A whole host of up-and-coming fashion brands turned out to showcase their garms at the Union’s Souls Sampled event, each with their own fashion story, but browsing the clothes one interesting home-grown story came apparent. Introducing Chuks, proud founder of Paranoid Garments and Union resident.
“I started my designs in 2019, but I was still at uni then. Choosing the name, Paranoid Garments was just how I felt, you come from a certain place and look a certain way and you feel like you are a target, you might be a target to certain people. The logo has a target on it, it’s a metaphor for having a threat in your life, but it’s how you overcome that and keep things moving forward. I’ve got a vault of designs, but these are the first I have made, the Paranoid Punk and the Love is War, War is Love.”
So, what were some of the challenges you have encountered on your Paranoid Garments journey so far?
“Production was the hardest part, you get heartbroken so many times, I currently manufacture in China, really good brands, like Represent for example, make their stuff here, but to do that the quantity has to be more as it is just so expensive. The more you buy the less expensive it is, so I launched this around the New Year and bought about 150 of these hoodies, I go to the post office to ship them a few times a week, it’s hard though man, like you do your 9-5 and come back and do this, it’s me who does everything in the brand, design and sampling.”
How have you found it building a brand in Manchester?
“I moved from Nigeria when I was 15, I went to uni in Birmingham and then did my masters in London, that was in fashion marketing and industrial design. When uni finished, I was bored and looking for jobs, I found one up here and so decided to move to Manchester. London’s very expensive to be fair, I needed to humble myself, get a job and invest money back from that into the brand. I think Manchester is the best place for that, it’s growing and developing and living in Union is probably the best I’ve seen, it’s great for networking and meeting likeminded people.
“People have supported me in this city, it’s great for that. People see your brand and the quality of it, but they also can see your personality, which matters a lot, you must be able to sell yourself to people. Manchester has helped me a lot and I have met a load of interesting people and Union has helped me even more, I meet so many people I can’t control it now!”
What does the future hold for Paranoid Garments?
“Trends come and go, as Virgil Abloh said you just have to take a product and change it by 5 percent, for me I want to have a simple enough logo where you can make just that logo recognisable, I want to go into mass production where I could put the Paranoid Garments logo on furniture and things.”
“I just want to focus on meeting people and seeing if people really f**k with it, I want to be consistent with this and live off it eventually, but I am mature enough to realise it’s not going to happen overnight, and I am happy to wait longer for it to happen. I also want to have a team of creatives, you can go far on your own but having that collaboration and sharing ideas with people opens up so many different doors for you. I am in search of retailers, and I want to do more collaborations with people, I want to throw it in Selfridges man!”
You can find Paranoid Garmets on Instagram here – https://www.instagram.com/paranoidgarments/
If you missed the Souls Sampled event, don’t worry you can read all about who was there on our page here.