In an upscale high rise on New York’s Fashion Avenue sits the offices of JDR Apparel Group. Home to a mix of offbeat clothing labels, some easily recognizable while others not. Among the household names is B.U.M., the mass-market sportswear brand popular during the 1990s. A short list of lesser-known labels reveals the reason for my visit; a small brand called B.Unique and Co.
Brothers Courtney and Chris Brown launched B.Unique out of their Brooklyn apartment six years ago. Starting with nothing but the money earned from selling their Sony Playstation the company has since followed a trajectory worthy of a Hollywood movie script.
Upon arrival at the JDR offices I'm greeted by Courtney Brown, who escorts me down a hallway to the B.Unique showroom. Patent leather high top sneakers in every conceivable color line the back wall, while racks overflowing with t-shirts and hoodies cover the opposite side of the room.
Courtney's brother Chris walks in and takes a seat on the couch. Following closely behind is longtime friend and collaborator Lanelle Hector, a 22 year old resident of Soho by way of Harlem.
Mr. Hector's personal style is an improbable combination of high fashion and hip hop. A style the Brown brothers understand well, the embodiment of their "young modernism" ethos. More on that later.
The Beginning
In 2002 Courtney and Chris Brown were 17 and 14 years old, respectively. They spent their days going to school, listening to rap music and practicing the sport of aggressive inline skating. It was an eclectic mix of interests that pulled together the worlds of academia, athletics and music. Later that year the Brown brothers launched B.Unique as a way to bring their disparate interests together.
The beginnings of the company were humble, says Courtney, "...after we sold our Playstation we made up like 5 shirts at Kinko’s." The shirts were given to their skater friends who wore them at local events. "My boy Alex Nunez went to a skate competition in Queens wearing one of our shirts. He beat all the pros...We started getting a lot of interest in B.Unique after that" says Mr. Brown. Still going to school, the brothers spent their spare time parlaying that initial exposure into a full-fledged business.
Balancing work and school brought with it the obvious conflicts of interest. "It got to a point where we started having to handle business while sitting in history class, needless to say I didn't do too well in history" said Mr. Brown. The conflict reached a breaking point in 2004 while Courtney was attending his freshman year at Fordham University. "The window of opportunity (for B.Unique) would only be open for so long and I knew school would always be there." Following in the footsteps of famous college dropouts like Kanye West and Bill Gates Mr. Brown left to pursue B.Unique full time.
With younger brother Chris in-tow the two wasted no time expanding their operation. Within a year they opened one of the only indoor skate parks in the five boroughs. The B.Unique park occupied a sprawling 7,500 square foot underground space that quickly turned into a mecca for skating, music and parties.
More importantly it served as the home base for the growing B.Unique lifestyle. A lifestyle that was quickly adopted by young trendsetters in the New York sports and music scene. For a time it was not uncommon to see then up-and-coming rapper Jim Jones hanging out with the skaters, and for DJs to host wild parties for crowds of would-be A-listers.
These efforts landed them on the radar of corporate America. Soon brands like Vitamin Water and The Cartoon Network were lining up to sponsor the park. The "ultra-cool" lifestyle that B.Unique had been cultivating eventually attracted the interest of Mountain Dew. The soft drink giant funded a 30-city tour that brought B.Unique-sponsored skaters to shopping malls, arenas and parks across the country. As popularity of the team, skate park and clothing continued to grow the Brown brothers gained access to hugely powerful individuals in the business world.
Strategic Alliances
Courtney and Chris' aptitude for clothing design was matched only by their skill behind the lens. "Even back in 2002 we were getting into film production, movies" says Courtney Brown. He went on to say "all elements that were needed and necessary...everything that we would use as marketing we had to learn ourselves..." The two were producing MTV-quality promo videos for their skate team using only hand held digital video cameras, desktop editing software and a shoestring budget.
The videos told a convincing story for the brand. They featured young skaters clad head-to-toe in B.Unique clothing doing impossible tricks, posing in front of luxury automobiles and hanging out with famous rap artists. The clips were later assembled into a feature-length film entitled Freestyle Rolling. It premiered in 2006 to a star-studded audience at one of the largest movie theaters in Manhattan.
Their promotional projects caught the attention of R&B producer/artist Ryan Leslie. Mr. Leslie enlisted the Brown brothers to produce a pilot for a TV show he was hoping to sell to a major network. Although the project was never sold, it brought them face to face with music industry titan Tommy Mottola. These chance encounters gave the Brown brothers a front row seat to the fast-moving society of NYC business moguls.
A New Era
The B.Unique skate park was closed in late 2006 so the brothers could focus more closely on their clothing line. Then in 2007 they entered into a joint venture with the JDR Apparel Group. Mr. Brown was reluctant to give detail about how the deal materialized, saying simply "It started last year when we felt ready to take the next step, and we've been fortunate to have full creative control over our brand."
With the line now available in specialty shops across Europe, Japan and the US Courtney and Chris are preparing for significant expansion in 2009/2010. Consisting mostly of t-shirts and sweatshirts the line will soon include denim, sneakers and outerwear. More than ever they are pushing their self-described style of "young modernism." Courtney describes it as "a reflection of the new consciousness, the new intelligence that young people have adopted." More specifically, their style appears to combine the worldly, cultured aspects of high fashion with the edge and street smarts of sports and music.
When asked about his philosophy for success, Courtney says with astonishing brevity "the time is now, people need to get out there and play in traffic. That's how you get hit." Their path to a corner office was not attained through standard means. Like a game of Frogger gone completely awry, the Brown brothers have relentlessly thrown themselves in front of every opportunity in sight. Capitalizing when necessary, walking away when appropriate. Playing in traffic has never looked so good.
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