I will friend’s french translation describe me…
Kiya, the young boss of the legendary “Salt Edge, THE Japanese jeans store in San Francisco, we met a miracle! Julian Prince Dash ! Prince Julian Dash! It was he who sews seams (Chaintstitch, traditional chain stitch only) for demanding clients Self Edge. Until then, nothing surprising. But Julian was just 24 years and manufactures jeans since the age of 18 years already! The Mozart Denim, whatever! Better, Julian recovered an old carriage shop of ice, it was equipped with a sewing machine and he walks the streets to repair the jeans people or for their manufacture customized jeans for it! It intends to help make and sell in the street one day of ice in indigo! The day we met, Julian had just received a machine to repair the rips in the jeans as the years 1920/1950. The machine was purchased by Kiya, for Julian was as he said in a huge smile: “Lets eat some fried chicken or sushi!”. A machine which dates from 1944, but a dream for a child born more than 40 years later! That day, the average age of Julian and his mates turned around 25 years. The seller of the machine, a young Chinese came to deliver from Seattle where he has his own brand of jeans, was close to 27 years. Julian is proof incarnate, dynamic and smiling, the jeans are still living, modern, topical, subversive, creative and eternal. Not just a matter of fashion victim or the obsessive vintage!
Another version goes like…
I moved to SF wanting to leave home and become a rapper. Prior to leaving, I did not see my house, school or meet my roommates. I just followed my intuition and let the pieces of the puzzle fall into place…this was in 2003.
Ever since 6th grade I knew I wanted and was going to have a clothing brand. Being young, my expression and outlets became music and clothing (How it was created, the design and the people behind it), along with being cool. In high school I received an opportunity to go to SF for the first time for a student conference. After 10 minutes of being in SF, I knew this was where I needed to be in order to fulfill my destiny. When I got back home, I applied to San Francisco State University, got accepted and moved up weeks later after that. My first day I got lost, my second day I taught my roommates how to try to rap and my third day I got a job at Noah’s Bagels… and that’s where it began.
There were a handful of hip hop groups that I followed in San Diego while in high school and the group named People Like Us was my favorite. One day while cutting a bagel at work, a co worker asks me “Hey, you’re from San Diego, you like hip hop?” I reply, “Yea, why?” He says, I make beats for a group called People Like Us, you heard of us?!?” And there it was, I was now hanging out with my favorite local hip hop group, in San Francisco. They became my intro for many things and relationships in SF but the most significant introduction was in graffiti.
One day I am skateboarding at the pier and I see a skateboard on the sidewalk by itself, I look to see if it is anyone’s and the owner sees me and we smile. Two-three hours later the skateboard is still there and no one is around, I decide to take it home and spray paint and stencil it to make it look different than normal. I got some spray paint, painted my board, then some wood, then some walls etc. etc. next thing you know I am all over the city.
I did that for a while and it taught me a number of things including the impermanence of art and life, how to interact with the city on multiple levels, a variety of disciplines and aesthetics, how propaganda and big money intertwine and more. However, one day a “hero” calls the cops on me and long story short, I get illegally arrested and beat up by racist cops in San Diego. I spend three days in jail and then go home to San Francisco. One morning, days after, I spring up from a nap and say out loud “I need to learn how to sew jeans!” I still wanted to do graffiti but had to find another way of doing it. I do weeks of internet research and ask questions all around town, until one day I am biking down an alley and I see a factory’s worth of industrial machines getting loaded into a truck. I track down and talk to boss man; he sells me four machines for the price of one, delivers them to my house and has the same birthday as me. I get the machines serviced; some pictures off of the internet and did not sleep for 2 nights and sewed a pair of jeans, then did it again, and again, and again. Now I sell my products through word of mouth and strategic product placement out of my custom made ice cream sewing machine cart, I have created a jean collective named The Commission and teach kids and students how to sew, about the industry and entrepreneurship.
ok.
