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arts & culture
KANSAN.COM | MONDAY, JAN. 18, 2016
the lead.
Aries (March 21-April 19)
Wait on a final decision.
The facts you need can be found. Get help from your crew. Let your partner take the lead
Taurus (April 20-May 20) Foreign contacts love your ideas. It's a good time to ask for money. Don't brag ... your work speaks for itself. Your influence is spreading. Focus on each activity. Good news comes from far away
Justin Wesley searches for a Kansas City style away from the runway
CHRISTIAN HARDY/KANSAN Justin Wesley, former KU basketball player and creator of clothing line JustinKC
from far away.
Gemini (May 21-June 20) Friends help you make an important connection. There's more work coming
in. Keep your sense of humor. Acknowledge those who give you support. Keep your objective in mind. The more supportive you are.
the more you gain.
Cancer (June 21-July 22) Work doesn't go according to plan. Finish up old business so you can invest in your dream. Calm another's fears Explore your passions. You can make it happen. Consult a significant other. Love gives you
strength.
Leo (July 23-Aug. 22)
Listening is more powerful than speaking, especially today. Sudden outbursts
could have regretful consequences. Slow and steady wins the race. Don't
overspend on stuff you don't need. Work out the budget before committing
to details.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)
Accept a creative challenge.
Who can you get to help? It could get profitable. Design your costume. Seek solid data and expert assistance.
Ask friends and family for their views. Find an answer
in a dream.
Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)
Your peace of mind is increasing.
Give praise where
blessings.
praise is due. Nurture compassion, for yourself and others. Help someone understand. Count your
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)
You have what you need, if
you can just find it. Financial help arrives, but not as hoped. Breakdown! Call for
reinforcements. Express your love and gratitude.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec.
Your compassion for another is growing. You're attractive, and attracted. Remain open to shifting circumstances. Move carefully as you dance. Don't step on anyone. Follow a friend's recommendation.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan.
There's more work coming in. You're looking good. And you have an ace up your sleeve. Keep confidence and secrets, but it's OK to let your feelings
your feelings show.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb.18) Fun today could include
getting out, around the corner or across the world. Or exploration could occur through a book or documentary film. Get a b
from far away.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March
Be charming with someone who outranks you. Act quickly to resolve a domestic issue. Avoid excess and waste. Learn from and with another. Concur with an expert on the most sensible
option for a household upgrade
upgrade.
CHRISTIAN HARDY @ByHardy
Justin Wesley stood in a large, bright room in a hotel in downtown Kansas City, staring down a runway, surrounded by the fashion moguls of Kansas City. Wesley, the creator and designer of JustinKC, and his co-creative director, Taylor Kalush, were two of dozens peering at a runway, watching models they had never met before - models who probably didn't know who he was - oscillate on and off.
It was a session for Kansas City Fashion Week, with just a few weeks to go before the show. Surrounding Wesley, other than the models who walked the runway with jobs on the line, there was a whole lot of chatter: which model was going to make it, which model a designer wanted to display his or her line in the upcoming fashion week, which model didn't belong here at all.
In that moment, as he watched models stride back-and-forth, Wesley said he realized something: he didn't belong here either.
His line, his brand, everything he had created and worked toward since graduating from the University of Kansas was a square peg that conflicted with the somewhat bourgeois, round hole of Kansas City Fashion Week.
"I decided right then and there," Wesley said. "You watched the models walk out, and it was the most uncomfortable feeling I've got... I just couldn't sit there and choose like that. There was something about it that I just didn't like."
When Wesley's line, JustinKC, was offered a spot in Kansas City Fashion Week a few months before the model session, he was ecstatic. But because he didn't expect to get a spot, he didn't have anything prepared. Wesley didn't have any pieces completed for the runway, not even samples. He lacked a social media presence and had not established a website. Even his logo was not completely refined. He was offered a spot strictly based on his sketches.
Wesley, 24, and his co-creative director, Taylor Kalush, who still attends the University, scrambled for something material to present at the event. Mood boards, sketches, JustinKC
in words — anything to give JustinKC some legs. Eventually, with no pieces, Wesley had to drop out of the event.
"Once we got in, we were just thinking, "This isn't really our scene," Kalush said. "It's not just with the samples. It was more like, this is not who we were trying to cater to. It was a blessing in disguise, not being ready to show."
JustinKC began at different times in Wesley's life. In essence, there doesn't seem to be one singular starting point. If a timeline of JustinKC's history was created, there would be neither a day nor month that pin-pointed the inception of the brand.
One could say it started in middle school, when he already found himself struck by garments - what he was wearing, what the people around him were wearing, how he could fit in. In middle school, he went to a school where urban style dominated the scene, and he was infatuated with Jordan sneakers. He recalled once wanting to wear an Allen Iverson jersey, and his mom laid out navy sweat shorts for him to wear. He wanted to wear jean shorts (which were all dirty).
"I almost lost my mind, and I was in tears just thinking, 'I can't go to school wearing this,'" Wesley said.
In high school, Wesley began to craft the foothold of what his brand is today: sketches. Then, he started drawing shoes.
He wore the sweat shorts anyway.
He was a liberal arts major while he played basketball at the University. He refined his sketches there, as well as other artistic bases. Then, when he realized he wouldn't be playing basketball beyond his four-year career at the University, he started to look into creative career spaces, from acting — which he did a bit of while in school — to advertising.
"Back to high school, when I was really into basketball, I had this grand vision that I was going to have a Nike deal, and I was going to have my own shoe line," Wesley said.
The winter of his senior year, he reached out to Baldwin KC, a denim company in Kansas City, while at the same time he tried his hand at designing clothes and kept working at it. He landed an internship with the
company for the summer. There, too, he struggled with trying to fit into the mold of the brand's style.
"Baldwin is a great brand, but we're just not the same style. He's obviously unbelievable and he's done great work, but at that point I knew I wanted to do clothing and I wanted to do it a certain way," Wesley said.
Wesley, since the line began, has wanted to create "American workwear" - a goal that has remained constant throughout the process of creating the brand. Everything else, seemingly, has either changed, been learned, been relearned and retooled, or just completely scrapped.
Wesley said it takes about two or three years for a brand to develop its concept and its aesthetic. Learning how he wanted people to look in his clothes, understanding the direction he wanted the brand to go in, and how people felt in his clothes had to be honed in on and perfected — it's taken about that long.
And since it began, it's completely been rebranded. It's not geared toward athletes, as one might expect (though with his 6-foot-9 frame, he plans to make sure he leaves no one guessing on the measurements of his pieces. He knows what that's like.) It's not geared toward New York, or Los Angeles — markets that have been covered twice over.
"Some people may call it kind of hipster-y, but I want it to be in a rebellious way to chic, high-end wear, but not exactly streetwear," Wesley said. "I'd rather have more people wearing my stuff than just to have the top 10 percent wearing it."
Justin's brand is still shaping itself. It will until he finalizes the pieces for the fall collection and sends them off for manufacturing, and beyond that, too. But Kansas City, he's said, is where it's based — not only in location but in aesthetic and presentation.
As of now, it seems, Kansas City's fashion bubble hasn't been filled, though there's plenty of space to make a mark. Charlie Hustle hats exploded and, eventually, were mass-produced. However, the heart-design hasn't created a style, but a singular garment Kansas City can call an icon. Learning from Chase McNulty, the owner of the Charlie
Hustle, has been one of the benefits for Wesley's development in Kansas City. The city, collectively, seems to be moving toward edgier, more urban wear.
"Charlie Hustle is not a style; it's just an iconic thing," Kalush said. "Maybe it's the development of creating a Kansas City style. Maybe that's the goal."
Wesley has a chance to fill that void of a clearly-defined Kansas City style. His line will be something that sticks to the classics but is still rebellious to trends. He wants something that's his own, for himself and for Kansas City, but also something that can make an impact beyond just here.
"The spirit of Kansas City has — the entrepreneurial spirit, and how they support anything local - [it's] something you can't find anywhere else," Wesley said. "I don't only want to do it in KC; I want to do it throughout the Midwest, but Kansas City is where I've got to start with it, because Kansas City inspired that entrepreneurial fire within me."
With JustinKC, Wesley is shooting for high-quality garments with high-quality fabrics which look and feel like a one-of-one but maintain a price that is affordable. That, of course, will be a challenge, but it's a mission he's built up through months and months of trial-and-error and learning the processes of the fashion industry directly from the source.
"School had nothing to do with it. The most I learned from school is just noticing other people's fashion," Wesley said. "That's it."
School was not the reason Wesley went to Kansas. Basketball was.
There's no sign of basketball in Wesley's loft in downtown Kansas City, though he hasn't downplayed the importance of connections from the basketball program. His space is heavy on brick, with a high-ceiling. A couple of his skateboards cover one wall, while art hangs on every other.
One piece that stands out is a canvas print of a crossarmed Frank Sinatra with the quote, "CONFIDENCE IS KING," sitting over a low-lying sofa in his living room. That is, more than anything he accomplished on a basketball court, telling of who Wesley is.
Wesley is, well, exactly
that: confident. On a bomber jacket he wore both times we met, is a patch embroidered on the neck which reads, "the world leaves a bitter taste in my mouth" below a rose and two initials, representing he and his girlfriend's first initials. He designed it himself.
He's assertive in his designs and what he wants to do with the brand, though he does always take people's thoughts into consideration. In his designs, he sticks with classic styles and outerwear (he feels most comfortable and safe with both).
Most importantly, he wants everything to be perfect; he wants to see his designs all the way through, from his head to paper to reality. When Kalush was asked what makes Wesley different, she named his commitment to perfection. When she talked of the current goal — getting the final product in hand — she said she realized that's only going to happen if it's perfect to Wesley.
There's a lot more to come for Wesley as far as the line goes. He has to finalize a look-book, a website design, and get product photos. That's all after he finds a manufacturer, which is after he finalizes the samples. He wants to do a limited run of womenswear in 2017, with mostly outerwear. As of now, he plans on another men's collection in the fall of 2017. None of these, though, have exact dates.
"I won't feel its perfect until I say we're live at midnight or whatever," Wesley said. "When I get that first purchase, then I'll crack a smile."
Just as there's no date for that smile, there's no date or timeline for him to find his space or place in the Kansas City fashion scene or maybe beyond. But after two years of learning, honing in on his brand and realizing how to perfect what he wants, he knows what space isn't for him to thrive in: fashion shows.
"I'd rather just do a collection showing that's open to anyone that wants to come, and just talk about each piece instead of making it this big deal," Wesley said. "The more my brand started to shape itself, and its personality started to shape itself, I just realized that I don't ever want to do fashion shows."
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