We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Daniel aka Diggydmvfreshh Parker. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Daniel aka Diggydmvfreshh below.
Daniel aka Diggydmvfreshh, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?
In the words of Nipsey Hussle, my brand and me “we took the stairs” and still taking steps up. I really feel I’ve been scaling up since the very beginning since lil bro and me came up w the slang “gimmeemlaces”. To be specific though, the big scale up was when I invested in my professional embroidery machine. We went from flipping packs from overseas (clothing made from China & Pakistan) and then I bought a small embroidery machine and really learned the craft. S/o YouTube university. I put a lot of time and energy in learning embroidery and getting better but I knew with my small machine I was limited. We did alot of pop ups, hustled up some money and I used all my Covid stimulus checks and invested in a big professional machine that also came with the hat hoop. Once I learned the new machine, the quality of the stitches was crazy. That’s when we added customization and offering custom embroidery, turning the brand into both a brand and a business.
So we can order our blanks and do our exclusive designs for the brand but also be working with different brands/business with their embroidery needs, or give the option to do a 1 of 1 custom with the cut and sew.
That was the quick version of the story but in between those moments i had to really stick with it. I damn near broke my small machine to no return lol I literally took it to shop 3 different times before having to send it to the manufacturer. I broke a lot of needles and messed up a lot of hats, shirts etc. If it wasn’t a pop up or a network event I wouldn’t leave the house. Thank god I didn’t go crazy.
Daniel aka Diggydmvfreshh, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
To start off I come from very humbling beginnings. My mom and dad worked VERY hard to provide for my lil brother and me. My dad a retired Army Veteran, he took on his 20+ years like a champ, he got me rock solid. My mom is a Jack of all trades type she has a few licenses and skills under her belt. She work multiple jobs at time and really held it down when my dad was overseas. She even took motherhood to the next level when she decided to homeschool lil bro and me.. which later on was very vital to my entrepreneurship.
My lil brother Jovan aka Jigga man/JIGGA is 7 years younger than me, he was born in 99’ I was born in 92’, despite the age difference we always been real close. I took my boy under my wing from the beginning. We learned together, practice sports together, and consumed a lot of culture together. When it comes to hip hop, sports and fashion we like a lot of the same things, though we do have our own opinions and like what we like separately were usually on the same page.
We both came up with the slang “Gimmeemlaces” (our brand & business name) sitting w eachother looking up future release dates of Jordan/Nikes on 23isback.com. When we see something we like that coming out soon our slang was “gimmeemlaces I need those”. “Freaked laces” was our thing when u wear the sneaker the laces had to stand out but be fresh.
We went from camping out damn near every weekend or other weekend buying everything, then we started doing trades, then we really started selling the collection or buying two pairs keep one pair, flip the other.
A lot changed with the sneaker game when first come first served slowly stopped happening and I was learning alot about branding and we still loved clothes and accessories (sportswear) so we decided to upgrade our resell business with a brand. Once the brand kicked off we really loved it and wanted to invest more and more into the brand, kinda neglecting the resell sneaker business. Fast forward now we’re fully a sportswear brand and customizing.
Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.
Yes! So aside from learning embroidery.. i learned how to sew when I was younger so…. yes on a small scale we recently started manufacturing pants and hoodies from scratch. I really been tapping in with my cut and sew skills. I taught myself (and still learning) how to read patterns and how to using different materials/fabrics and putting things together.
The biggest hit is definitely using tapestry blankets. We thrift them, we buy retail, we get them customized and cut them and make products. Pants, hoodies, jackets, tote bags etc.
I also been doing projects like taking a hoodie and cutting off the sleeve(s) and replace them with tapestry blanket sleeve(s).. or cutting a hoodie in half and replace with piece for the tapestry blanket.
But I answered question because I really want to really explore more with more patterns and different fabrics and really excel with sewing. So more products manufactured by us coming soon and more everyday.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Big s/o to the ATL legend Big Gipp from Goodie Mob/Dungeon Family/ Ali & Big Gipp!
Big Gipp has CBD shop (Gipp Goodies) here in Columbus GA (right off Victory fr). He does alot of pop ups at the shop in front and back of the shop. I wanna say it was one of the first ones… So I met his partner, the owner of the store at networking event and paid for our table for the event. I go in to straight work mode the next few weeks prepping for event.. I even made a fire design of Gipp and made some patches and embroider it on a some hats. Day of the pop up.. we get there early (first one there) and set up, we got everything looking nice we got a tent set up, Gipp shows up, I get to meet him he’s real cool… and it starts POURING… like so much water the tent bending lol the tarp is barely holding all the rain water on top, some vendors the rain went right through their tent. It was a mess but the good ppl at Gipp goodies had us come in and mingle w Gipp and the staff and we rescheduled another day and I tell that story because the next event I was there early again one of the first there, set up real nice again, had more products there and took care of my business. I got to meet Gipp AGAIN which is always dope and I remember we even sat for a min and watched Netflix Cocaine Cowboys The king of Miami and I was just posted up chilling with Gipp after that rescheduled pop up, I’m just soaking up his energy coooolin. I had to see it through that unfortunate rain out pop up to get to the next one where I really got to vibe with somebody legendary as well as continued to put my brand out there. We did a few pop ups with Gipp and his company. Memories I won’t ever forget.
Contact Info:
- Website: Gimmeemlaces.com
- Instagram: @gimmeemlaces
- Facebook: @gimmeemlaces
- Twitter: @gimmeemlaces
- Other: Everything @diggydmvfreshh for my personal profiles