A Journey Called “Casual Fridays”

My passion for fashion started when I was 15 years old, so this would’ve been in 2005 -2006. I had just moved to Minnesota from Florida and I remember MySpace was still thriving at the time. MySpace was sort of the pioneer for the social media that we use today and ironically it’s where I got my inspiration to start my own clothing brand.
I remember brands like Gold Coin, LRG, and OBEY that really fed my drive for streetwear. I remember sitting for hours and hours trying to think of a name for a brand. I finally settled on Brotherhood. When I told my friends about the name of my brand I got mixed feelings. I would hear “Is that like a brand for black people”. I wasn’t going to let ignorance stop me so I asked my dad for a small loan of $500 to start my own brand.
Before I asked my pops for money, I wanted to present him with data that would support the loan. I went around my high school and showed kids my first design and asked if they would buy it. If they said yes, I’d mark their name down. Now at the time I knew nothing about making clothes so I probably overpaid for my first print, nevertheless, I had officially started my own brand at the age of 16.
One of the greatest feelings was seeing all my friends randomly wear the shirts around school and it made me hungry to make more clothes. I was 16 at the time so I was still making dumb decision like letting my friends use my house while I was 1200 miles away. My brand money was stolen and my remaining stock got taken. Ultimately a dumb decision by me that led to the death of Brotherhood. It definitely showed me who my true friends were at the time and the name Brotherhood didn’t feel so brotherhood anymore.
Fast track, now I’m 18 back in Florida going to college. I was anxious to start another brand but had to think of a new name and identity. It wasn’t until a year later when I was living in Gainesville, Florida that I came up with the name Casual Fridays. All I had was the name at the time. I didn’t have a logo, a website, nor any clothing.
I remember telling all my friends about Casual Fridays and they all loved the idea but with personal struggles happening in my life, I could never seem to solidify a complete business model or make any products for Casual Fridays.
Fast forward now to 2015. Casual Fridays is still a name and hasn’t produced any products and hasn’t really formed an identity. It wasn’t until the end of 2015 that Casual Fridays was officially established. An idea that started in 2009 but wasn’t official until 2015. Of course I had built little sites here and there and had designs that I did nothing with but it wasn’t until 2015 that “Everyday is a Friday” was formed.
Casual Fridays was originally intended to be JUST clothing and not a platform but I had alway had a passion for writing and the name was so important to me that I didn’t want to set any boundaries for CF. Till this day I still wonder if I picked the write direction for the brand but like any brand that wants to grow, change is inevitable.
I am currently working on building the online platform where I will be primarily covering footwear and streetwear. As time goes on, I will be focusing on building an online presence for our store where we will be selling exclusives from independent designers and footwear from all your favourite brands. In the near future I will like to open a physical store for Casual Fridays.
The is no limits to Casual Fridays. I have a direction but sometimes you will steer in other directions that is best for the business. Thank you for taking the time to read this and welcome to this journey called Casual Fridays.
