We recently connected with Bobby Byrd and have shared our conversation below.

Bobby, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to start by getting your thoughts on what you are seeing as some the biggest trends emerging in your industry

When I started my brand in 2012, there weren’t many people interested in clothing brands, or just didn’t know how to go about starting one. So naturally, things were difficult to learn at first, the knowledge wasn’t accessible at that time. So I had to go out in the world and find things out myself.

Fast forward to now, the industry is booming. Of course with any growing industry there are pros and cons. The pros would be, for someone like myself, it’s easier to create a brand. It’s so many different levels of vessels out there to help start a brand much quicker than I did 12 years ago. Social media can take your brand from 0 to 100 in 24 hours.

One major con is, clothing is losing its art form to me. With it being so easy to do, it’s become a money grab for most people, and if it pays, do you. I would never hate on that, we all want the money. Get the money.

But I design clothing from a place of passion for art, the money is good, but the art is what drives me to keep creating. I’m just seeing a lot of the same design styles repeated & remixed. Social media created a space where everybody feels like they can do what’s popular. That’s not always the case. Everything is just about the same these days. Not many people are pushing the needle.

T-shirts & hoodies are cool to me, but I’m aiming to make real pieces here soon. Something that sticks beyond just a nice seasonal garment.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Robert “Bobby” Byrd, I am 29 years old, and I’m from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I am part owner of Club4 Collective & OnlyOnes retail clothing store.

As a child, I loved music and art, I would always draw & sketch things, around 7-8 years old, I got into drawing Dragonball-Z & Marvel characters.

My love for drawing turned to digital art in middle school. I started only creating graphics for myspace designs back in the 7th grade, that was my hustle. I would charge my classmate $10-$20 to create their myspace layouts. I didn’t even know what photoshop was, I was using a dummy version called “PhotoScape”.

My love for art correlated with my love for music, as me and my best friend AJ started producing music in 9th grade, we were both in the band since 7th grade, so music was somewhat natural for us. We would always bring our laptops to school and make beats in class when we could, it came to a point where our teachers didn’t even care about it, because telling us not to didn’t work much. We created a music group called “Aviator Production Group” and everyone around school knew us as the “Aviators”.

In high school, music tied into fashion, fashion tied into music, it was a way of expression for us. We came up in the Taylor Gang era, graphic tees, camouflage shorts, & Chuck Taylors. The only thing about it was, I wanted to wear clothing that I designed, which was uncharted waters at that time, especially for a 17-year-old.

Pink Dolphin was a streetwear brand that I loved, it was bright, featured Japanese influence, & was just different for clothing in 2011-2012. I got my first pink dolphin hoodie & $140 for Christmas in 2012 & told myself “We can do this”. So, I created a logo with a plane & Japanese script symbolizing “dream”. The Japanese symbol was influenced from my love of Dragonball-Z as a kid. I called AJ & said “let’s make a clothing line”, he said “ok let’s do it”, so we did it. I used the $140 to order 10 shirts, we took them to school and sold out the first day.

Some people didn’t understand the idea, but I knew we had something special. Everyone was worried about playing sports, graduating, scholarships, and so on, but I fell in love with selling product.

Our original name was “Aviator Flight Club”, but Flight Club was taken by a sneaker company. So, we went back to the drawing board and came up with “Club4”, a club for the coolest people in the room. Our first few drops were simply, t-shirts, & sweatshirts. We sold out of everything when we started, it was crazy to us.

I graduated in 2013 & I spent two semesters in college before dropping out to focus on my dream, all while pushing the brand forward. My parents hated it, but I had a plan, I temporarily moved out the house to stay with Aj, his sister CiCi, and her fiancé Trey. It was in the hood, but it was a place we could make beats and make money, so it worked for me. I spent that time going through different vendors, learning about print costs, releases flopping, production, new design styles, etc.

In 2015, I began working at Ruby Tuesday to make some stable income & just to keep my parents off me for a second while I planned out the business. It worked out in my favor, I guess. Aj started working there shortly after me, so we made work fun for us. Our co-workers caught wind of the brand and we began selling product on the clock, in between cleaning tables of course. Me, AJ, and my girlfriend Kia, would polybag t-shirts to sell the next day at work. It became routine,

In 2017 we saw our first few thousand dollars from clothing and I knew it was on from then. I brought in Tim Richardson, another best friend of mine, on board to help push the brand. Me and Tim met in 7th grade, played football together, I was the center, he was the quarterback. We led our middle school team to our first winning season in school history. We were close from there forward. Tim & Aj were already familiar from high school, so the synergy was perfect. We created a three-man squad and evolved the brand from just clothing to a movement in the city.

It was clockwork for us, we would order loads of clothing, put them in the trunk and just pull up and sell out the back of my 2012 Honda. It didn’t matter where our customers were, we pulled up. The suburbs, the hood, a high school football game, we came, and we delivered product. It got to a point where we would split the inventory and sell from different parts of the city. We had a fully oiled machine going smoothly.

2017 to 2020 we generated over six figures off clothing & knew at some point we would have to expand. I was still staying with my parents at the time, so I was saving and investing into the brand.
2020 was a pivotal year for me, I got engaged to Kia, I was making more money than ever, and I felt like I was finally getting somewhere. We made goals of having our own physical location one day, seemed out of reach at the time, but we dreamed.

In September 2021, my son Jordan was born, Kia & I moved out of my parents’ home, & of course priorities switched for me. Graphic design paid my bills & it was tough for me to adjust with a newborn and being self-employed. We put the brand on hold, so I could properly adjust. In 2020 I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression, and during this time of learning how to be a new father and run a household, I fell deep into depression. the brand was on hold, money slowed down, I felt like I was letting myself down and my friends. It was like taking Micheal Jordan away from the court or keeping Tom Brady away from the gridiron, I felt detached from what was me, and that’s art. It was something I fought with up until maybe spring of 2022, I landed a position as lead graphic designer for 15+ high schools, began to fall back in love with creating art, and making beats again.

A week after my son’s first birthday, I released a musical project titled “TwentyThree” which featured all local artists on my production, it was received more reviews than I expected, I just wanted to put music out. That alone relit the spark in me, I felt like myself again. I mentioned to Aj & Tim that I felt like it was time to rebrand and relaunch Club4. I wasn’t sure how we would do it, but I knew it was time.

In December of that year, a good partner of mine, MLB shortstop, Tim Anderson, we call him “Seven”, reached out to me and wanted to work. We’ve known each other since 2016 and have always talked about collaborating on something involving fashion. I would create graphics for his non-profit organization frequently, so we grew a bond over time from that. We both love fashion and he’s always kept a close eye on what I was doing, he’s from my city so he was in tune with the movement.

I wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, but he made it clear that he wanted to invest in me, and my friends too, I couldn’t make any moves without them. Of course, I was with it, he’s like an older brother I never had & someone I truly admire, so I had trust that he meant it. We don’t get a lot of opportunities where I’m from, so if you get them, you take them & who better to do it with than family?

I pitched the idea to Aj & Tim; they were with it just like I was. Me and Seven would sit on FaceTime calls for hours at night just brainstorming & one night we said, “what if we open a clothing store and music studio?”. We went over ideas and agreed it was something we wanted to do. We would only sell Club4 and his brand “TA7”, it was something unheard of in the city. We went over locations and finally found a spot in downtown Tuscaloosa, the heart of the city, not too far from the university of Alabama campus.

We applied for the location and got approved a few days later. It happened so fast I couldn’t even process the fact that in 12 months I went from deep depression to actually walking into one of my dreams. It was crazy, but God works.

We decided on a name for an umbrella company which would house the two clothing brands, a food truck, & graphic design company: “OnlyOnes”, simply because “we’re the only ones doing this”. From there we began to work.

From February 2023 until September, we completely renovated the building into something that felt unusual for that part of the city but refreshing in the same breath. It had every piece of who we are in it. It came out amazing, 11 years later this is where the brand took us.

We opened on October 6th & immediately sold 5 figures in product; I couldn’t believe it. Since, the business continues to grow daily, and we continue to push our narrative to new faces. God is good.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I think the most relevant story would be going from working a 9-5 into full time graphic design. I worked at Ruby Tuesday as a server assistant from 2015 until 2017, I always told myself I would leave if I saved $1,000, because I was living with my parents, and I could save up more from there. Well, I saved about $4,000 and kept working, I know it was time to leave, but couldn’t pull myself to do it.

In summer of 2017, I was fired, actually fired for something that I didn’t do. I couldn’t understand why for the longest, the first two months I was upset and not used to not having stable income. I knew I had to pivot from full time worker into my purpose. I didn’t know where to start, but I had money saved and I had talent.

A few months later, my graphic design took off and I had clients coming from every where, money was coming like clockwork, I would take that money to buy more product for the clothing brand and just keep reinvesting.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I think my entire journey exemplifies my resilience. I was told college was the answer, I was told a 9-5 was the answer, I was told “nobody is going to pay that for a t-shirt”, I had relationships fold behind my dedication to my craft, I lost friends, some family didn’t support, I went broke, slept on floors, I’ve been used, so much more. I stayed solid and focused through it all.

Contact Info:

• Website: club4collective.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1bobbycash/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bobbyneutron12
• Other: https://dstrkt4.com/