#5: "People care about relatability more than aspiration”
The Office Hours Interview: Chase Gilbert
Rowing Blazers, a NYC-based brand that’s "leading the prep renaissance”, according to GQ. The brand — and it’s must-follow IG moodboard — are just two of the social accounts under the stewardship of Trillionaire. Gilbert shares a look into his world via The Amsterdamn and also works with the likes of WhoWhatWear x Target, Louis Vuitton, Paul Smith, and that insane Jim Krantz x Supreme 2017 collab.
Your company works with a variety of brands, from the scorching hot prep-revival brand Rowing Blazers to a jewelry line to literally something called "A Guide To Being Cool". How hard is it to explain to your parents what you do for a living at holidays?
I’ll take business talk over weather chatter any time. My dream was to play with pictures and make money doing so. Coming from a magazine publishing background, representing cool brands on social media was a straight forward choice.
One of my essential beliefs about branding is that tradition builds connections. A lot of the work you do seems to focus on using nostalgia to create new concepts. How hard is it to try to translate the past to the present?
Everything is marketing and everything is sex. Social media might be a more contemporary platform, but I’m still just selling the sizzle to people who love steak.
I'm a small business owner who needs help with my branding in 2019. What is one thing I should do tomorrow to move in the right direction.
Treat your audience like human beings. Small businesses make the mistake of behaving like big ones, and likewise. On social media, people care about “relatability” than aspiration.
The floor is yours. Share one fact you think Office Hours readers might not know.
I live on a houseboat in Amsterdam and have an Italian girlfriend named Anna.
Got anything to promote?
Rowing Blazers is a team I’ve been a proud member of for 24 months. Let me just say that it’s going to be an amazing 2019 for their brand.
Every Office Hours interview requires you to shout out one person you think the world should pay more attention to.
Phil Spector. The mono revival was unfairly disrupted.
Where can readers find you online?
On Instagram via @trillionairevintage, @theamsterdamn, @rowingblazers, @umanewyork, @kibbutzdancecompany, @rbmoodboard, & on trillionairevintage.com.
YOUR HOMEWORK THIS WEEK:
Hey, Cool Life!
If your job is to write for a living or design or creating anything, this podcast is worth your time. NYLON calls it “The Perfect Podcast For An Anxiety-Driven Age” and BABY, they hit the nail on the head. Hosted by Mary H.K. Choi, It’s a daily mini-cast so you can get a few done in one commute.
#BHMSyllabus
"If ...one managed to change the curriculum in all the schools so that Negroes learned more about themselves & their real contributions to this culture, you would be liberating not only Negroes, you’d be liberating white people who know nothing about their own history" - Baldwin
It’s Black History Month! I can’t speak for any of you, but I’m continually discovering how little I truly know about the world, including full details about the history of this country and how we got to where we are today. I don’t believe I can change anyone’s line of thinking, nor do I feel it’s my responsibility as a black American to be anyone’s social studies teacher. (Y’all got the same Google I do). That being said, this list — combined by NYT Magazine All-Pro Nikole Hannah-Jones — is absolutely the best compilation of books about American black history that I’ve seen assembled in a long time. All of these books are important to gain understanding on how we got to where we are, even the ugly stuff you might want to avoid.