We were lucky to catch up with Nick Cartwright recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Nick thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Alright – so having the idea is one thing, but going from idea to execution is where countless people drop the ball. Can you talk to us about your journey from idea to execution?
In 2018, I was walking around Fairfax and ended up at a store called 424. At the time, I was just a fashion kid who would run around with my friends and film stuff on my VHS camcorder, and take “fit pics” for Instagram. So I was at this store, and I was just trying on a bunch of clothes that I knew I couldn’t afford and taking mirror pictures with them on. Later on, I was looking through my pictures to post something on Instagram, and I found this one where it was me at 424 taking a picture in the mirror, but my face was covered by either my phone or the end of the mirror or something, and I thought it looked sick. I was about to post the photo with the caption ‘Hidden Faces.” I stared at the text for a bit, and in my head, I was just thinking, “Wow, this could be a cool name for a brand or something. I eventually left LA and went back home (to Minnesota) and pretty much just started to spray painting “hidden faces” on any blank shirt I could find in my closet. That whole year, my routine was just buying stencils and fabric spray paint at Michael’s and making more shirts. After a while, I wanted to try selling stuff, so I ended up making more shirts, but this time I used rhinestones instead of paint. At the time, rhinestones were super popular for some reason, and pretty much everyone was using them or putting them on something. I thrifted a bunch of shirts and ended up heat-pressing a bunch of custom rhinestones I had ordered online that spelled out “Hidden Faces.” I would post each individual one on my Instagram story and caption it “Who wants it?” or something like that. After that, one by one, I sold out all in a day. People I didn’t even know in real life just sent me money and their shipping, though. Pretty soon after that, I knew what I wanted to do.
Nick, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I’m Nick Cartwright, or sometimes people know me as LASTNIGHT4EVER. I live in Atlanta, Georgia, but I am from Minnesota originally. I got into this industry through skateboarding and my love for streetwear and clothing. I started off filming my friends with my VHS camera and traveling back and forth from Minnesota to Los Angeles every summer. I would meet people online through Instagram or Twitter who had similar interests as me, and we would just kick it and become friends. We would all make money from selling our clothes like Supreme, Bape, or whatever the hypebeasts wanted back then. Eventually, I started traveling to New York every fashion week, pretty much doing the same stuff I did in LA: sneaking into shows and afterparties, meeting new friends, and building new connections. My friends and I would walk around Soho and do nothing besides have fun and live life. From that point forward, I decided to build my own vision called “Hidden Faces.” A lot of sleepless nights, couches, floors, and everything in between followed. Fast forward to present time (2023), and I am living and working out of my apartment in Atlanta. There is still lots of trial and error, and I am working on building a team with likeminded creatives around the world to push my vision. The thing about this lifestyle that separates the real from the fake is that people can’t go through all the trauma that comes with it. Being broke, depressed, and not feeling motivated to do anything some days really takes a toll on your body and emotions after awhile. I’ve worked the 9-to-5 jobs; I’ve worked at big retail companies like Dior and Nordstrom and got a steady check every 2 weeks like everyone else. For some reason, though, that wasn’t enough for me, and I wanted more, so I sacrificed everything I had to start from scratch again and build my way up. I feel like all this really helps my design process sometimes and gives meaning to everything I make because there’s a story and a soul to every garment I make and sell. I remember every piece I’ve ever made and where I was when I made it. So when I see people wearing something of mine that I made in, like, 2020 or something, it’s really special to me.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
Well, honestly, I just started posting “fit pics” and skate videos and pretty much anything I thought was cool then. From there, people began following me based on the content I posted. Also, not to mention that the algorithm for Instagram was much better a few years ago; you could actually see people’s posts right when they posted, not a week later, so that helped. After a while, major brands would email me to post pictures of myself in their clothing, and they would cash me out. I even won a design competition for Nike in 2019, which led me to make my own Nike Air Max 95 colorway and have it available on Nike.com. So that for sure helped my social media presence, and even as corny as it may sound, I would just follow people, and they would follow back, and they would actually enjoy the content I made. I built a lot of relationships that way, to be honest. You just have to remember that there are no rules to this internet sh*t. Nowadays, everyone is trying to do the fashion thing and the brand thing, so you just have to stay true to your ideas and vision and make it impossible for people not to notice you.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice
NFTs? I don’t know much about them, but my cousin Nathan is really into that and damn near makes a living off it, so I respect it. Shout out to the NFT community.
Contact Info:
- Website: Hiddenfaces.online
- Instagram: @Lastnight4ever
- Twitter: @Lastnight4ever
- Youtube: @Lastnight4ever
- Other: Lastnight4ever.com
Image Credits
Cecilia Donovan, Nick Cartwright