Today we’d like to introduce you to Guerby Joseph.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I was introduced to the world of fashion and design by my mother, Rosanna Richard, and my uncle Roger Richard. They were both tailors in the Haitian town of Hinche. Rosanna specialized in creating custom high-end women’s clothing while Roger worked in menswear. As a child, I spent thousands of hours in their workshop. I would watch my mother and uncle work with their customers and was amazed at how perfectly they were able to custom-tailor a piece of clothing to match the style of their clients.
I came to realize that fashion was about more than clothes: the real magic was in the fit, the colors, the creativity, and best of all, the smile on someone’s face as they slipped into a garment made just for them. I was intrigued by the way a finely-tailored garment could transform the person wearing it. The clothes my mother and uncle made seemed to become a part of their wearer: an extension of their personality. My mother saw my interest and potential early on, and when I was ten years old, apprenticed me to a tailoring school for the summer. The work was difficult, but I loved the atmosphere and threw myself diligently into it. By the end of the summer, I was adept in garment repair and felt like I was in my element; the ambience, the creativity, and the casual shop talk between customer and tailor that invariably turned to the politics of the day.
I am grateful for all the skills and lessons I learned from my mother and uncle. I also owe part of my training to my younger brother Kerly, who served as a willing (if naive) clothing model for my very first designs. In doing so, he helped me develop my style and perfect my craft. My time in the tailor shop molded me into the person I am today. Growing up in Haiti, living among nature was part of my childhood. On weekends it was customary for my friends and me to ride our bicycles from the town we lived into the countryside and visit our families’ farms. That was our weekend getaway destination, and we loved it. We would climb trees, eat fresh mangoes (or sugar cane, or avocados, depending on the season) and talk about our plans for the future. We spent afternoons swimming, building rafts, and singing songs while riding the current down the river. Tired but happy after wonderful weekends spent enjoying nature, we filled our bags with fruits to take home to our families and biked home.
These early experiences enjoying nature have had a tremendous and lasting effect on me. The twin passions I have for fashion and nature has fueled my ambition to become not only a fashion mogul but a social entrepreneur in the United States. I chose to start a fair-trade and eco-friendly company after watching the Netflix documentary True Cost, where I learned some disturbing facts about the fashion industry. For example, according to True Cost, every year, Americans buy 80 billion new items of clothing and dump 11 million tons of clothing into landfills. An estimated 40% of landfills are made up of used clothing textiles. I wanted to make a difference, so in 2017, I started Empire Street Style, a leading online source for fair trade, eco-friendly clothing and guides for clean living. The brand’s mission: helping people Do Better, Live Better and Dress Better through ethically-produced clothing and health blogs on a diet, exercise, and fashion advice. At Empire Street Style, we inspire our customers to live a healthy, green lifestyle through our brand philosophy. We practice what we preach and are committed to creating eco-friendly, responsibly sourced apparel. One of our goals is to help our customers educate themselves on reducing their carbon footprint. We believe that investing in eco-friendly brands like ours is a great start to achieving this goal.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Since our soft launch in 2015, we have faced with three major obstacles. 1) The first challenge was that the clothing industry has become over-saturated, with many entrepreneurs starting t-shirt companies. 2) Obscurity. Being a small company without a huge marketing budget made it hard for us to acquire a large number of customers. 3) Covid-19. Because of the covid-19 virus, all our 2020 business partnerships were canceled, and we also had to cancel all our future pop-up shops, which left us with a lot of unsold inventories.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am extremely passionate about the environment, health, wellness, entrepreneurship, and fashion. Empire Street Style is the fourth business that I have co-founded. I spent over ten years in NYC, where I Founded Empire Street Style, an Eco-friendly Athleisure clothing brand. There I met my Fiancée, Shannon. Shannon and I relocated from NYC to the Tampa Bay area last year, and together we co-founded Joseph’s Tea, an online and local specialty tea shop. Few months later, I noticed a big need for the business development services that I have used in my own companies. To help “Pay it Forward” I launched Joseph’s Business Development & Design, a business development and design firm whose primary services are logo design, product design and web design. I have designed hundreds of logos, created new products, custom labeling, and built multiple websites for my clients. I utilized my vast knowledge from having built four companies of my own, growing up in an entrepreneurial household, and my business degrees to cultivate and curate customized business services for entrepreneurs. Joseph’s Business Development & Design’s mission is to help other entrepreneurs stand out in the World Wide Web. Whether they are an established business or they are just getting started, we promise to uniquely design their logos and products, and build them an astounding highly responsive website to help them dominate the online market.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
Empire Street Style inspires our customers to live a healthy, green lifestyle through our brand philosophy. We practice what we preach and are committed to creating eco-friendly, responsibly sourced apparel. Our iconic designs are well-known, and our customers are proud to represent us on social media as well as in person.
Contact Info:
- Email: guerby@empirestreetstyle.com
- Website: https://empirestreetstyle.com/; https://josephstea.com/; https://josephsbdd.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/empirestreetstyle/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/empirestreetstyle
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/empirestreetsty
