StockX recently sat down with New York native, Eric Emanuel, to discuss his ComplexCon Pop-Up, the story behind his brand, and working with his idol, Allen Iverson.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Can you give us the SparkNotes’ version of how you got to where you are now?
I was going to college at FIT [Fashion Institute of Technology] in the advertising and marketing program. I had some internships and it just wasnāt really for me. I got an internship at Tommy Hilfiger, who is actually from the same small town Iām from, and through family, I was able to get the internship. Growing up, Tommy Hilfiger was someone I looked up to- he gave me that āyou can do it tooā feeling. So I started making these snakeskin jerseys and that just snowballed into A$AP Rocky, Fabolous, and Travis Scott wearing them. Pretty much everyone in hip-hop had them on so I ran with the snakeskin jersey thing for a while. Moving on from the jerseys, I wanted to figure out something that I could actually wear like everyday basketball shorts. So I started with the Chicago Bulls silhouette. It was bulky, it was heavy, it was beautiful, but it wasnāt really an everyday short for me so I made what is now the ābasic shortā which is the most simply refined short in the world in familiar colors. I did the first ābasic shortā in 2017, it didnāt really get traction until 2018 when Post Malone, Justin Bieber, and everyone started wearing it.
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This is the first time Iāve called my parents and been like āIām genuinely happy.ā This was my moment. It feels like Iām doing something that I could have never imagined.
As far as collaborations and the roadmap for that, I started with New Era. I did a collection of waxed canvas fitted hats and MLB signed off and let me put my logo on the side of the hat. I was ecstatic; I scored the first licensed collaboration with MLB in North America.
The MLB was ok with you using different logos and unconventional colors like hot pink or neon green?
When I went to New Era with those ideas, they originally looked at it and were unsure because the apparel was for the fall and these colors didnāt necessarily make sense. I just wanted to be my most authentic self with the project and at the time these were the colors I wore. For the teams, I picked them solely for the love of the logos. Iām not a big baseball fan, but the logos are so iconic and itās Americana and what I wore growing up. The colors werenāt even the biggest hurdle though, it was the logos. I wanted to throw my logo on top of the Yankees logo; I wanted to put my logo on top of the Braves logo. They shot that down immediately. We met in the middle. There was definitely pushback as there is in any collab but in the end New Era trusted me to do whatever I envisioned. They believed in me, thatās why they had me there.
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What about adidas?
So adidas came to me and we were trying to figure out a shoe to work on. I have obsession with retro basketball- so I wanted to rework a basketball shoe. Iām from New York so I wanted to do [Knickās legend] Patrick Ewingās first shoe, the āRivalry.ā It was a shoe that was originally made in Franceāsuper-luxeāit has a nice retro shape, and itās something you can wear every day. After that, we did the āBoost You Wearā (Crazy BYW), which to me is a revolutionary lifestyle basketball shoe. It is beautiful, it is visually pleasing, so we went with that. Working with adidas was sort of the same thing as New Era, I was throwing hot pink on their iconic silhouettes, even the Patrick Ewing. It was me taking these lifestyle moments and showing them through my lens and my lens is reworking colorways. The majority of the time itās colorways youāre familiar with, other times it gets a bit wild. I love color.
Where did the Eric Emanuel Logo come from?
I had the New Era collaboration coming and I was just going to put my name on the side of the hat. Then on this one trip home to Syracuse, I ran into an old friend (Chris Porten) and he was like āDo you have a logo? I do graphic design.ā I didnāt think I needed a logo but he convinced me. So two days later he sends me this worksheet of like eight different logos and I saw the interlocking EE and it just stood out. I really had no interest at the time in creating a logo. I just wanted to build my name so itās funny to me now that the logo has become more iconic than the name itself.
Eric shared a screenshot from his iPhone (specifically asking us to not crop it) depicting the many mockups sent by his friend.
What about your work with Allen Iverson?
This is my favorite project to date and itās kind of crazy because I donāt know how Iāll ever be able to top this.Ā Heās such an interesting subject that not a lot of people have been able to have access to. When we were working on the shoes we (Reebok and myself) were going through all the silhouettes. The Iverson 5 was my favorite and Reebok had never brought it back so I asked them and they were like āYeah, no.ā Then I asked again and they said āyesā so we went with the āIverson 5.ā The process was crazy. The main thing was the logo flip, we took the iconic āI3ā logo and turned it into an āIEEā logo which we were pretty certain was going to be turned down but it was approved after a week and my jaw dropped.
Once it got approved, everything sort of fell into place. It was just surreal. He came to ComplexCon and this was the first time we actually got to spend some time together. The second we started talking it was like we were family and that made everything that much more sweet. Moving forward, weāre going to do more Iverson shoes but aside from that Iām still hyper-focused on Allen as a human because heās still that same person he was on the court today, A LEGEND.
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Can you tell us exactly what you did at ComplexCon?
Iām from Syracuse, the home of the New York State Fair. I used to go there often as a kid and my favorite thing there was the impossible shot. So I worked very closely with New York Sunshine and Reebok to recreate the āNew York State Fair On Steroidsā at ComplexCon. We had the impossible shot and I decided to mix in some high-low stuff. So we created this impossible shot with neon pink everywhere and it felt like you were at a carnival. If you made this impossible shot, the grand prize was this massive IE diamond pendant. Jewelry was always a large part of Allenās character, so I wanted the giveaway to be something that would be fitting of both of us, so we made that pendant. We had a very limited amount of the EE Pink Iverson V, a true ComplexCon exclusive. We have the yellow ones, which we soft-launched here and then we will go global in the next month, and then we will have the shootings sleeves, the durags, all that.
Standing atop the booth looking over everyone that turned out to see what was going on was the best feeling, it was the best day of my life.
So how did you guys sell or give away product there? You couldnāt buy most of it, right?
You could buy the shoes, but if you wanted the shorts or anything else you had to make five shots in less than 24 seconds. If you didnāt do that, you didnāt get shorts. Itās a pair of shorts money canāt buy. So if someone was on fire at the booth, people would immediately run up and offer them $100 to take the shots for them. It created pandemonium around the booth, which was flooded with people trying to win these EE pink shorts.
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You went all out and delivered what was probably the best booth at ComplexCon in Chicago. What does it feel like to have hit all of these important moments in one weekend?
This is the first time Iāve called my parents and been like āIām genuinely happy.ā This was my moment. It feels like Iām doing something that I could have never imagined. Selling shorts, or selling jerseys, I can imagine doing all of that stuff. But standing there with Allen is the moment where Iām like āDamn, I canāt even believe this is happening.ā It was probably the most surreal moment of my life. It brought everything full circle.
So I can joke around and say āthis is the peak moment.ā I know there will be new and exciting things coming but there will never be another moment like the one I just shared with Reebok, Allen, and my friend John (New York Sunshine) at ComplexCon in my entire life. Standing atop the booth looking over everyone that turned out to see what was going on was the best feeling, it was the best day of my life.
