saw the demand had been increasing in the last two years and I saw how heavy that demand was I said ‘ok, we can’t do the traditional two collections a year model.’ It wasn’t really working. I have a younger shopping base. With Gen Z and Millennials, we live in this culture of needing it right now and instant gratification. I’m the exact same way when I shop, I want something right away. It makes you become even more creative because I’m always thinking ‘okay, well what’s next?’ ‘What can be better?’ ‘What sold really well?’ ‘What other colors can we make?’ And it just makes it way more fun having less rules.
It also makes it less stressful on you, right? We know that designers get burnt out, operating within the traditional calendar. So it’s like, you’re relieving that stress and it’s becoming this more organic release.
Yeah, exactly! And you’re going with the flow, you’re listening to your base and delivering straight to your customer right when they’re asking for it, which is just like so amazing. It’s so cool to see, you know, I’ll get a million Instagram comments saying like, ‘Oh, we want a burnt orange color,’ ‘we want this color, etc.,’ And the fact that I can make whatever they’re requesting in less than a month and have it ready for sale. It’s amazing!
How many new styles can we expect with this upcoming drop Monday?
I think the final count for this is around like 180 — on second thought maybe 200. I was like, you know what, let me give everybody what they want. Like all at once. I figured the more options, the better. Normally our drops sell out within like three to seven minutes so for this one, there’ll be more options, more time to think, and maybe, you know, maybe we’ll make it to an hour or two hours. So I’m really excited.
I think how fast your bags sell out can be attributed to the fact that there is a bag or style for everyone.
There’s literally something for everyone in there for every price point. It’s like, we’re very, very budget friendly, I think for a luxury brand. I feel like we hit the mark really well with pricing. Luxury for me is more about just like comfort, having something that’s super chic and just workable. I want all the bags, and the brand, in general, to be your everyday luxury. I always say I want to be everyone’s favorite everyday bag.
What’s next? Do you have any plans to expand to any other stockists? Or will you continue working with boutiques?
Right now our biggest source of income is direct-to-customer and that’s because we’re super invested. Our customer likes to shop directly with us. We don’t normally do smaller boutiques anymore, but we do have a really great curated list of stockists that we’re currently carried in or will be in soon. By next week, you’ll see announcements all over. We’re going to be in Saks, Bloomingdale’s, Nordstrom, Kith, Shopbop, and Selfridges. Each store will have exclusives so there won’t be any competition between our stockists and they won’t be competing with our brand’s e-commerce site. It will be really cool to see just how our customer gets to shop around all of our different stocktists for more curated,mini capsule lines within our main collection.
Love that because you know the girls are going to post on social media like “got my Saks exclusive bag” or “look at my Kith exclusive Brandon Blackwood.”
Exactly! I have to say, Saks is coming out with this black croc bag that’s like, insane and I cannot wait. I cannot wait for it to go live. I think it will on the site by at least the end of next week.
Croc just screams ultimate luxury.
I know, right? It’s just so luxe. One girl re-posted one of our lizard skin bags and she wrote, “this is the type of bag that says you cannot talk to me any type of way.” I was like ‘yes, period.’
After last summer, are you feeling a continued support beyond the push to buy Black designers? Like are people putting their money where their mouths are?
Last summer, obviously there was a huge push to buy Black. I think Black people realized, ‘wow, we clearly aren’t being respected. We aren’t being taken seriously so let’s start putting our money towards our own people.’ I think most Black businesses, if not all, saw a huge rise in sales and demand — and it was just beautiful. I have to say, honestly, that push was necessary because now people have favorite Black brands. They now see that Black brands are just as capable of making high quality, beautiful products that can get the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs.’ I think people are putting their money where their mouths are. The acceptance and appreciation for Black brands is definitely heightened.
I love that. It’s definitely needed. We need support for Black designers across the board. Like open your purse.
Exactly. Open your Brandon Blackwell purse.
Period. That’s the tagline.
