We recently connected with Jarrius Carter and have shared our conversation below.

Jarrius, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the story of how you went from this being just an idea to making it into something real.

Forming Delinquent USA was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. We came up with Delinquent USA in the midst of the pandemic. It was a response to current fashion trends and institutionalized thinking that our parents gave us. As you can see going to school and getting a good job doesn’t take you far. I was often criticized for going against the principals that worked back then.

1. I had to Identify our niche: Before starting a small clothing brand, we needed to identify our niche. This is the most helpful piece of advice. This means you need to know what type of clothing you want to create and who your target audience is. This will help you develop a brand that resonates with your potential customers.

2. Then we developed a business plan: Once you’ve identified your niche, you need to develop a business plan. This includes defining your brand, identifying your target market, and outlining your marketing and sales strategies. We also needed to develop a budget and determine how we would finance our business. We looked at Kith, Nike, and Stussy. All of these brands had loyal fan bases and great price points for their market of high end streetwear. This is where we looked to go with our message. Looking at Instagram helped us with strategies as well. There are so many ways to get followers and leads as well as sales.

3. Create a brand identity: Your brand identity is the face of your business. It includes your logo, colors, and overall aesthetic. You’ll need to develop a brand identity that is unique and memorable. We chose orange and pink. We have a mens side and a women’s side. We also used a circular logo to do the sleekness and eye catching of it. Currently we are under a rebrand with our logo due to concerns of the morality of it.

4. Create your designs: Once you have your brand identity in place, you can start creating your designs. You’ll need to work with designers and manufacturers to create your clothing line. This is the hardest part. We just overcame find a great manufactured overseas with a great turnaround time as well as one here in the US. Prices of this can get expensive. Manufactures want 50 or more items sometime. We also had to be very specific on details of garment.

5. Develop a production plan: I know I said that step 4 is hard but this is a close second. You’ll need to develop a production plan that outlines how you’ll manufacture your clothing. This includes identifying suppliers, determining production timelines, and developing quality control processes.

6. Build your website: Your website is your online storefront. You’ll need to build a website that showcases your brand. This part was easy. I have web development under my belt so choosing this was the easy part. I went with Shopify because of all the intergrations.

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?

As Far as Me I had always been fascinated with fashion because its our expression. I was always the dapper kind of guy who could really switch up my wardrobe and wear crazy pieces. Movie characters influenced me too. I thought fashion from anime shows like Yu Yu Hiakasho where amazing and Trunks from Dragonball-Z fit was nice.

Being from Mississippi, country fashion also played a part in what was deemed clean to me. Seeing things like mask, boots, and work wear being in fashion is something that really spurred a few of our collections and future collections.. Besides we where already doing that for years.

As trends changed I just stuck to what I like because I know everything that goes around comes around. The most difficult part is knowing when.

Delinquent USA being a Premium streetwear brand helps us be able to go into all types of areas including more than fashion.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I hate that I started this journey in 2015. Back then, people weren’t giving out this amount of information that we have now. Nor where they as many ways to promote yourself. Sometimes I do get a little jealous because I feel we started at the wrong time but nevertheless Im using and adapting to those same methods out now. Because of prior experience the hard way, everything is easy.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

We funded the business straight out of pocket. I enrolled in a class after I graduated College. Took the money & never looked back. Delinquent of me. We purchased vintage clothes because that was a no brainer for people to buy. I know people support things they recognize rather than things they don’t.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://adelinquentuniversity.com/
• Instagram: delinquent.usa