Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sole Smith . We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Sole, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

I think the key to my success was always putting myself in the right rooms and always wearing my brand. I started my clothing brand in 2010 while being a broke college student. I would literally wear my stuff everywhere I went and always had a connection to the places to be. After only 9 months of promoting my business every place I went, I landed my first celebrity client. Over the next few years, I continued to promote in person but I also started networking via social media. I would literally inbox celebrities, entertainers, famous photographers and models about my brand. Everyday, all day!

It sounds crazy but I have clients & business partners till this day that I still have not met in person! Having a degree in business management gave me the cheat code on how to properly conduct business even from afar. Don’t get me wrong though, I highly advise doing both when marketing a product. Most brands today tend to stick with social media as a marketing tool and forget in person marketing will always matter! I am a walking billboard for my brand online and in person.

Promote your brand till people get sick of you and then promote it again lol. I’ve put my brand and logo in front of people so much, they call me by my brand name when meeting me sometimes.

I say all that to say. In order to scale your business promote and network! Online and off line!

Sole, 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 the owner and CEO of unisex Streetwear brand Vintage Extinction better known as “VE”. Created in 2010, we specialized in custom denim and one of a kind vintage finds. I got my claim to fame when I was hired by “Last Kings” (rapper TYGA’s team) to style Hiphop artist Honey Cocaine. This was during an era when custom denim wasn’t trendy and we took social media by storm. Attracting the likes of Rihanna, Mulatto, Gunna & more!

We’ve worked with countless celebrities, entertainers, influencers and key players in the fashion world. We’ve been featured in over 8 magazine, NYFW on multiple occasions and recently landed two placements in the film industry. A brand that continues to grow and I don’t see us stopping anytime soon!

14 years of creating trends and styling your favs!

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When Covid hit, we took a huge hit! I felt like we need a change or a pivot to stay relevant during a time when people were not focused on shopping.

I pivot and created the “drip”. We revamped our logo and created our first official mens line for the brand. A brand that focused on mainly customs and women’s pieces. Decided to take a dive in the sweatsuit market. I felt for such a creative brand, sweatsuits were too regular” but I realized during quarantine all I wore was sweatsuits.

It made me think, people just want to be comfortable right now. They literally want to just be regular. Let’s give them what they want.

The drip was and still is my highest grossing collection till this day!

Now we focus on dropping more regular pieces to go with your everyday life style. Custom is still a passion of ours but doing more simple items bring more customers and money in the door.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I believe creating a brand that was very true to myself helped me build a reputation. I’ve always been a super funny, friendly, outgoing person with style so a lot of people buy my products to own a piece of that essence.

Also, customers seeing my products on people they looked up to, brought in massive sales. I make sure to alway put my products in the hands of individuals with a lot of influence while maintain good business relationships!

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.VintageExtinction.com
• Instagram: @callme_sole @itsve
• Facebook: Vintage Extinction LLC