Inside the Mind of Mike Cherman: Insights from the Owner of Market Studios

INTERVIEW BY Tate Canyon & July Flowers

J: So um first question, I know that you grew up in New York during your early childhood years.  I wanted to ask if there was anything during this time in your life that may have helped or influenced you to go down the path you are on now. 

M: Yeah  ……  I worked in girls' denim, my mom was a designer. Umm, I think that for me it was very much not listening to my parents because they told me never to go into fashion. Y’know, For me it was trying to find something that could Identifiably be mine,  y’know when I grew up as a kid I wasn't popular, I didn't have a lot of friends,  I didn't really go out and do a lot of stuff,  I played sports, I really loved basketball, I played  tennis,  and obviously I was creative I drew, I loved designing sneakers, etc. But the real discovery of wanting to make clothes for a living probably sparked in high school once I moved from New York to California. I lived in San Diego, I had a mac computer, and I had a bootleg version of the Adobe Suite. And for me, it was just watching.. y’know.. people on myspace and youtube, and just really learning and teaching myself how to use these programs. But really it was that experience of making the first products that got me excited and made me really want to do this for the rest of my life. 

J: In speaking about your first products, I know from what I've done in research, your nickname used to be Mikey merchandise when selling clothes back in high school.  I was aware that there was a situation where you had gotten in trouble with the school you were going to at that time. Would you mind telling us how it happened? 

M: Yeah of course man, I mean basically I made this T-shirt of this one kid in the school. It was like this picture of him pushing his nose up with his face flat on a scanner.  Basically just made this one T and it ended up going, y’know .. not like … haha .. the wrong word is viral, but it went very crazy at my school. And the kid who I had actually had gotten the photo of, I had him sign a release,  and basically, he ended up wanting a shirt. What ended up happening is there were no more shirts, he ended up fighting a kid on campus to take his shirt, which caused this whole mass hysteria on campus, I got called into the principal's office, and I was expelled for selling and distributing on campus. So it was like a whole situation that my parents had to come out, and it was this whole thing all over selling T-shirts, but looking back on it it's pretty crazy.

J: I'm not too sure if this was after or while you were in high school, but I understand you had your hands-on designing for the KITH logo and the  A$AP Worldwide logo, and I was looking through this resume page I found displaying everything that you had done thus far, and one of those things was having a career at the Nike Bowery Stadium, which I found interesting because nowadays in the fashion/clothing industry, places and the services that the N.B.S provided are rarely replicated nowadays, and  I was wondering if you could tell us a bit about that experience and how it may have been significant to you being in that environment.  

M: Yeah I mean … hmmm … y’know I think for me man, I  was surrounded by a bunch of talented designers, creatives, and illustrators, and I'd say now about 60% - 70% of the people I work around now are people who run supreme . from their retail operations to their design, to their heard creative director  Tremaine Emory, y’know there was a multitude of people who all worked around me who ended up in that system. But rewinding that, I was just a 19-year-old kid who just wanted to make stuff every day. Y’know I was in an environment where I was basically allowed to make any concept I wanted, and you know I was basically one of eight kids who in this basement in New York City was deconstructing varsity jackets—and making custom pieces. so I would sit at a desk with one other person who was an illustrator, and we would have Kanye or Amar’s Stoudemire or whoever come in, sit down and they'd get the chance to design their own custom jacket, if they said to me that they wanted a dragon on the back dunking a basketball my job was to mock that up in two mins, show it to them, tell this is what your jacket is gonna look like and then in two weeks to make that jacket downstairs. So that whole experience was really a lot for me in understanding how to take an idea from concept to final creation at the speed of the internet. 

J: Right and  I guess a good seg-way into that whole idea of you taking your designs from concept to final creation was your first brand ICNY. Which mainly grabbed my interest due to the safety aspect that the brand and its products provided to commuters. It's funny because during my Freshman year of college I'd mainly commute to school by bike since I only lived  10 mins away from campus. And within that year I was hit by 3 cars both on and off campus while being on a bike. So I wanted to ask if you remember a time when you got seriously injured or had any particular accident that really made you realize the need for this kind of Hi-Visibility clothing. 

M: Yeah I mean, for me  I was running to and from work every day, I got hit by a car riding a bike home from work, I got doored by a taxi and had to go to the hospital since my hand split open literally to the point where I was seeing the bones in my hand coming out. 

J: OOOOOOoooo….

M: Y’know that experience unlocked a lot for me right,? It was this moment of like” man if I just had this thing that prevented me from getting t boned by a car”,'' how could I keep myself safe”. and for me it was the things like the reflective socks, things like the apparel, you know like how could I solve this problem for myself before Levi’s commuter existed, before all these brands that now make reflective gear, etc.  So y’know that was a good experience for me in just going through building a brand.  I got an investor and thought I was doubling down and building something bigger, but in reality, I wasn't,   I had this guy who didn't know what he was doing and frankly, he was the guy who makes all of supremes accessories and T-shirts. But that didn't mean that he knew how to build a brand,  and so y’know I got in deep with someone who didn't know what he was doing,  fast forward 3-4 years later I got terminated from my own company, I got essentially notified through my email to stop working and I ended up just having to figure out what to do next. So that's what kind of prompted me to move to LA and to try something new. 

J:  I think if I’m correct it was around this time you began this surge of the “bootleg” era pieces such as the Frank Ocean Nike Swoosh shirt, and the classic FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKIN FUCK shirts. And now looking back on it it's crazy how I see so many splinter brands on Instagram now that seem to follow the same path you’ve walked. I just wanted to know your thoughts on that, seeing how the style has become more accepted by smaller and bigger brands in some ways.

M: I mean sometimes you have to ask forgiveness not permission and I think a lot of times we show people the way. Y’know we show people how to ask for forgiveness and how to just go and take liberties and how to take risks, and I think for me it was very much showing people that you just gotta go out there and do it, stop talking just do it and frankly y’know that also why market as a brand is beginning to evolve forward and not to just stay the same y know whether it's how we approach the DIY stuff that you see on the Instagram for so long, is now stuff reflected in the product, it's very much a big push for us to make sure we are not just staying the same because like you said there are probably 50 splinter brands that are all inspired by what originally Chinatown market was and what the brand was initially, and we can't just to stay the same and expect for the brand to grow. 

J: Exactly, now I wanted to briefly touch on the subject of the idea of streetwear/anti-street wear, in the sense that Streetwear has always been a very exclusive niche only inclusive to those able to buy in, yet to me, Market has always been such an inclusive brand that has always provided many ways for the average consumer to get a piece of the pie without having to work to hard to get it. I wanted to know just how important it is for the brand to keep this inclusive nature alive through Market. 

M: Yeah you know we do the inclusiveness by involving the team and highlighting the group that works here, by involving the community by actively not just waiting in line coming in having an experience, and leaving and so for me I think that it's just very much how we are tactical and how we involve people and be more of an open book rather than being this closed source like supreme, etc. 

Tate - In being very non-exclusive and being very non-supreme that kind of falls into a hole that von dutch failed to fill miserably, do you ever get worried that the smiley may fall into the same hole as von dutch, or do you feel you guys are paving a way drastically different which prevents this cycle. 

M:Totally yeah i definitely think this is a little bit different than a von dutch situation, In that they had one key  product that really drove the brand and the logo, and so you guys know that the smiley face is actually a license its not really something that Market owns, it's something that we use as a tool and but as of definition of the brand and  revenue wise it about 20% of our revenue as a overall business , so things with the smiley face i would actually say has already gone down that path and has sailed down a road that i have no control of because innately its connected to the smiley company its a french company who owns the smiley face and i have no control of what they do and don't do , so the part of the gift and curse that we've done here is that i built a really big audience around loving the brand market , but i had to be really tactical and smart about using the smiley face because as you've said here , you've almost have summarized the brand as the smiley brand right . and for me, I have to confidently work every day to insure you don't just put this brand as just the smiley face. So that's a thing for us to do every day but you know luckily what makes this brand special is how we approach creating products, how we make content, and how we involve our community and that is the constant thing that we have to do to set ourselves apart. So it is being less defined by the product and is more defined by the experience you have with the brand because that's what makes you want to share it with your friends, you know, bring someone to a party, show them the brand, wear the product, etc. More than “cool let's make a bunch of cool shit” and just making cool shit is one part of the challenge but making you love the game is the other bigger challenge that we tackle every day. 

Tate- I love that and also a big reason why I love Market is that recently post covid you guys have been throwing really amazing events and bringing a lot of really great people together and I wanted to know what your thoughts are on the future of these public gatherings and what you guys plan on continuing forward with these functions. 

M: Yeah man to me it's a response to all the complex cons of the world that are just a big dick-measuring contest of big companies spending a lot of money just like throwing these huge events but frankly I'm like why can't it be like a Ted-X version, or why can't it be this feeling of a  mini version of those big events where it's friendly and easy to just show up there. And for us, we are trying to create that format so that people can come and experience that feeling together all in one place. Whether it's around plants and cacti and all the stuff that I love or things like streetwear, etc.  And for us as well we are in conversation with a bunch of different people about how we can go create community moments from different things as well, so I think to me it's exactly what you said bringing people together, giving them somewhere to come and have fun together that is low stress, low pressure and low expectation, and just focus on giving you the best experience you could possibly have.

T: And you guys have definitely been doing that. I've been to every single event damn near for the past two years since I moved here and every event so far has had different themes, different motives, and Groups of people, and every single one has been more entertaining than the next. I want to know if you guys have any future plans of expanding to more than just Los Angeles for your next Market events. 

M: Totally, so on my side I think that it's just continuing to spin on verticals we really care about.  So it's like, y know we are going to be doing another event in October, with Havaianas and that's gonna basically be a launch of our own retail store, we are going to have a whole space and moment around that.  we are going to be inviting more brands to come and do more within our parking lot, but you know it's gonna expand out to different sports, different, kinds of creative verticals, and thinking about how we can continue to use our platform to unlock this for other people because at the end of the day like I said it's about loving what market does for the community more than what it does about the products that we make. So yeah. 

J: I wanted to ask a more personal question for you, in the sense that for a lot of artists and creatives the location of where their ideas are being formed and executed can play a big part in the energy that is presented in the end product. Do you ever find yourself needing to surround yourself in a particular environment to put yourself in a certain mental space to create a product, or do you prefer to do it all in the comfort of your own office/home? 

M: I mean I'm all about doing it here y’know we have a full atelier in the office that is everything from laser cutting, digital printing, vinyl cutting sewing, sample making, pattern making, 3D printing, embroidery, y’know you name it we have it, I have worked a long time to try and build this out and I think for me it's all about having an idea in the morning having it all done by noon and shipping it out the next morning. Y'know we gotta be able to create like this where it all happens in person and doesn't happen behind a computer. And the more that the kids understand that it's actually more about knowing how to make something by hand and telling someone how to make it,  other than sending them an image on the computer and hoping that they're gonna come out with the product that you dreamed. I think only then will you be able to unlock your greatness, because a lot of kids think that factories in china suck, or that people don't know how to make stuff, but frankly a lot of times it's the designer who isn't giving the guy the notes on how to make something better, sometimes we are the ones who are responsible to give them the instructions on how to build a garment. But a lot of times people are just sending an image of a jacket they found on google and it's tough. 

J: Yeah and I want to say I feel like you guys definitely do that cause I mean I was scrolling through your guy’s youtube and whatnot and within about five minutes I saw these two videos on how to screen print and how to do a proper vinyl cutting and everything, and I was like wow these are sub-5-min videos providing a simple and effective step by step process. And when you look at the comments section, at least from what I was viewing them, I notice a lot of people are like  “I'm going to try this”, “this looks a lot easier than I thought” and for a lot of people to they think that they need a lot of money to do this but you kind of kept it really transparent in terms of how to do these things and I think that's really important and thaT A LOT OF OTHER SMALLS AND LARGER GROUPS SHOULD FOCUS ON PUSHING THE DO IT YOURSELF! 

I wanted to ask in comparison to when Market began to now, what are some of the biggest changes that you've noticed for yourself as well as with Market?

M: I mean it started off with me in a room hand printing t-shirts and now we have almost 40+ people in the office operating the business itself. Y’know it's a whole different game a whole different business, a whole different approach, as you scale and grow you got to continue that process you have to contribute to that process and continue to have that structure and continue to have accountability because the bigger and bigger the brand grows the more and more you'll get into situation where we have to be more responsible and make sure we are communicating even better, and that goes for any business and person out there, etc. 

J: I guess in the light of accountability, we understand that recently Market had recently underwent a name change from ChinaTownMarket to Market and I wanted to ask aside from the name change, what other shifts in the brand do you believe may have followed with the rebrand, in terms of design, creative ethos, and future collections. 

M: Yeah I mean, It was the whole brand reset, to be frank, y’know I think that at first, it was all about the idea of the same brand new name, but then I think we quickly realized that it is not just the same brand new name if you look around this whole office you guys who were buying market back in the day now how you dress today is different than how you dressed a couple of years ago and the brands that you wear, the things you desire to wear, the music you have listened to have all evolved it the same things with the kids who work inside my office, so I constantly have to remember that we have to evolve the product we are offering we have to evolve the things that we are doing and I had to reset the entire brand ethos to make sure it was about just bei9ng funny and fun and a bunch of memes but that it also balanced it out with a lot of aspirations nature of showing you how to snake things, opening the door for you, and giving that education WE LOVE. 

J: I wanted to cover a little bit on your guys' collaborations, and the process behind them, because we've seen you guys work with the likes of Travis Scott, Dennis Rodman, and My Chemical Romance, and I wanted to say that when it comes to collaborations with brands I seems that a lot of the collaborations seem A LOT MORE  TRANSITIONAL, RATHER THAN A CURATION OF A SPECIAL MOMENT & FOR YOU AND MARKET, yOUR COLLABORATIONS FEEL MUCH MORE natural and I guess with the energy that you put behind your products and collections, I wanted to know that when you go into a new collaboration, what's on your mind when going into a collection of interest, and how important are those collections to you as a person. 

Alexa - “Cycling songs by Travis Scott on Amazon Music.

Alexa-WAHHHHHHHH EERRRER WAAAAHHHHHH ( Intro to Sicko Mode) 

Tate - Alexa off … 

WAAAAAAAHHHHHH EERRRRR WAAAAHHHH 

Tate: ALEXA OFF !!!

M: Uhh I think that everything is important to me as a person, I think that for me it's all about how can I make kids get excited about the things we are creating. How can I go and do more than just make a bunch of t-shirts and merch? At the end of the day we have all seen a bunch of cool merch for products that we love, but ultimately how can I go and unlock something bigger that is going to make you think, smile, and get excited about the idea of the idea that the person drives, so that our challenge every day that we get up and every day when we create products and every day when we collaborate because I need to be able to take a brand to a place they have never been before. If I haven't done that then I probably failed in my goal of trying to unlock the greatness of that brand. 

And in doing that, like trying to unlock an echelon that a brand has never reached before is basically what you are trying to get out to the kids viewing the brand, even the audience too. When you guys create your collections in a sense you guys really hit it out of the park. I've seen stuff such as the Mike Tyson Collab Tee where he’s holding his snow tigers and everything, you know that depiction of that moment in Tyson's career is legendary to many fans of Tyson, and I feel that a lot of kids coming up that didn't necessarily grow up with Tyson get to experience that moment.

Yeah, the same thing with Rodman in celebrating his wedding dress moment. It's the same thing, I'm trying to tap into a level of nostalgia, a level of storytelling, and a level of giving a product that you didn't already have from that person in the first place, so that's our unique challenge as a brand and something we have to work on every day. 

J: I thought of one collaboration that was really interesting and found out about it weirdly through a friend. You guys had a collaboration with Apex, Apex Legends, where you guys had a series of skins. So I'm guessing you guys go hard in the office on Apex, like is that your guys or was that more of an opportunity that just came about naturally? 

M:  Y'know I'm more of a cod, warzone guy, I haven't really played Apex much, to be honest. But I think that it's very much a situation where I'm very much tapping into what our team wants. Y'know and so Apex did reach out, a lot of our team did play apex, and it was a cool opportunity to go and affect this game that so many people in our office play, outside of that it was a way for us to break barriers into new worlds. And so, it was exciting but I think even though we learned a lot through collaboration in things that we do and don't want because it's really easy to. Through the collab we realize even after doing it, it's a situation where we needed to make gaming chairs. I should've made fucking mice, and keyboards, instead of making a bunch of merch. Like we all have gaming merch but we all don't have that next swaggy thing for your computer. So it's all a new challenge and new learning lesson because a lot of time you just think “oh yeah this is what I can do to connect with this community” but sometimes you may not be as educated as you think. 

J: And out of all the collaborations that you have done, do you have any core memories or moments from a collaboration where you felt all the pieces of the puzzle just seemed to fit? 

M: I mean I'll never forget the Grateful Dead collaboration that we did, Lebron James Wearing the whole collection from head to toe Crocs apparel, walking into the bubble for the playoffs, y'know while it was mid-pandemic, nobody else is watching anything but the playoffs, yOU KNOW IT IS JUST REALLY COOL TO SEE THAT JUST KINDA GET UNLOCK AND FOR IT TO JUST KINDA GO DOWN. 

J: Are there any artists or companies that you guys may be interested in collaborating with next or do you guys keep that under wraps.. 

M: I mean it's never that I don't want to expose who I want to work with, I'm gonna fuck with who I am working with. but I think that we do want to work with big brands who are going to move culture, y’know we want to work with brands that have something to say but don't know how to say it, and for me, I love to be able to help brands that are confused with what they want to do, unlock that, and make it clear.  FOR ME MAN IT'S CONTINUING TO MAKE YOU SCRATCH YOUR HEAD ON why I did what I did why I create what I did, and ultimately make you want that thing a little bit more than I did before. And that's part of my job every day in creating fun products to get you excited. 

J: When creating products, is there a seamless transition in merging your vision and the Collaborator's vision, or has there ever been a moment where common ground wasn't found? 

M: So there is always common ground, I know there's always this idea that we want to work together - that's why we are even at a table together. I know there's something that I like in what they do and there's something that they like in what we do. I think that for me when I come in I try to tear it all apart, you know like Voltron, pull it all apart every single piece and then put it back together to make my own version. I think that always being part of the game is giving me the ability and chance to unlock the greatness of the brands we love. 

J: So I guess as our final question in regards to how you guys plan on bringing the community together through Market. In the new tech landscape we are seeing unfold in 2022, do you guys have any plans in terms of possibly incorporating MARKET into the metaverse somehow at some point? 

M: Nah I don't really fucking care about the Metaverse. 

J: Really? Ok? 

M: I think NFTs suck I think that they are way too fucking over-hyped, I think that NFCs are way better, I think that NFC is actually the value of the product, I think that yes, there is totally the idea of a more verified membership club, I think that hats 100% a valuable thing, but I think that people selling jpegs of a fucking monkey is the dumbest shit I have ever fucking seen in my life and I hate it. I think it's stupid and I think that people are just all around speculating and thinking they are going to make a bunch of money, we all know that the fallout happened at the end of the day there is value in the function of these tools, but I think people typing up the value of an image being expensive and trying to compare it to a da Vinci, or a fucking Van Gough, or whatever is like… cool man like I dunno.  I don't really think that there will be that like the meta verse just like gaming culture is, and I think that frankly, it's just another layer to gaming culture. I believe that the gaming community is going to use it more, and more especially as the meta verse become universal and my character can go from NBA 2k to Call of Duty this to that, but I don't know that I'm gonna be spending my fucking the meta verse that'd be pretty depressing if you ask me. umm so yeah. I don't mean to be really crass about it, I see your camera came back on Tate you tuned when I said fuck the metaverse. But as far as I'm concerned I'm like yeah man, I fucking, I look at stuff like that as stuff as alike nft technology is stuff like where you should be able to scan your product and be able to unlock different things through that item. I'd much rather have that because it encourages value behind the product, it makes you want to keep it, it's more sustainable that way, and you won't be throwing away your shirt. Let's say you bought a shirt from an Erika Badu show and Erika Badu put a chip in the neck label. Then the only way you can go to that next concert is if you scan the t-shirt you bought at the first one. And to me, now why can't that t-shirt be gone from a fucking 20-dollar merch item to a 60-dollar item that you want to keep and roll forward.  And to me, it's like cool not only tickets but access to music first or early access VIP experiences all that kinda stuff can be wrapped into the value of the product that we create as brands. So that's the thing that I think is real value, rather than me trying to sell you some fucking picture that is truly just a membership club. I'd rather just be a member of clubs, great. But as far as I'm concerned, no one really knows how to use that shit. And sure I'll wait for it to be adopted fully then I'll launch something, but honestly, I'd rather it be a membership club y’know I’d rather there be some real value that the consumer will enjoy, rather than me sell them some bullshit, like “this version of a smiley basketball is going to be worth 50,000 dollars.” It's like yeah the physical product may cost that much because of the actual attributions of it but sometimes I'm just like... I've said all of that just to say FUCK NFT’S!

J: No, I completely understand, the biggest takeaway that I agree with you on is how the technology being used in the NFT space if applied correctly, could really create a new kind of experience that brands and artists alike could utilize for their audience to enjoy. Like how you said with the shirts with the chipped tags. I can see how this kind of technology should be used in these situations.

M: 100 percent its about artists who are big enough to make that change, it would probably be most pitted towards music artists because those are the people with the most rabid audiences.