When you think of Chicago's contemporary creatives, the first to come to mind are probably Kanye West, Virgil Abloh, Chance The Rapper and Chief Keef, among many others. Arguably one of Chicago's most talented icons on the Fashion scene, is often overlooked by non-locals. This hometown hero is none other than Joe Robinson, better known as "Joe FreshGoods".
Joe has been on the forefront of Chicago's Streetwear scene since 2006. He got his start interning for Leaders, a community store that was a scene for local rappers to congregate through in-store performances. While at Leaders, Joe started printing his own designs on their clothes and selling them over the counter. Eventually in 2009 he started his first brand DBM (then Dope.Boy.Magic, now Don't Be Mad), with only $80. He first found success in his first rap-inspired t-shirt saying "MONEY H*ES CARS & CLOTHES". Joe describes these early years saying, "Hey, I work at Leaders, but you want a shirt?" I’d pull it out of my bookbag. I was doing that, [and it] kept getting bigger and bigger. I came up with this shirt that said "MONEY H*ES CARS & CLOTHES" — that was the jumpstart of like, “Wow, I’m making like $60 every two minutes.” That shirt went really Tumblr crazy." Shortly after this shirt Joe found his first success on a more than local stage through his first of many cease & desists over a hat saying using Rihanna's name.Many could have seen Joe's early work as uninspired or "played out", as it was pretty typical of the hip-hop scene early on.
Joe's true creative talents were displayed on a global stage in his work with Chance the Rapper, and his SAVEMONEY collective. Chance, Vic Mensa and Mick Jenkins were among the locals wearing Joe's clothes on tour. The culmination of Joe's work being collaborated on was seen in his famous Obama Collection modeled by Chance the Rapper. Joe speaks on his inspiration behind the Obama Collection saying, "I remember going to sleep that night like, I kept that philosophy — I’m doing what I want to do. [Terrell and I] had this vision in grammar school, and I was just like, So I dropped a flyer in October — I didn’t know the clothes I was doing, I just said Joe for Obama." This sporadic inspiration of random collaborations would later become a Trademark for Joe in his creative projects.
Joe would go on to create collaborations with brands like AT&T, Hennessy, McDonald's and many others, really being a driving force behind the trend of streetwear collaborations. Since the Obama Collection, Joe has had many Pop Up stores in cities all over the country and even been at Complexcon in 2018 and 2019.
While I would consider Joe a legend in Chicago Fashion, I would still have to say he has demonstrated Middle C- Creativity. As his creative process is very collaboration based, finding ways to make bootleg inspired collaborations with major companies like Adidas, McDonald's, and even AT&T of all brands. He still was not the only person to do collaborations in Streetwear.
As a Creative who takes inspiration from his surroundings growing up in Chicago, Joe has to work with many constraints when trying to use these inspirations in his work (often legal and company contracts). He has had to fight Cease & Desists from Kanye West, Rihanna, and Champion for this bootleg inspired work, and as a small business he does not have as much freedom as other streetwear brands. Joe also has stated that he wants his clothes to be true to Chicago's everyday person "“I think companies tend to want that cool guy or the hypebeast guy or girl. They don’t focus on that regular person, and there are way more regular people in the world. Yeah, there’s some cool guy that wants to spend $1,000 on a T-shirt. I don’t make clothes for him. I've always wanted to focus on that regular guy or girl, and it’s worked for me. That’s who I make stuff for.”
Being a little biased, because I own many Joe FreshGoods shirts, I would say Joe FreshGoods has been a driving force in Chicago's fashion scene changing it for the better. He takes a more honest and casual take on streetwear as opposed to other Chicago contemporaries like Virgil Abloh's Off-White and Kanye's Yeezy line, making accessible fashion that the people can relate to— and afford.
Check out his work at Fat Tiger Workshop and his Don't Be Mad Brand at https://www.fattigerworkshop.com
Sources:
https://www.complex.com/style/2019/04/joe-freshgoods-streetwear-chicago-complexcon
https://joefreshgoods.com/
https://www.thefader.com/2017/03/09/joe-freshgoods-fat-tiger-dbm-chicago-interview
https://www.redbull.com/us-en/mavens-joe-freshgoods-fashion-interview
https://hypebeast.com/2019/10/joe-freshgoods-interview-business-of-hype-jeffstaple-episode-59
https://www.pursuitofdopeness.com/2020/09/joe-freshgoods-plans-to-allocate-proceeds-from-upcoming-adidas-collaboration-towards-cps/
I think it's great that Joe Freshgoods has been able to collaborate with so many well-known brands and companies across the world. But what I like most about your post is the fact that Joe always brings his success back to Chicago. The focus on the everyday person is so important, because like you said, it increases the accessibility of street wear. Not everyone has the money to shell out for clothes from Kanye's Yeezy line. It's cool that he devotes his attention to regular people, and it goes to show that affordable streetwear is on equal footing with the expensive stuff.
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