Chicagoist Interview: Black Market Caviar, Chicago's New Steeze
By Ben Schuman Stoler in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 12, 2010 7:40PM
Black Market Caviar's Brian and Marco Lopez and the "tilo"
We sat down with the Lopez brothers to talk about what inspired Black Market Caviar as a store and a style, how the Chicago cultural scene is changing, what effect the recession has, how they’ve incorporated local talent, and gags like the “tilo,” their white logo tee packaged like a kilo of cocaine.
CHICAGOIST: Why, at this of all times, open up a store?
Marco: Because I’ve been screen printing for 12 years, Brian’s been a fashion designer for five years now, and we just decided to pool our talents and resources together, open up a shop, and do something new.
Brian: We always wanted to do something creative, to come together to collaborate on something. We always talked about maybe doing a label together and we just came up with this, with Black Market Caviar.
M: It’s been crazy: I moved back to Chicago in September, we got the lease in October, and we opened in December. We’ve just been running.
C: Why Chicago?
M: I was in Brooklyn since 2000, then New Jersey in 2006. But Chicago is home. We were debating it, we were thinking about Brooklyn or Manhattan or even LA. But it made sense to do it at home.
C: How does Black Market Caviar fit in the Chicago scene, if such a thing exists?
M: I don’t know if it really does fit, that’s the thing, that’s why we wanted to do it.
B: I think we fit into what’s new in Chicago. There’s a new movement, there’s been a sort of a renaissance in arts of all types in Chicago. Graffiti has really reemerged here in the past couple years. Fashion, music. The fashion scene we have now in Chicago was not around even five years ago. And the city’s pushing a little budget for it. They have fashion week now in summer time and the Fashion Incubator.
C: Speaking of budget and money, what about the recession? Did it play into the original business plan?
B: Well that’s what’s so interesting. I think it all ties into it. I feel like people get really creative when times get hard.
M: Designers in this country are a dime a dozen. And it’s the same when any over saturated market sees economic decline, people have to ramp it up, step up, and people get hungrier and more creative.
C: How did you twist it then?
M: We came up with a subversive name. Black Market Caviar denotes an attitude towards the economic trend like, “Eff the economy we’re going to live the way we want to live, design the life we want to live.”
And also, looking around, your things are affordable.
M: Things in here are really affordable so its like we’re pushing an aesthetic but not a crazy price. It’s just clothes, it’s stuff. It’s cool stuff, but there’s no need to empty your pockets.
B: And everything eventually ends up in a thrift store. No matter what label it is. No matter what. It will end up in a thrift store, trust me. I think what’s been sort of difficult for us has been finding a balance, and we’re getting there now. Doing so much, we got silk screen printing, where we work with labels and local artists, then we have the store, then the lifestyle approach.
C: How so?
B: We want Black Market Caviar to be a lifestyle brand.
M: It’s more than clothes. It’s an attitude. It’s, “This is how I wanna be.” It’s a subversive attitude towards trends or whatever’s popular.
C: How much focus have you put into branding that way?
M: We keep our branding low. We took an ad in CS, they’re a great Chicago publication, housing a lot of what’s chic in the city. That might be part of why culture in Chicago is reemerging with its own identity. People have a place to turn to. We have a Twitter and a Facebook, but we don’t do anything crazy.
B: We do no marketing for our printing. But we’ve been busy. Word of mouth has been crazy. That’s how Chicago is. I don’t know too many other cities, but in Chicago word of mouth spreads fast.
M: It’s a small town. I mean it’s a city, it’s got concrete and steel but it’s the Midwest and it’s got a small town mentality and attitude. People know their neighbors and say hi. And the scenes are tight-knit and exclusive. Navigating each little subculture you see how tight everything is. Sometimes it’s a little too insular, but people have been really welcoming.
B: People enjoy our approach. The term we hear from blogs and people is “down to earth” and it’s true. It sounds cliché but it is true. When people come in here we try to be as nice as possible, make them feel welcome, engage the customer. We’re interested in what people do, honestly, as opposed to some boutiques where you walk in and they act like they don’t want you to buy anything. That’s not us.
C: What stores do you look up to in Chicago?
M: One store I look up to, though they don’t do what we’re doing, is the Leaders store. They did a collaboration with Ends/Wealth Corp. that we printed and then we did a collaboration with Ends/Wealth that we produced here. That’s what I mean, it’s a small world. For Leaders we came up with "DLRS." Goes with our approach of making fun of the drug game.
C: Yeah like those shirts, the tilos. Where’d that come from?
M: (Laughing) I didn’t call ‘em that. I don’t know who started calling them that.
C: They were like, what, ten bucks?
M: Yeah I mean they’re just a white shirt. It’s our logo tee and we packaged them to resemble bricks of cocaine. And then we would go to parties with a duffel bag of these things and just hand em out. And people would be like, “What the eff is that?”
B: They didn’t know what it was.
M: When you take something that’s everyday and classic and timeless like a white t-shirt and you just add a little something to it, even something as gimmicky as that, it revitalizes how people interact with that product. You add another dimension to the experience of buying and putting on a t-shirt.
C: What about the brown paper 40 oz. Louie bags?
B: You know how it is, people trying to take themselves so serious. It happens all the time in fashion and in art. It’s our way of making fun of culture and trends.
M: I just think its funny.
B: And people do take themselves really serious so we’re here to lighten things up. Make fun of it. But at the same time we are taking a serious approach too because with the name Black Market, it’s something that’s here but it’s not talked about. You don’t hear about it, you don’t see it, there’s a lot of corrupt things going on, really unspeakable things going on all over the world that are part of that black market that you’ll never see in the news, in print, you just won’t see it. So with developing the tilo product—
M: Even with the bag because it goes back to people buying bootleg bags on Canal St. in New York.
B: We’re maybe shedding light on it in some way but at the same time trying to be funny—I don’t want to make too much light of it because it’s serious but still. I think what we’re trying to create here is more than your regular shopping store experience. People want something fun. Especially with the recession, things get really boring.
C: How much in the store is original and how much is bought and refurbished?
M: Right now it’s 30% bought or on consignment from other designers. A small percentage is refurbished objects. We have vintage leather jackets that people have been responding well too, mostly guys. Our own stuff, we probably produce about 50% of what’s here.
C: Down the road do you want the store to hold 100% your stuff?
B: No the mix has been working well for us. We have nationwide labels like Trash & Luxury, which is a bigger brand name, and then we have our local labels like Plastic Party Clothing.
M: We don’t want to close the door to young designers in Chicago. I want to be working with young designers. So many people have walked through with this design or this idea and there’s a small group of those people who are actually committed to their ideas and can actually see a project though. We have 10 smaller local designers in the shop right now and that’s awesome. Small runs of everything. We don’t want to be grandscale. We can’t. We have barely 800 sq feet. We want to be able to print for everyone. Keep it small. It creates a sense a pride in what you wear.
B: And now we’re working on some things with Chaz Jordan and Anna Hovet. We have a good mix with national and local labels and our vintage stuff.
M: And don’t be surprised if you see us selling goods out of the trunk of a car.
B: That was the original idea. Marco wanted to get a black van.
M: Crazy black market style. Sell from the van or a trunk of an old Caprice Classic.
C: What’s planned for the spring and beyond?
B: We have good things coming. It’s our first spring, lots of pressure.
M: We’re going to introduce a bunch of new designers. That’s what I’m most excited about. Again, it’s part of what’s so cool about having the production so close to home is that we don’t have to buy a season or two in advance. Our trend forecasting is like a two-week outlook. It’s like, “What’s gonna be hot next week? Let’s do that.”
B: Also we’re putting a lookbook together for spring. And we’re launching our online store on our website.
M: And duffel bags for new tilos, going back to the drug related theme. For one price, I don’t know, probably 50 bucks or something, you get a duffel bag with a few of our t-shirts packaged like tilos.
B: Another thing we’re doing is screen printing workshops.
M: Yeah we’ll do it with myself as instructor. Along with learning how to screen print or becoming more familiar with screen printing, when you’re done with the program you have 24 shirts with your design on them that we could carry in the store and help you market in some way. It’s going to be a lot of fun.