We were lucky to catch up with Destiny Johnson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Destiny , thanks for joining us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

Creating names was always a challenging thing for me. The name ‘DMORJ’ originated from my Instagram username. It consists of letters from my full name. The “D’ from my first name Destiny, the ‘MOR’ from my middle name, and the ‘J” from my last name Johnson. At the time, which was around when I was in middle school it just seemed like the easiest thing to use, everyone had cool usernames and I could never come up with one so I settled for something simple. But over the years it stuck with me. When I started my brand I figured what is a better name to use than my own, especially because my brand consists of artwork that is created all by me.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Destiny Johnson, also known as an artist by the name of DMORJ. I am a 24 year old creative artist, clothing brand owner and entrepreneur from Dover, Delaware. From a young age I always enjoyed creating art, at the time I was never much of a painter but had a love for drawing. Coming to the end of my senior year in high-school (2017), a friend seen a post of my drawings on social media. I got a DM from her saying she would pay me to paint some artwork on a pair of shoes for her. At the time I knew nothing about customizing shoes. I did a little research, ordered a starter shoe customizing kit and created my first pair of custom sneakers. This was the start of my first business ‘DMORJ CUSTOMS’. For the first time I realized that it was possible for me to make money from my artwork. I started off mainly painting shoes and over the years began to venture into painting hats, clothing and more.

Fast forward to about my 2nd or 3rd year in college I was scrolling through social media and seeing a lot of different clothing brands, mainly a lot of high-end designer brands that are charging hundreds of dollars for a basic tee with nothing on it… No thought, creativity, just simply their name. I laughed and said to myself that I also was going to start a clothing brand. I said this as a joke but for that entire following week the idea of a clothing brand was the only thing on my mind. My whole thought process was; what if I can provide people with the same high quality clothing that you get from our current designer brands.. but with my unique and exclusive art on it. This was the start of the ‘DMORJ’ clothing brand. By the end of that week I was creating a business page for this new idea and started created clothing ideas. Doing custom shoes is fun for me, but I needed a way to get my artwork to people quickly, in numbers but still keeping it exclusive just like a hand painted piece would be, and in a way that I wouldn’t have to personally paint/draw every piece myself. This clothing brand is the way that I chose to accomplish that. DMORJ provides consumers with Luxury Artwear Clothing, ranging from pieces that are mass produced in a factory to very limited pieces that are created by hand by me.

What I think sets me apart from others is that with everything I do, I always want to be different, in my on lane. I think that has been one of my top goals with my brand, I try not to focus on the actual clothes aspect of it which of course is a major part. But try to mainly focus on the actual artwork aspect of it, and THEN the clothing comes second. My brand is my art, my creativity, it is ME, and that is what will keep me separated from others. So, I feel as though as long as I stay true to myself and put out pieces that represent me and not trying to be like anybody else or any other brand that is what sets me apart from others.

I am most proud of not giving up on myself and my business goals. People will always tell you how hard it is to start/have a business, you hear them, but you never truly find out until you really get in the field and experience it. This is no easy road and sometimes feels like it would be easier to just give up, but I am proud of myself for never letting these thoughts win and continuing to push with my business. I’ve learned that nothing will come overnight and even though I may not be where I want to be I am way further than where I started 2 years ago. I’m just proud I didn’t give up on myself.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

When it came to customizing shoes my best source of new clients was just word of mouth, getting new people through people organically interacting with my content on social media. But with my clothing brand the best source is from running ads. A lot of clients came through me trying different marketing strategies and running ads mainly on Instagram using their boost post feature.

Have you ever had to pivot?

A time I had to pivot is when I first started my business. Long story short I was looking for a overnight success. Thinking I would have my first clothing drop, sell out first day and make a lot of money. I learned very quickly, that is not how things work. I had to step back and reevaluate not only the type of product I was releasing but also the amount of product I was purchasing, which at the time was way too much for a beginning brand. This led me to change the pieces I was creating because I needed to stay true to myself instead of trying to put out clothing that looked like every other streetwear brand because that’s what I thought would help me sell out. I also had to understand the importance of not buying too much product. This experience is what led me to change a lot of things early on in my business.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.dmorj.com
• Instagram: @DMORJAPPAREL
• Youtube: @DMORJtheARTIST