We were lucky to catch up with LeAndre Barnett recently and have shared our conversation below.

LeAndre, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

Well Its my. middle name given to me by my mom but when I decided to become a artist I went with that name to create an identity like. a graffiti artist back when I was 16, I eventually started to just grow into it but I never wanted to call my clothing line my name at first until I started studying fashion and seeing how designers would use their names as stamps of territory kinda like a graffiti artist so I decided to take pride in the name and identify what LeAndre means to me.

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

I started out just doing traditional art pursuing a career in becoming a painter and illustrator at age 19 with no art school education, I spent years trying to build my style and prove to myself it was worth it, I always designed clothes since a teenager just preferred to focus on art more. I carried many difficulties as a artist especially with people not really understanding what I was trying to do and the message I created with my work no gallery would work with me I rarely got accepted to art shows..it was hard but I still kept going I would design shirts and show them to friends and they would urge me to make them but Id never fall through then 2019 hit I decided to turn LeAndre into a sort of studio/agency where I would manage myself and do Live paintings around south FL I manage to make a tour and people would ask at every show why I don’t have Merch and I would tell them its coming so I started designing Merch late 2019 and one day at work I made this Daffy Duck design in my artistic style and wrote the word Broward above it because that’s where my next tour in 2020 would focus on little did I know covid would happen and the tour would be canceled but it was a blessing. I spent all early 2020 planning this Merch release in the midst of covid since I couldn’t tour Id have to do something else, I then announced it and did a big roll out all on my own then I released it by the end of July and it completely sold out.

I used Virgil Ablohs approach to start my design company and spent years trying to perfect it making a lot of mistakes
Ive had production issues, budgeting issues, people would I send clothes who would never post it all types of stuff.
But I always wanted people to know how personal this brand is to me because its me all the ways through to the imperfections…im trying to my best in understanding in everything I do.

I want LeAndre to embody the identity of someone finding their higher self, Transcending expectations placed on you and surpassing that nobody knew how far I would take being a designer not even me I resisted it for years out of fear but I learned that I myself had to transcend pass my own expectations of me and funky embrace my own talents.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn perfection in my production meaning I had scale back my ideas to do what I could at the moment I wasted so much time and money samples coming up with a new idea every day trying to make the best product and best quality only wasted time from people actually being what I was doing.

I recently lost my job 2023 and had to unlearn my process and start releasing the ideas weekly almost, it look like it working so far because now I see myself selling directly and posting my product more like I always should’ve.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Direct communication you might get some Nos but you will get a yes if the product is that good, Im learning that directly involving clients in the release has helped with sales and people supporting.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.leandresupply.com
• Instagram: @leandrebarnett / @leandresupply
• Facebook: leandresupply
• Twitter: leandrebarnett

Image Credits
N/A