Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Winston Bradbury. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Winston, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

For a recent collaboration with Gucci Vault, I was approached and asked to customize 4 different Gucci hats with hand embroidered elements from my own brand (COTV). There were a lot of details ironed out during a roughly four month timeline, but the intensity of the work really picked up when I received the hats in my hands and began outlining design ideas to highlight the uniqueness of both brands.

With the very first bucket hat I started working on, the design was about 70% complete when an incident with the fabric glue I was using put me about ten steps back. I ended up needing to cut out new fabric templates, remove the ruined pieces, undo the stitch work I had already completed, and start again from what essentially felt like square one. The frustration I was feeling towards myself and the process almost made me consider reaching back out to the Gucci team to let them know I just couldn’t deal with this.

But I’ve learned many times now that my success lies on the other side of discomfort like this. There’s a certain level of honesty I need to maintain with myself in order to move through moments like these – “Do I mean it when I say I want to be successful? And if I do, then why am I not viewing this obstacle as something I can easily overcome?”

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was originally born in Virginia, but I’ve been living as a New Yorker for more than 15 years now. Coming from a big family and recognizing a lot of the privileges I didn’t have at the time, I definitely adopted that mindset of constantly being on the move towards betterment and being able to provide for myself. Before I ever recognized the mission behind my brand, I was already unconsciously working towards that lifestyle and work ethic – repurposing shoes, upcycling jackets, customizing hats, etc.

One of my first memories of doing something along this vein is repurposing tags from a Nike SB Airmax shoe and adding them as elements to an H&M windbreaker and a generic beanie that I thought could use that little elevation in detail. In this way, a lot of my products are borne from curiosity – “If I add this fabric to this existing texture palette, how could this product change? If I stitch in a more uniform style, does that make my work more recognizable?” As I continued to experiment with my new place in the fashion field, I noticed I was attracting more attention due to the uniqueness of my work. When I officially launched the COTV brand in 2020, the amount of support I got felt almost unreal in context to how little I felt like I was doing at the time.

My work at this time is an interesting mix of fashion, music, comedy, art, and even a little bit of life coaching. I create new from old, make songs, write poetry, write scripts, and so much more. And while a lot of this work starts for myself, it ends up in front of an audience that needs that reassurance of, “There is fulfillment to be found in creativity. There is sustainability in what I am devoting my time to.” I feel like this is what sets me apart from the wave of content creators as we know them today. Just maintaining a level of transparency and honesty that allows my supporters to see the person behind the brand and respect that for what it is.

I am proud of the fact that I’ve been able to keep my character and the authentic aura that got me to where I am today. I am proud of the community that my energy has built around me. And with respect to that, I would just want any potential supporters to know that everything I am working on is ultimately to give back. It is to give an elevated, luxury experience to everyday people like you and me.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

A really difficult thing I had to learn to work through was the lack of strong support from my own family. There’s a lot of risk taking when it comes to working as a creative, and the fear of those risks going the wrong way definitely influenced my family’s reception to what I am trying to build. Whether it was financial support, emotional presence, or even genuine interest in wanting to know what I am doing – I felt like it was always lacking. In turn, that definitely caused a lot of self doubt to grow within myself. “Am I making the right decisions for the type of man I want to be? Am I looking at everything with rose colored glasses? Am I confident that I can develop the skills and mindset needed to actualize the kind of life I want for myself?” Seeing the organic growth that COTV has experienced in the last three years has shifted a lot of their feelings, but I wish the beginning could have been a little different.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I think coming back to that lack of support from family, I had to learn to persist through those moments of loneliness. The work is there, the work needs to get done, and ultimately – I had to be the one to do it. It’s reaffirming to have that support from your loved ones, especially when they’re a lot of the reason why you are who you are. But if you don’t find that center within yourself, why you are the only person who can fulfill this dream in the way that you’ve imagined it, then nothing you create will ever be sustainable. Every time I felt isolated or left behind by either friends or family, I reminded myself that everything I’ve ever created started within me, and everything I ever will create begins within me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://cotvny.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/livetoimprove/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/livetoimprove
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@livetoimprove
• Other: https://linktr.ee/livetoimprove

Image Credits
IG: @cotvny / @livetoimprove