Prior to that, BritishVogueinterviewed Clemens at his studio following his spring 2020 debut at Paris Fashion Week.
Telfar has changed too.
Back in 2022 Clemens took over an entirely different kind of brick-and-mortar location witha Rainbow storepop-up in New York.
Courtesy of Telfar & Pierce Robinson
At the time he announced plans for a permanent store in the city.
Now that space is finally opening at 408 Broadway next Saturday, November 23.
Its the culmination of the social shopping dream that the industry has been trying to materialize for years.
Courtesy of Telfar & Pierce Robinson
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Its been a minute since youve spoken withVogue, Telfar, how are you?
Telfar Clemens:Busy, really busy, but good.
The façade of the store.
Just getting ready for this next chapter of Telfar.
How did you two decide to open a permanent store after having so much success online?
Clemens:Its been a long time coming.
Courtesy of Telfar & Pierce Robinson
The brand is a unisex brand.
In the runway model you have a show, but then the stuff never comes out.
It defeats the whole purpose of what I want to do with the brand.
Courtesy of Telfar & Pierce Robinson
I want it to be mass.
I want everybody to be able to take part in it.
It completes the vision of what I want the brand to be.
Babak Radboy:I think it is really full-circle.
It wasnt some kind of last minute decision.
Its in a chain of infrastructure building over the last four years.
The best example of that is the bag.
Going online wasnt so much our intention.
It was the way we moved through that space and created our own way of doing this.
Theyre a much different thing in person.
I make a unisex line that is intentionally made for everybody.
I dont go to stores.
I dont really buy new things; I like them but I never really buy them.
I think that, and the pandemic, have pushed an entire generation to shop online.
One of my favorite shopping experiences, which was one of my first store experiences, is Century 21.
Im very ready for that experience to be real.
We have Telfar TV, the internet, how does that work at the store?
Clemens:The TV station is a public access station.
Its going to be open to the public [in the store].
Radboy:Theres things to do besides shopping.
Lets talk about that.
The facade of the store.
Clemens:Loitering is a big thing that I want to bring back to New York City.
Thats something I remember being able to do, and its not a thing that I do anymore.
Thats how I want to be able to engage with people.
Its also an interactive spacecome and shoot a music video, come and get a makeover.
Its going to be a really good time.
Im really just excited.
I just want to make clothes and have my own store and sell them to people that like them.
I know the store that our store used to be, which is OMG Jeans.
It was just the epitome of SoHo at that time.
Its really cool thats the space were going to be in.
It was a physical real thing that happened in the world that got reflected on social media.
I see more Shopping bags on the street than I do on Instagram.
People were getting representation ofsomething.
And at a certain point you cant even tell the difference between the placebo and the real thing.
The space is going to do that.
Radboy:Pretty annoying.
Clemens:Yeah, that it could getbusiness-fiedand changed into a motto that you use.
But also, thats been the history of what our career has been.
[laughs]
Clemens:[laughs] Yeah, exploited!
Its annoying, but I know whatwedo.
And it makes it more special to actually keep doing that.
They went from product to store to figuring out the internet and this ambiguous idea of community.
You went from community to product to online to now a store.
you’re able to participate without buying anything.
Its literally [a] community.
When you do that pop in of thing, you cant control it.
You have to just create space for it.
Thats the whole vibe of the store.
Were opening it up.
Its set up in a certain way so that things can happen.
Walk me through the store experience.
Say I walk into the space, what am I looking at?
Its like a billboard that anybody can participate in.
Itll also have live feeds of whats happening in the store.
Theyre basically deli awnings, but really stripped down and theyre what hold the clothes and divide the space.
We could do performances, we can do anything that a venue could offer.
Clemens:Oh and my favorite part, the Bag Bar.
The Bag Bar is a special section for all you’ve got the option to get, basically.
All of the bags including a very, very special new one that everybodys been asking for.
Radboy:Its lit up like a Chinese restaurant menu and its got every single bag and the price.
And then its something that we could use as a literal bar when we do parties.
We could probably fulfill 4,000 orders in a day if we needed to.
It is almost like a physical embodiment of the drop.
Thats the Telfar fantasy.
Its cool that now there is a physical embodiment of that experience.
Clemens:But without allthat[mimicking frantic clicking]!
Im excited to get to that period too.
That you’re free to physically go there and get it.
Because Im not an internet person.
I havent bought anything for myself online.
Its going to be cool to be a line person, standing in line for the thing.
You mentioned that there are no mannequins at the store.
How does that work, and who are these New York superstars that are going to work there?
Clemens:Lots of superstars.
Its a New York thing for sure.
Theres also going to be a constant flow of new collections.
So the Wilsons collection that you just saw online will be unveiled and released for the first time.
Radboy:Its a place where you’re free to get discovered.
When you try the thing on, you have a stage to go do your fit pic.
Really elevating that way that people want to create content themselves.
We might end up payingyouat the end of the day [laughs].
They have a shift every once in a while.
I have a shift!
I think were starting to see a shift of younger people craving going to a store.
That sounds like this store.
I never had a TV here.
I just found my friends walking around and bumping into people on the street.
Thats how Babak and I met.
Im a very in-person kind of person.
Thats the spirit of New York, and thats what Im longing to be back.
Its like water, people will fill the space that is given to them.
People are boring when spaces are boring.
Its not like people change their mind and [realize] IRL actually exists.
Its really a very opposite thing.
Tell me about the idea of access as you conceptualized the Bag Bar?
There wasnt a celebrity that was first.
It was definitely people that were in New York.
People were in our friend group, people that just actually liked the clothes.
And I think those people started to make other people know to wear [Telfar].
Radboy:Thats how culture works.
Thats how music works.
Thats where we come from.
I think thats what sounds exciting to me.
Its way more powerful to have that kind of tangible, connected thing.
What Telfar does hasnt fit in another space comfortably, so Im very much excited about this.
Theres no other way to do it.Theres no other way to do it.
Its interesting to me also when Im on the train coming to work.
Clemens:[laughs] Yes!
Thats the kind of intersection I want.
To quote Virgil [Abloh], its the purist versus the tourist.
What do you make of that dichotomy?
Clemens:Love that.
We had that whole Normcore thing.
Our collection was titled Extremely Normal when the bag came out.
Remember we had no customers.
It was an idea, an intentional vision.
It seems like a contradiction, but its not.
Clemens:Im really glad the product [went mass].
You couldnt buy them, you couldnt try them on.
So now Im really ready for that kind of feedback loop.
Radboy:We werent trying to see a thousand people in a sweatshirt with the Telfar logo on it.
We were trying to see a thousand people in an upside-down tank top.
We wanted the granny and the mechanic.
That was the idea of mass, of how do you change the mass?
Not just how do you serve them a generic idea.
Clemens:Its really likewe did that.
Thats what the look is.
Ive seen different histories of fashion in New York.
Im ready for that to be present.
That street used to be Yellow Rat Bastard, Canal Jean Company.
Rabdoy:Necessary Clothing, Transit NYC.
Radboy:Thatis the inspiration.
