We were lucky to catch up with Dwight Criswell recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dwight, appreciate you joining us today. Parents play a huge role in our development as youngsters and sometimes that impact follows us into adulthood and into our lives and careers. Looking back, what’s something you think you parents did right?

I have to give my parents a lot of credit for many things. The one lesson that stands out the most is, the lesson of working hard. So many times in my life I didn’t see it, or I didn’t know how, but they were teaching me a valuable lesson. Throughout my life, my parents showed me how important it is to work hard and to always hustle. They instilled in me that hard work and determination will always pay off.

Day after day I would see my parents get up and go to work to provide. The weather didn’t matter, rain sleet or snow, they knew they had to get up and go to work. Even if my parents weren’t feeling the best, they got up and did what they had to do. My parents took the approach of getting it by any means necessary, and I understand why. They had children to take care of, mouths to feed, house to take care of. In other words they were taking care of life. My parents working helped them to provide for us. I now do the same for my children. Finding a way out of no way. Instead of laying around and crying about a situation, I was taught to push through and continue to fight. This builds character, determination and resilience. It made me strong, made me someone people can look up too. I am a perfect example of determination and hard work. Im thankful for those lessons my parents taught me.

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

My name is Dwight and I am an Urban Clothing designer out of the MidWest. I create clothing for every one. Clothing that makes you look good, feel good, and clothing that you can wear everyday!

Drafted Clothing began overnight, literally. I’ve always been interested in fashion. Anyone that knows me will tell you that clothes, shoes, and hats are very important to me. I can put an outfit together in my sleep. Im kind of like a fashion guru. But, not just for high fashion, for everyday “Street/Urban Wear”. I would talk with my best friends all the time about creating my own clothing line. Talked about the designs I wanted to do and what impact I wanted my brand to have on my community. I guess I talked about it a bit too much because one day my best friend made my concepts I drew up come to life. After giving me the concepts my best friend said “Now What?” and I haven’t stopped since then.

My Clothing Brand is designed with the everyday working person in mind. My brand represents the “Hustle” in all of us. My signature T-Shirt says “Why Hate Just Hustle” and it its kind of like my motto. It’s all about love, working together, staying on our grind and the hustle. Most people look at the word hustle and think of it as a bad thing. It’s not, we hustle in our own way everyday. Everybody hustles, moms, dads, police, doctors, store clerks, all the way down to the neighborhood trash man. Everybody hustles. When you get up everyday to provide, taking care of entire households, families and most importantly yourself, that’s a hustle. Drafted Clothing is going to help you look good while you do all of that.

I strive for Drafted Clothing to be different then all of the clothing lines you see today. I want the urban communities to be reflected in clothing. It feels good when you can purchase a t-shirt and the shirt looks like you, it feels like you and most importantly not expensive.

As Drafted Clothing continues to grow and become a household name, I will be able to do more in my community. Right now 10% of all sales go back into my community in ways of free clothing giveaways, free meals, or even just giving money to little kids outside playing or buying them ice cream when the ice cream truck comes around. Drafted Clothing allows for these opportunities to give back no matter how small.

Im growing my business with the help of my community, and it feels good.
I’m helping people dress the way they want, with fashionable designs that don’t hurt your pockets. I also get to give back, and for me that’s a win win situation.

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

The lesson that I had to unlearn is that you have all the time in the world. I was wrong, time waits for no man. You will not always be able to push something off until later. Procrastination is real and it will mess up a lot of things for you.

There is never the perfect time to do something. You know how you hear people say, I was waiting for the right time or I was waiting for everything to be just right? Yea, don’t do that. You miss so many opportunities waiting. By you waiting you can miss that chance to start your business, or to collaborate with someone. Or even just to take your product to the next level.

I realized that my own insecurities were my downfall. I did not believe in my own potential. I had this way of thinking that everything had to be perfect, and that I was going to wait. Waiting on it to be perfect and everything to line up. That I would not be happy until it was perfect. The funny thing is, I didn’t know what perfect was. I would say I hurt myself more by second guessing myself and thinking that what I was doing wasn’t enough.

I have so many ideas and concepts that I think of all day. It can be overwhelming at times. I had to learn to get it out. Write it out, draw it, create that concept and process my pros and cons. Changing my way of thinking to be active and to not stop. Something may not be right the first time, or the second or even fifth time that you do it. It’s the hustle, the determination and not waiting that will allow it to work out in the end.

If I did not change my way of thinking, there would be no Drafted Clothing today. My procrastination would have left me with dreaming and not actually doing something about my dreams.

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

My story of resilience will stick with me for a long time. I almost gave up on Drafted Clothing just as I was getting started. When starting a business you have so many ideas and concepts, especially in the clothing business. I would put concepts out just to see how the people would gravitate towards it. This was a bad idea. When I did this, someone actually took my original idea for a product line and launched it themselves. The idea was identical to mine. When I tell you I was hot, I was hot. This product line meant something to me. I was so proud of how it turned out. I really put a lot of hard work and energy into it just for someone to come and snatch it away from me.

Im new to business and I didn’t know what I was doing. I put my trust in the wrong people and that was a heavy lesson to learn. I have this completed product line that I was excited about launching and boom … its snatched away from me.

Now what do I do? I could go back and pretend like it never happened, and launch mine and do it the right way. Nah, I didn’t do that because I didn’t want people to think I was the one stealing ideas. I could go confront the person who stole my idea, and express my dislikes and demand they stop and take it down. Im pretty sure they wouldn’t have taken it down. Well I guess I could just forget about it, and just go back to Drafted Clothing being an idea.

These are the things I weighed my pros and cons about. I could have just quit. But, I didn’t.
I also didn’t want to bring negativity to my business when my business is based on the complete opposite. Drafted is based on the positivity and the hustle. How dare I let myself down and not continue to hustle when that’s what Drafted is all about.

I went back to the drawing board. I had a few more designs in my bag and I just stuck to what I know. I hustled, took my losses as wins and continued to push forward. It was kind of a blessing in disguise. It taught me in this business I have to be fearless. I have to continue to show my determination and most importantly my hustle. No matter what anybody does I can’t give up and I won’t. No matter what.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.draftedclothing.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drafted_clothing/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/draftedclothing