All the times Telfar has left the fashion industry gagged
TheGrio...
After Telfar shocked them all during Paris Fashion Week by livestreaming the show from Brooklyn, we rounded up 10 times he’s done something similar.
When Telfar Clemmons closed Paris Fashion Week, he did so from Brooklyn.
On Tuesday, Oct. 6, after invitations went out last minute, inviting members of the fashion industry to the Théâtre Daunou in Paris to come and “recognize the obvious,” that one presents their fashion in order to be “recognized,” roughly 300 guests arrived expecting to see Telfar’s Spring/Summer 2027 collection. Instead, guests were treated to a livestream from One Hanson Place in Brooklyn, where the actual runway show was unfolding alongside a massive Telfar sample sale.
When a model dressed in an oversized hooded leopard-print bomber coat over a matching pair of shorts strode out onto the stage in Paris, she was interrupted by a phone call. When she answered the ringing phone, she asked, “Oh my god, T, where are you?”
“I’m in Paris!” he said as the screen began to show him clearly in Brooklyn walking through the sample sale. When the model asked, “Where?” He insisted he was in Paris before he announced to the whooping and cheering crowd in Brooklyn, “Y’all ready?! Let’s start the show!” before his models thundered down the catwalk.
That same irreverent energy was, of course, kept up in the clothes. Coming down the runway was everything from businesswear to streetwear all with Telfar’s signature contemporary edge, including blazers and jackets quite literally turned inside out with exposed linings and seams, while glossy jacquards, loads of animal prints, graphic catsuits, dainty chains, red denim, and flashes of the unmistakable Telfar logo kept things bold and mischievous. By the time it was all over, Clemens had managed to officially return to Paris Fashion Week without actually showing up in Paris at all.
During a broadcast of “Way Up With Angela Yee” show earlier that same day, Telfar told Yee, “The show’s in Paris,” regarding the Spring/Summer 2027 show and his Brooklyn sample sale happening at the same time. “And they might collide at some point.”
Collide they did. If this all sounds like an elaborate stunt or prank, well, this is Telfar we’re talking about after all.
Since Clemens launched his namesake gender-neutral label in New York in 2005, Telfar has gone from an underground favorite somewhat overlooked by the fashion establishment to arguably one of the most recognizable Black-owned brands in fashion. Its cult Shopping Bag, dubbed the “Bushwick Birkin,” which exploded in the 2010s and early 2020s, seen on the arms of legions of Black it-girls and it-boys in a wide array of colors, at one point was fetching an average 195% of its retail value on the resale market, nearly twice the rate of Hermès bags at the time.
Along the way, Clemens has built a reputation for doing this whole fashion thing his way, whether that means letting customers guarantee their own sold-out bags, staging a runway inside a mosh pit, turning a Rainbow store into a fashion-week frenzy, letting demand determine prices, or, apparently, doing Paris Fashion Week from Brooklyn.
Here are ten of the top times Telfar left the fashion industry gagged.
When White Castle got the Telfar treatment
Many fans of the brand may recall when, nearly a decade ago, Telfar went viral for redesigning the uniforms of roughly 10,000 White Castle employees. While other designers were clamoring to dress celebrities and supermodels, Clemens made fast-food workers the faces of his brand, proving early on that Telfar is for everyone.
When he had crowdsurfacing models
By 2019, Telfar was already known for doing Fashion Week his way, but his Fall show at Irving Plaza took things to another level. With no traditional runway or front row in sight, models dove straight into a mosh pit and crowdsurfed above hundreds of guests before Clemens eventually joined them.
His Paris debut
The last time Telfar officially showed at Paris Fashion Week in 2019, he took over the legendary La Cigale concert hall and turned his debut into part fashion show, part film premiere, and part concert. Models who first appeared onscreen in his short film “The World Isn’t Everything” eventually emerged in real life as the night unfolded into live performances.
The time he turned dinner into a runway
When Pitti Uomo invited Clemens to Florence as a special guest in 2020, he naturally didn’t give them a regular fashion show. After hosting a feast inside the ornate Palazzo Corsini, Telfar left the plates, bottles, food, and stained tablecloths right where they were and sent models strutting across the tables the next day.
When he found a way to make sure everyone could get a bag
At the height of Telfar Shopping Bag mania, getting one before it sold out could feel nearly impossible. So in 2020, Clemens introduced Bag Security, opening orders for a limited time and promising to make every bag purchased, essentially saying if you wanted a Telfar badly enough to wait for it, you could have one.
And when it was finally time to retire the program three years later, Clemens couldn’t just send an email. He personally surprised customers over Zoom with the news, then turned their reactions into a campaign displayed across New York.
How he made his own TV channel
What does a brand do when social media isn’t enough? If you’re Telfar, apparently, you launch your own 24-hour television network. TELFAR.TV arrived in 2021 with original shows and videos submitted by consumers and fans, while surprise QR codes flashed onscreen giving eagle-eyed viewers a chance to snag a bag — or, as Clemens put it, “It’s not a drop, it’s a drip.”
When he made Rainbow the hottest store in New York
Forget Bergdorf’s. In 2022, Telfar took over a Rainbow in Downtown Brooklyn, filled it with more than 3,500 Shopping Bags in every color and size, and watched thousands of people descend on the store for the chance to finally buy one in person. By the end of the day, every last bag was gone.
The time he launched a live pricing sale where popularity made things cheaper
Most brands mark down the clothes nobody buys. Telfar decided to do the exact opposite. With Live Price in 2023, pieces started at wholesale and got more expensive by the second until they sold out, with that final amount becoming their permanent price — meaning the faster everybody bought something, the cheaper it stayed.
When he gave bags away for the holidays
By the 2023 holiday season, Telfar had already found plenty of unconventional ways to sell a bag, so naturally the next move was helping customers give them away. That year, the designer launched “Gifted,” where consumers could submit videos about someone they wanted to surprise, and participating shoppers who bought a Shopping Bag received another one to give away for free.
The way Telfar’s constant trolling
If there’s one thing longtime Telfar fans know, it’s to expect the unexpected. From cryptic social posts and surprise drops to cheeky campaigns, unconventional ads, and announcements that may or may not mean what you think they mean, Clemens has made keeping people guessing part of the brand’s DNA. Even this summer, when Telfar announced it was “severely downsizing,” the brand was really teasing a tiny version of its famous Shopping Bag.
At this point, true fans of Telfar — and fashion — know there’s almost always something up his sleeve, and frankly, it’s part of why we love him.