We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Stephon Brown . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Stephon below.

Alright, Stephon thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

Being successful to me, honestly doesn’t mean what the average person thinks. These days, success is managed by attaining a certain status or dollar amount. But for me, I think being successful is doing what you love, and being able to be happy in it. Being able to help others get to where they’re going and not have to feel threatened in your position. That takes courage and a certain level of sureness in yourself. And if you can be sure and secure in every decision you make— business or personal. I believe that will help propel you to where you’re going.

Stephon, 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 got into the fashion industry because, at the time, there wasn’t enough space or representation of the plus size community. Popular items such as skinny jeans or certain cuts of garments wasn’t being produced for us. Or if it was there was an outrageous price tag attached to it. Especially for a kid like me in high school. At the time I couldn’t afford $200 pair of jeans. So I started to learn how to sew.

I went to thrift stores and found some jeans to practice on and started reconstructing them to my liking. After that I went into other pieces like hoodies, jackets, and shirts. From there people started asking me “where’d you get that from bro? That jacket fire” and when I said I made it they’d ask me to do a piece for them. Little by little my clientele grew and my friends suggested I start a brand. That was 2015 fast forward to today and here we are!

What I’m most proud of is my consistency. Through trial and error, yes and no’s, all the emotions that comes along with starting/growing a business— I stuck with it. I stayed the course and didn’t change my objective. I think that’s the most important thing. The number one thing I try to communicate to my customers is that I’m still the same kid who started out in his bedroom Junior year of high school. That Fire and passion for design is still there. Just like wine, gets better with time.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Running a business at the peak of the pandemic taught me a lot. One thing that stood out to me is, people genuinely love to support other people if you have a good product. At the time most of my sales were from in person pop ups and markets around Florida. Having to transition to completely online Was though but manageable because that’s where I started.

Through networking on social media and email marketing previous customers, I was able to not only save my business but Grow as well! People would shout the brand out, refer friends, buy in bulk. A lot of support came from people I honestly did not know at the time. And that’s what I love about my brand is the fact that I offer a great product and people outside of my friends gravitate to it.

I Love meeting new people, learning about them, hearing their interest and background story. I feel like we lost that and it’s become extremely rare due to the pandemic and social media hype. But when I thought it was over for me, it actually turned out to help the brand blossom.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I built my brand on interactions. I’m a seller by nature. Coming from a background in retail I can sell a horse a spur. With that being said I knew that customers liked to know who and what they’re supporting. So any time I had an interaction with a customer— even if they didn’t buy anything, I always made sure to stay connected with them on social media. Reposting customers in garments, showing live views of purchases and just being transparent, people started to take notice.

My advice is Just be authentic. I think what’s hurting the industry most is that everybody is latching on to trends and what they see is popular. There are so many clothing brand more that are starting to look the same and I think customers are starting to notice.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.vintagexliving.com
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• Facebook: Www.Facebook.com/vintagexliving
• Twitter: www.Twitter.com/vintagexliving