Always be about something
Farouq Gidado, founder and owner of ABAS Clothing’, talks the importance of perseverance and intention within everything you do in this Q&A about his brands journey.
By: Jasmine Yates
Once you have an idea, a drive there is nothing more that you need in order for you to start dreaming big. We spoke with Farouq who started his clothing brand ABAS (Always Be About Something), with his 6 closest friends from high school. Like most entrepreneurs, he knew that it was something that could be great but he still didn’t give his business his all in the beginning due to not being confident within himself. It wasn’t until 2019 that he decided to take his dream, his idea a little more seriously. I guess you could say, timing really does matter.
Who’s idea was it to start the brand? What does your brand mean to you and what do you want your impact to be from ABAS?
Oh wow, that’s dope! So when I first thought about the brand it was my friend Brandon and I playing basketball, where I was talking mess. Which is how the name came about because I kept telling him that he has never been about nothing because I was actually losing. Then he responded that he was being about something and it made us both stop and look at each other saying, “aye that’s fire”. Intentionally the brand itself was called ‘Always Been About Something’ which was geared towards the ones that know that they have it in them. It was something that my friends would always say to each other because we were all into sports so before a game or maybe even the moments where they didn’t have the motivation or courage to do something, we would say, “stop being scared cause you know that you’ve always been about something”. So in the beginning the brand was a motivational statement that we would just say to each other. As I moved forward, like you said not a lot of people know what that means, the statement can seem vague if you’re not sure but when you understand what it means it becomes specific. For me, Always Be About Something means to align yourself with the goal that you have or passion about something regardless of your failure. Also, it means to always be dedicated about your goal no matter how hard it gets. The more you dedicate yourself to the path the brighter you shine. You never know who you are shining the light for, they can look at you and feel as though they can do it too. I want to be able to show others that they can do what they want to do and understand that they can shine a light for others to do the same. For instance, my business is a clothing brand so I would be posting ads or doing things that I know would be beneficial to my business.
What is the significance of the lines on your logo?
It symbolizes perseverance, it symbolizes to always be about something. The lines are constantly trying to form the A in ABAS, if I stopped at the first line there wouldn’t be the rest of ABAS. It shows that I didn’t stop at the first sight of adversity, it shows that I kept going to form the rest of ABAS. There are five lines to show that each of those lines were times that I wanted to give up, that I was on the ropes of adversity but I kept going.
What were the obstacles that you faced? What kept you going?
I had a lot of adversities but I guess one of the first obstacles that I have to overcome would have to be the first shirts that I have ever made. So when I talked to the guy that was printing them with the shirts I told them the design that I wanted which was a sewed pocket on the shirt, when he told me the price I knew from there that I couldn’t afford that. I had to end up printing a pocket onto the t-shirt because I couldn’t afford the actual pocket. The only problem was that after the first wash, the pocket faded. My first drop discouraged me because people were now thinking that my clothing line was terrible. I just didn’t know what to do at that moment because I didn’t know anyone else that could print the shirt for me, so I was just kind of out of luck. Then I also had people coming to me letting me know that this wasn’t quality work, so yeah my first drop was the toughest obstacle for me. I have really supportive friends, so most of my friends were giving me encouraging words and telling me that not everyone gets it right the first time and pushing me to keep going. So I made enough money to make 72 hoodies and all of the hoodies that were made, the letters that were on them were crooked. This was a different person than the previous person who originally made my shirts, so at this point I am trying to figure out what's going on. Again, it was me and my 6 friends that created this in high school and we called ourselves the “Original Seven”, which gave me the idea of buying dye from Michaels.
I would dye the hoodies in crazy ways and distressed them so that it would look like the crooked letters were on purpose.I called them the Original Seven design, I dyed them all different colors which is how I got over that hump. It was a great outcome because people actually loved the hoodies. Overtime, things just kept happening because when it came to the third drop I had the shirts were too small and I have no idea what happened. It just seemed like in the beginning of creating my brand things would just keep going to the point where I thought it was a sign from God to just stop. I just kept going regardless of the obstacles that kept coming my way, so in 2019 I created fisherman beanies and it was the first time in my life that I sold out within 6 hours. I started to understand how the process went so I decided to try to sell sweatsuits. Before I was dropping the other products I was originally just putting the ABAS logo on the pieces and not the lines. The lines didn’t even come to me until after I was trying to make a sweatsuit, I knew that for the sweatsuits I didn’t want it to just say ABAS but I wanted something that would truly mean something. So when I dropped, I knew that I wasn’t going to sell out in 6 hours because now the price was a little higher but I ended up still selling out in a day. At the right time, I knew that this is how clothing lines worked, I knew then that I needed to start taking my business more seriously. So during the pandemic I started saving a lot of money and when summer of 2021 came along I was able to drop my summer collection. I now had seven to eight different t-shirt designs, four- eight shorts, hats etc. , finally having a full collection for the first time ever. When I dropped it, I actually forgot my site was locked so when a few minutes went by I just thought that we were back to the regularly scheduled program of people not really buying anything until my friend brought to my attention that my website wasn’t working which made me realize that it was locked. I kid you not, my phone was ringing after I opened it with my collection selling out and I made 3,000 dollars in an hour. Moments like that made me look back to when things kept going wrong and made me aware that perseverance and consistency really does matter, it is what brought me here.
How do you come up with your designs?
Either I work with an illustrator or I’ll draw something out. Most of my designs kinda just match my life story, so it's a reflection of where I am in life. Whether it's JOY, which is the acronym for Judge Only You and also happens to be my mothers name. My designs come strictly to a place where I focus on my own performance, I focus on what I have control over. If a situation were to happen, I would have to ask myself “what part did I play in that”.
What do you see is next for your brand?
I want to expand. The next step would be the hoodies that I will be dropping in a few weeks which will be called ‘Persistence’. For me, I knew that after I dropped the JOY hoodies and not gaining as much sales as I thought I would, I knew then that I just needed to remain persistent. I am going to keep moving forward so again this is where I am in life currently.
Farouq teaches the reasons on why we continue to push, to have faith and to never give up. He gives us the inspiration we need to continue whether your business isn’t where you want it to be or maybe you are going through a lot of obstacles that you do not see yourself getting out of, he reminds us that there is light at the end of the tunnel. We just have to keep moving forward to see it. Thank you again Fr for sharing your story and creating a brand that not only looks great but is a constant reminder of how we should keep pushing.
For more info visit: www.shopabas.com
