From the start, Cherman was getting into trouble in highschool selling t-shirts on campus, even earning the name “Mikey Merchandise.” After getting his start at a small jewelry shop called Goodwood in New York, Cherman quickly navigated his way through the fashion industry, meeting the right people at the right time, and eventually opening his own brand of reflective outerwear, ICNY. After being terminated, Cherman debuted the Frank Ocean Swoosh shirt at ComplexCon – making $50,000 in sales in 24 hours. The next day, Ocean’s legal team reached out with a cease and desist letter, and the party was over.
Nevertheless, the idea for Market was born. From then on, Market grew enormously by selling hoodies, T-shirts, sweatpants, and graphic prints like its signature yellow smiley-face. The brand has always valued accessibility over exclusivity, and has been widely available at retailers like Urban Outfitters and Zumiez since day one. In 2021, after receiving necessary pushback from the Asian American community, the brand changed their name from Chinatown Market to simply Market. After this name change, coupled with the decline of logo-mania and hypebeast culture, I spoke to Cherman about what this means for a brand that once thrived on limited release drops.
As a fashion brand, you have to be adaptable to changes in pop culture and consumer taste to stay afloat. office sat down with Cherman to talk about how Market plans to adapt to this change, his latest collaboration with Les Benjamins, and his crazy collection of 350 succulents.
Could you give me an overview of how you got into fashion and how you broke into the industry?
Yeah I’ll rewind a little bit. For me, both my parents were in the industry when I was a kid, but it was one of those things where I never acknowledged or cared about that at the time. My dad sells girls’ denim and my mom is a designer but not anything that I actually cared about as a kid. Of course, by the time I got into the industry, they were both out. That's when I wish I was connecting with them more. But, I started in high school, I was basically glued to the Adobe Suite. I started making T-shirts in my garage where I was taking Office Max iron-on paper and putting them onto different garments and creating my own graphic custom one of ones.
And at that time, it was very much just me as a high school kid thinking I'm starting a brand, inspired by my space and seeing all these different designers and people that I wanted to work with one day. It was ultimately myself emulating that in the beginning. I started off by selling t-shirts out of the back of my car in high school, I got the nickname “Mikey Merchandise” in high school, and basically almost got expelled from school for basically selling and distributing on campus. I made a t-shirt of a kid and that t-shirt ended up selling out and that kid didn't get one. I ended up starting a fight on campus and I got sent to the principal's office and my parents had to come and get me out. But that was the first moment of acknowledgment that something that I had made, ended up meaning something to someone.
I ended up applying to two schools, one of which was FIT. I didn't get in, so I applied to Parsons. I got in there, but upon landing there, my parents were like, We only have one year to be able to put you through otherwise you're gonna have to find a way. And in my time living in New York, I landed there and I was just interning from day one. I was working at this company called Goodwood NYC, which made wooden Jesus pieces and all this wooden jewelry at the time. This was a crazy trend, such an interesting one, but working there, all the rappers were wearing it at the time. I was a kid who basically thrown onto a laser machine to make custom necklaces. So for me, that was my first time meeting people and getting into the game, learning how to make custom products.
I had the opportunity to intern for this thing called the Nike Bowery Stadium. I was a kid basically working there that you’d say you want a dragon dunking a basketball in the back of the jacket and I'd sit there for five minutes, whip it up, show it to you, and then we'd go downstairs and make it. That whole experience kind of afforded me the opportunity to learn how to make products on the spot but this time I was making clothes. During that time I was riding my bike to work every day on a track bike and one day I got hit by a car, riding my bike to work. I went to work the next day and I made myself reflective socks as my first product. My first brand was called ICNY. It was all reflective wear for running and cycling. And that was done for about 3-4 years. I had an investor, I basically was terminated for my own company. I moved out to L A and I was living in my friend's second bedroom.
Complex Con came up that year, and a friend of mine offered me a free booth and I showed up her five T-shirts and five hats. One of which was a bootleg shirt that said Frank Ocean with the Nike swoosh. And literally, you know, that next day I put up a website called “Swoosh Frank Ocean.com”. I sent an email to my friend at HypeBeast, he posted it and within 24 hours we did over $50,000 in sales. My phone was just vibrating viscerally. I was like, I'm no longer broke and I'm gonna move out of this apartment! And then six hours later, I got a trademark inflict letter from Frank. I had to return all the money.
So, yeah, that's kinda the long winded explanation.