We were lucky to catch up with Rodney Spears recently and have shared our conversation below.

Rodney, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

The intention was to name it after my grandfather . It was gonna be K-DON at first but other companies were using it. I wanted to created something unique and after my og was helping me brainstorm. We came up with the name K>516. The first K is the first letter of his first name and 516 is his date of birth. The greater than sign signal how you are greater than the day you are born. Actually it’s because of her I was able to come up with the name.

Rodney, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I run a luxury streetwear brand that’s about staying positive in life’s ups and downs. I just launched my first drop back in November. It’s currently based in Chicago. With my brand, I value quality, exclusivity and craftsmanship. Since 18, I always had trouble finding streetwear brands where their clothes fit the way I want them. I like when my clothes compliment my body as I have a slim build. The first step was to reach out to a USA based manufacturer.  To create pieces that compliment the person’s body. While also not contributing to fast fashion. I want to create good quality clothing with premium materials that will last more than a few wears. One of things I’m most proud of with the brand is that I can say that the prices I set does match the quality and effort that’s put in to creating the clothes. I want people to know that each design I put out will have a positive message relating to the brand. To encourage people to embrace life’s ups and downs while staying true to yourself. Overall, I want to provide luxury streetwear pieces with original designs thats about staying positive in life’s ups and downs

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

So this literally happened recently. For some time I’ve been promoting my first drop. It was a Saturday and I was getting ready to go to my niece game when someone replied to my story posts on IG that was a product shot I did with the shirt. Long story short, she told me the checkout page wasn’t working since she couldn’t put in her shipping address. Once I saw it wasn’t working I immediately reached out to Shopify about the issue. I was wasting no time at all. Mind you, I still had to make it to my niece basketball game and it already started. I wanted to be on time for her game. However, I wanted to make sure this issue was resolved. I literally felt like I was finna lose out on someone who I could tell was excited to buy from me. So I kept updating her on the issue as she really wanted it. Luckily she was very understanding. She also expressed how she been eyeing the shirt for some time as I’ve been promoting it as much as possible. After 30 minutes, she was finally able to order the shirt and I of course I happy for sure. Once that was done, I rushed to my niece game and was able to make it to the 4th quarter. Needless to say that was an interesting morning haha.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

I have the clothes manufactured here in the USA. I started by reaching out to a few manufacturers and from then on I would have them create a t-shirt sample with a material we use as I purchase the fabric myself from a sourcing company. I had an idea of how I wanted my shirts to be created. I wanted my shirts to compliment your body but still comfortable to wear. Needless to say the first couple manufacturers was not delivering me the sample I was looking for. After that, my mom actually told me about this manufacturer in Detroit. She was the one who helped me find it. The sample they created for me was exactly what I needed. Since that sample was for a Small. I decided to create a sample for the other sizes (M-XL). After each sample size was approved. I went with them for the whole process all the way to production. The shirts came out how I wanted it. What I love about them is that they understood I was new to the process and helped me through the whole thing. We were able to communicate to each other on what I was looking to achieve with my shirts. It took me two years until I was able to launch. But I’m glad I took the time to find the right manufacturer. One thing I learned is to trust the process and never rush it. To take the time to bring your idea to life and put out a great product that you can be proud of.

Contact Info:

• Website: k516clothing.com
• Instagram: k516_clothing
• Facebook: K 516
• Other: Pinterest – k516clothing Tik Tok – k516clothing

Image Credits
Stefanye Williams has image credits for 4 of the photos that were took