Cultivating Kindness with Samuel Krost

The KROST community is ever-growing, and new friends are always welcome! Learn more about the brand’s values, goals, and their newest storefront in Soho, through office’s interview with founder, Samuel Krost, below.

On the KROST website, there is a page labeled ‘Our Story’ and you often encourage your community to share their stories as well, to create a supportive ambiance. Could you tell me what your personal story is?

I grew up in a small town in New Jersey, completely isolated from the world — it was a bubble. I was an athlete my whole life; sports academia was like the only thing I cared about. We have family in New York, but even when the family would go to New York, I was never interested in this idea of New York City. It was a community, but it was a bubble of a community. There was really a lack of interaction outside of it. But that community and the way that they support one another has made me the person I am. Little did I know, it’s the reason that, here I am, creating a brand that's based not only around community but around support and being there for one another. When we started the brand, the story was conceptualized immediately after a mass shooting that took place in Parkland, Florida. March For Our Lives, who I'm sure you're familiar with — one of the leading organizations in the call for gun reform. When that organization formed immediately after this terrible tragedy, they were the organization that gave me my lightbulb moment of what our brand slogan of 'Support Your Friends' means to me. That's a matter of supporting one another based on shared values, shared beliefs, you know. We're not going to be able to meet everyone around the world, but you can still support that person. And that's really what we're doing here.

KROST is a mission-driven brand — why do you think mission-driven companies are important in this modern age where many corporations are just driven by capitalism and profit?

I tell people — even people who come to interview here — we're going to create some really dope shit, but we're gonna do good along the way as well. And there's no reason those two things need to be mutually exclusive. The bigger you get, the more you can support. When we speak with these nonprofit organizations, we ask them, 'How can we best support you? Is it financial or are there other areas that you also need help with? Do you want us to be on the ground, giving out food, handing out clothes, or building gardens?' I just don't see the two needing to be mutually exclusive. And, again, the world that we live in — the gap between the corporations and the lower classes is bigger than ever. So I have a big problem with people who can't recognize that. And unfortunately, especially with COVID, that gap is getting wider and wider, which is why the work that we're doing has become more and more important. I get to pursue something that I've always been passionate about my whole life — creating product, building a brand, building a community, and collaborating with globally recognized brands. But there's no reason that I can't give back with everything that we do. Any release that we ever do is going to be tied to a cause and we will be giving back along with it.

How does the design of your products increase awareness of the societal issues that you take on?

That's a great question. So let's take March For Our Lives, for example. We collaborated directly with them to commemorate the one-year anniversary and we worked hand in hand with their board and the students to come up with a design that reflected that one year. We love flowers here, so we designed a flower that had 17 petals to commemorate each life that was lost. So sometimes the design will be directly related to how we are supporting and how we're raising awareness around that. Other times, for example, in our second collection, it was called "Eden" and the goal was to increase awareness around climate change. We tackled deforestation, specifically. It was also right when Australia was literally on fire and we quickly spoke to the Red Cross over there, and we created a graphic that showed a forest next to a forest on fire. And under it, we put the definition of climate change, for those who have issues with understanding what that exactly is. So sometimes we will be that specific and that direct with it too. Ultimately, it's speaking to the organization, understanding exactly what cause we are aiming to raise awareness around, understanding what is going to do best for them — sometimes it's not even developing a product. Sometimes it's collecting 3000 coats in our offices so that we can go and hand them out. The goal is to, as we grow, to get even better at directly showing 'This is the cause we are supporting.'

Yeah, I think that's really important — that design aspect — because, not only are you guys contributing to the organizations, but it gives them visibility. On the same note of design, something I wanted to talk about is the brand’s minimalistic tone. I wanted to know if that minimal aesthetic matches your personal values in any way?

It's a Sammy thing. It's a me thing. Here's the thing — I want people to wear it. You know what I mean? The only thing that I have personally been proud of — because everything that we do here is about our team, it's about our family; no one's ever using the word ‘I.’ But when I'm on the street and I see someone wearing the product — that, to me, is one of the coolest things in the entire world. To have created something, that someone you walk by in the street that you don't know, and they're wearing something you created — that's amazing. It's like seeing how many people have read your articles that you've written — it's incredible. Even saying that, I have chills going through my body right now. I have my own personal style, and I want people to wear it. For me, the way that I approach design is trying to design within the detail of the garment itself. Whether that's specific embroidery, or our exterior labels, or blanket stitches, or the weights of the fabric. We try to get as intricate as we can. So it's minimalist because that's not only what my personal style is, but also I just want it to be easy for people to wear.

I do think it's kind of funny though, because it definitely is minimalist when you're looking at it. But then you talk about all the behind the scenes of considering fabric weight, and types of stitches, and all that — and when you think about those things, that work isn't minimal at all.

It's never easy. We designed our first collection over Zoom and building all of that was crazy. There's so much that goes into even making a simple garment.

On the note of the new store — first I want to say congratulations. How does it feel to be opening a new store, especially in one of the most prominent areas when it comes to fashion?

We spent 24 hours building it and opened it the next morning. Me and a few other team members walked out of the store — it was probably about 3 in the morning. I looked up and there's the flags for Lanvin, Balenciaga, Tory Burch, there's the Mercer Hotel. We're on the corner of Mercer and Prince, in the epicenter of one of the fashion capitals of the world. So we all shared tears together. And the vision for the brand is by no means to be a luxury house or to be a notable fashion designer. That's not the vision. But still, the opportunity that we have to have this moment, to show all the work that we've put in, and to have something physical there for everyday people to just walk by, is a huge privilege. It's something that we're super proud of and beyond grateful for. There's really no words to describe how it feels to be able to have a presence there. It's a great moment for the team to share.

Definitely. I want to get into the collaboration. I know this store is semi-inspired by the collab — why did you decide to collaborate with FILA and how does this partnership come to life in the store?

This is the fifth space we've created and every single store has looked entirely different from the last. The goal with each store is to take the customer inside the inspiration of that collection. So when we spoke about Eden, and the goal was to increase awareness around climate change — I tried to take you into the Garden of Eden. To try to remind you of what the world once looked like and what it has become now. And aside from that, the stores have also acted as community spaces where we can bring people inside the space and speak to them and educate them on the cause that we're looking to support. This collaboration came to be because we had a store open on Howard Street and one of the VPS of FILA walked in and said, 'Who the hell are these guys?' And a few days later, I was at a breakfast meeting with them talking about doing a collaboration that was slated to release in Japan during the 2020 Olympics. That got pushed, but later they sent me a sample of the newest silhouette that they hadn't released yet. They asked us to be the exclusive partner to release this latest and newest silhouette, their hero silhouette for 2021. It did really well, and then we started designing this one. They've been an incredible partner. We've been beyond grateful to work with a brand that just celebrated their 110-year anniversary. It's a brand that I grew up with; I have all these vivid memories of my grandfather wearing the classic FILA tracksuits. Being able to work with one of the most recognized brands, that can also help us further push the cause that we're looking to raise awareness around, is amazing. It really is.

And I wanted to hear a little bit more too about the cause that is going along with this new storefront.

There's the FILA sneaker partnership with Good Sports — like I talked about earlier, I grew up an athlete. I try to make everything youth-focused. I really want the brand to be one for the youth. Good Sports is an organization that provides sports equipment for students that can't afford it. So the store is acting as a drive to collect equipment and anyone who brings an item, we'll give them a nice discount. There's also our fall main line collection, where we're partnering with the Food Bank for New York City. That's a cause that I'm very serious about — food insecurity. During COVID we donated over 100,000 plus meals. We actually introduced the Food Bank to One Warm Coat, another organization that we partnered with in our last store to provide people with warm clothing during winter. There has been a 40% increase in food insecurity, not only in New York, but across the entire country and, unfortunately, the world, because of everything that's been happening. For our basics collection, which is one of our bigger collections, we partnered with No Kid Hungry, who provides meals across the country, whereas the Food Bank is in New York specifically. So those are the three organizations that we're currently supporting with everything selling now and everything that's been released this year.

I mean, that's amazing. I find that usually when you find out that a brand does a lot of charitable work or collaborations with different organizations, they dial in on one cause. I think that's incredible that you cover so many different bases.

That's a great point. We were originally inspired by March For Our Lives and gun reform and gun control. Climate change — that was another big one. Food insecurity became dear to my heart when I was seeing everything that was happening. It's not something that I was aware enough of, unfortunately. But during this last spring, with all the social unrest, we did a lot of work with a lot of different organizations there. These were topics that I wasn't fully educated on. The great thing about our brand is that we're not going to speak about things that we don't know. But what we do really well is that we have the right partners to bring in, to speak, not only, to our team to educate us, but also to speak on our behalf to our community. At one point, I had a big heart to heart with the team. I said, 'Guys, one of the biggest pieces of feedback from the community that we received is that we should work with more organizations.' And I'm like 'Guys — we're going to run the risk of being one of those brands that just acts like they're doing all the work instead of really doing it.'

It is a fine line, because there is also a point where you can lose your authenticity.

Yeah. And once I lose my authenticity, what's the point of doing anything? I'll get messages saying, 'This is happening in the world. How come you guys haven't spoken up about it?' And my response now is, 'We speak about gun reform, we speak about climate change, we speak about food insecurity. These are the three causes that we, as a brand, support. These are three causes that we do a lot of work with and that we've actually made the biggest difference in — and that we're educated in.' To further that point, we're a small brand. We haven't 'made it' by any means. So the more work that we do focusing in on these organizations, and these causes, the greater impact we're going to make. Versus, 'Oh I made a $10 donation to 101 different organizations.' Am I really making that big of a difference? So working closely with these three organizations is the vision right now.

What do you feel has been your biggest accomplishment with KROST thus far? Do you think you were able to impact the world in the way that you envisioned when you when you first started off on this journey?

I think I have a shit ton more work to do but I think it's great to see the impact the brand has been able to make, in the short amount of time that we have been around — we just celebrated our three-year anniversary. Growing up, I was under the opinion that business execs and multi-billionaires were the only ones who were only going be able to make a difference, because they had all the wealth in the world. Launching this brand and doing what I'm doing, I was able to flip my mindset entirely by saying 'No, it's all of us together that are going to make the biggest impact.' So that's why a big part of our story is — it's not just about building community — it's about trying to bring the masses together because we believe that with the masses, that's when real change is going to be able to occur. It's not just the three top rich guys who are gonna donate all this money, who are gonna make a difference. That's not the way that I believe it's going to happen.

Yeah, I definitely agree. So you talked about how food insecurity is something that's really important to you personally. For me, to give you an example —

Yeah, what's your thing?

I'm super passionate about climate change awareness as well. So I always like to hear about causes that are important to other people. What sparked that passion about food insecurity for you?

The onset of COVID made me acutely aware of what was happening. We talked about impact before — but your impact is felt less when they are global issues. We're a New York-based brand. I grew up an hour away from the city; I've lived here for 10 full years — this is my neighborhood. It was the first time that we partnered with an organization local to the New York community and I felt a responsibility to do what I could to help the community. Let's not forget, New York was the most affected early on in the pandemic. So that's what ignited the passion to get involved and understand what was happening. There was great work done by our team. We're on the ground, you know, we're putting our money where our mouth is too. I'm at the Food Bank, we're collecting clothes, we're leveraging our office and our stores because there were no distribution centers. So I feel that we really made a real difference. So that ignited it. And then as we became more educated about food insecurity, we understood that, 'Okay, it's not only New York now; it's actually happening across the country.' And that's where our hearts are right now. Because these are still issues.

Do you have any plans to expand the brand’s scope in the future — maybe you’ll open more storefronts?

It's all more retail, but with bigger retail partners. Right now, we're sold in six flagships in Japan. We're in Selfridges, in London, Harvey Nichols in London. It's super cool to be partnered with these premier retailers around the world. But ultimately the goal is to be a mass brand. To be able to offer product at an even more affordable and accessible price point. The brand is about inclusivity, it's about family, right? Next year, our goal is to start working with more mass market retailers and that's where the expansion of the brand will begin.

KROST’s mission is to bring people together — I really admire this vision you guys have that unity is imperative to solving the issues we face on a large scale. I’m not talking about solving the issue of world peace, but what do you think the key is to bringing people together and instilling harmony?

Try to meet every single person in the world. That's always been my crazy growing-up daydream — that I wish I could meet every single person in the world. But I think ultimately, looking at the way we've approached this, for the last three years, is — it's a marathon, not a race. I think we engage with our community in ways that brands never will. And don't get me wrong, COVID gave us that idea to connect in different, new ways. For example, somebody read an article about the brand in GQ, and then we met on a Zoom session. He was like, 'I would never, in a million years, think that after reading this article, I would now be on Zoom with like the founder of the brand.' To me, that was the coolest moment ever. I was like, 'Fuck yeah. This is what we're about!' At the end of the day, we're just bringing like-minded individuals together that believe and stand for the same thing. To close this and show you how much I've learned and grown since launching the brand — in the summer of 2018, I was going through my branding, brand identity and messaging, and who our customer was. And I was telling my team, 'We have to stay in the middle. I can't be polar.' I wanted to be, you know, politically correct. Then I launched the brand and I thought, 'Fuck that.' You like guns? Maybe this brand isn't for you. Don't believe climate change is real? You're not gonna like what we do. So, I'm not gonna spur world peace, because the things I believe in, not everyone in the world believes in. But hopefully, we're going to build a massive community of the people who do believe in the things that we really try our absolute best to stand up for and raise awareness around.

I agree with that one-hundred percent. I know I definitely identify with everything you guys are doing, and I think it's all amazing.

So, welcome!