Now a senior menswear buyer at JackThreads, Long Island native Jeremiah Myers started his career in men’s fashion at J. Michael Shoes in Syracuse over a decade ago. The soft-spoken streetwear master checked in with us about his journey to the top of the game.
Syracuse, New York: Big fashion city? Or biggest fashion city?
Clearly the biggest. There is nothing more fashion-forward than living in the 2nd cloudiest place in the US, after Seattle, and where it reaches -20F with 3+ feet of snow on a regular basis.
The thing he absolutely had to have growing up:
Original Jams followed shortly by Limpies (the brand The Skids knocked off for their whole concept). If you are not aware of either of these brands then Google it, because now you can.
…and the most embarrassing thing he had growing up:
Red Cross Colour jeans. Yeah, I’ll admit it.
On his introduction to menswear:
I started getting really into clothing in general in middle school. I was really into skateboarding and snowboarding. Before the Internet, the only way you could see new product was from mail order catalogs or magazines. All the big magazines like Transworld and Snowboarder or the huge mail-order companies like CCS or Skate On Haight would come out with these insane buyers guides for every season. I would flip through them over and over to the point they would fall apart like an old issue of Playboy at summer camp. It turned out that I was more into the clothes than the actual hard goods.
On ensuring he could make a living selling clothes:
I hated school so I was always looking for a way to make a career with out having to go to college. I started doing buying for a local ski/snowboard shop my senior year of high school. I did sales for a few different clothing brands when I first moved to the city but I always loved buying so I guess it was meant to be.
On hip-hop’s appropriation of high fashion, and what it means:
It seems to be a more symbiotic relationship. The brands seem to want to be associated with the artists as much as the artists want to be associated with the brands. It’s the same thing that happened with all the urban brands back in the ’90s.
On how his dad clued him in to the power of the Internet:
My father was a huge reason I became so tuned in to the Internet. He had his own marketing/PR company. We would talk about the different projects he was doing for companies and would tell me about how he was using the Internet to help with them. At the same time, he was suggesting books like Customers.com and Permission Marketing, great books that talk about the power of the Internet and how you could use it to create a very close relationship with your customers and bypass all the traditional obstacles. One of the things that I really liked was that it was so focused on giving people what they want and allowed the consumer to filter out the nonsense.
On the thrill of Internet commerce:
My first real good experience with a company other than one I worked for was when I sold 3 pairs of size 8 Nike Stash BWs on eBay and took the profits to get a pair of size 11s in place of them.
On who dresses better between him and his wife:
I’m better dressed, wifey is better undressed.
Fill in the blank: “If my son ever comes home wearing JNCOs, I will ___________.”
What can I do? My parents let me dress myself for good or bad, hopefully more good. If I’m lucky, he won’t end up dressing like an extra from Jersey Shore.
