How’d you come up with the name “Grungy Gentleman”?

It’s a little bit of a long story. So, I was living a little bit of a double life, which I don’t know if I should say. (laughs) I was working at a law firm, the third biggest law firm in the world, and I was the least important person there by far. I also worked nightlife for Strategic Group. I was being mentored by a friend, and had just gotten out of nightlife, but the night before my birthday, I was going to support one of my buddies who was still in nightlife and who was having an all-black-everything party for me. I already had a black tie and blazer, so I went to Barney’s on the day of the party to see if they had a black and white gingham shirt. I went up to the first guy I saw, who was folding shirts, and asked if they had a black and white gingham shirt, and he says, “Sorry, I don’t work for the clothing store, I work for a brand.” I knew where I was in Barney’s—I was in the Rag and Bone pop-up shop. So, I happen to wear their clothes—it was five years ago, they were really catching momentum, and I just was like, “Dude, I wear your st—I don’t know if I should say this--‘Dude I fucking love your shit, it’s sick. My girl buys it for me, and I get a ton of compliments from guys and girls when I wear it. I definitely love rocking your stuff.’ And he said, ‘That’s so cool, you should tell the designer, he’s right over there.’ David Nevile was right there, and we spoke for about 30, 40 minutes, which is a long time, and during that time, someone from Barney’s corporate came over, most likely because David was there, obviously, and he was respecting some of my opinions when we were talking, which gave me some confidence. To give you a little background: especially in nightlife, because you had to dress up, a lot of people, a lot of my friends, would tell me I should do something with style, whether it be styling or designing or consulting, or even having a blog, because that was really popular back then. That’s just something I heard sometimes.
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