Under the Hard Shell with
Designer Jeremy Karl

I took some visual arts and design courses at Concordia. I was almost going to get kicked out of university, so I left in my last year. Everything on my LinkedIn is a scam, I didn’t graduate.

At a certain point I met Vincent Tsang, who is the founder and designer of Dime. Vince taught me more than I had learned at university. He was my first mentor. Through Vince, I connected with Justin Saunders and Virgil Abloh. Around that time, we started techspec on Tumblr. I think of it as a repository or library of tech moods. I was using techspec a lot for the work we were doing for Justin, Virgil, and Kanye. That was the BEEN TRILL sniper team. We all shared some big responsibilities, some huge decisions for YEEZY, like colorways and silhouettes. We would always ask, “Is it techspec approved?” I was obsessed with Arc’teryx LEAF and Veilance. Vince and I would hunt for certain pieces.

System_A is an intersection between Veilance and LEAF. Regular Arc’teryx is great, but the bird logo is really loud, the cuts aren’t ideal, and Veilance is too tailored. We wanted to make something more universal. The kids really rode for Arc’teryx: kids that are into skateboarding or into rap. System_A was a love letter to those people. The System_A Dume jacket has the LEAF velcro patch, and we included references to the RECCO detectors because we used to wear that stuff, even though we never used our gear to go skiing.

Vince introduced me to ACRONYM and William Gibson when I was like 18; they both inspired techspec a lot, and inspired my design career. Taka [Kasuga] and I spoke a lot about Errolson Hugh and William Gibson. It was like I’ve been preparing for this my whole life.

[Editor’s Note: ACRONYM founder Errolson Hugh was an early consultant for Veilance, and science-fiction writer William Gibson’s novel Spook Country introduced a fictional martial-art form named systema, which inspired the name for Arc’teryx System_A.]

Golf has the best material packages, like Nike golf, adidas golf. They use a lot of GORE[-TEX] membranes, some of the best details like zip-off sleeves or short sleeve windbreakers, interesting details that capture the eye.

At first, it was an adidas deal. Matt George calls me, and he's like, “I have this project for adidas. If you want to run it, it's basically like techspec. If you want to make a cooler Stone Island.” I get to Toronto and meet with Matt. Then Drake walks in. I didn’t really even know it was a Drake thing until I saw him and until we started speaking, but that was where NOCTA started. So we worked on this adidas deal for a year, which was basically practice for Drake and I to figure out NOCTA.

[Editor’s Note: Matt George founded Canadian retailers NOMAD and Goodfoot, before playing an instrumental role in bringing Stüssy to Vancouver and Toronto. Currently George is CEO at YEEZY.]

The Hot Step is one of the first things we worked on. The inspiration for the Hot Step is early 2000s Nike basketball. Really simple details, perforations or pillow stitching, things that give it a little bit of speed. Drake picked the outsole. It’s actually a hiking outsole. So, the Hot Step is a minimal basketball upper with a hiking outsole, but the idea was, “What’s the new version of a TN?” But also, Drake’s favorite shoe is the Air Force 1. So we wanted to make something as universal and as wearable.

Everyday protection from the environment. That’s what I feel is important. And obviously, my designs come with deeper research and obscure references. But it’s mostly about—if it starts raining, you’re good to go. If you have to be somewhere last minute, you’re good to go. If you feel insecure that day, you just wear the hard shell, and you feel amazing. I speak a lot about emotional function. You’re like, “Oh. This jacket makes me feel great.” To me, that’s part of functional clothing.

We talked about William Gibson. One of his characters is Cayce Pollard from Pattern Recognition. She has these Cayce Pollard units or CPUs where she’d always wear the same things, and for me it’s the same. I have softshell pants that I wear from System_A or Patagonia. I wear a bomber made by Colin Meredith. If not the bomber, it’s a hard shell or the SL, the superlight shell from System_A. I only wear triple-black shoes. I wear a lot of Loro Piana. There has to be some type of universality to how I roll.

My biggest mentors were Vince, Virgil, and Taka. Even Virgil— our last convo was a couple days before he passed—his mentorship was something that I was blessed with.

I try to give back, and to give more than I have received. Find the new kids, give them paid work. That’s the school that got me where I’m at right now, and that’s why I want to give back, especially to young kids of color that feel misunderstood. Virgil taught me to trust myself. He taught me that my point of view was valid and that I need to keep rolling. It’s natural and easy to link them up with someone or find them some work, teach them Illustrator, buy their software licenses.

Twitter is the intersection where I have fashion friends, tech friends, and crypto friends. Blockchain Twitter is a whole different world. Twitter is basically the only censorship-free social media. I am active on it because there’s a lot of talk about blockchain, new tech, social justice, and decolonization.

I think blockchain will allow a lot of creators and designers to live to design. To live to create, instead of create to live. It will decentralize everything, giving us different ways of funding, and different ways of capturing profits from collective creations.

Yeah, exactly. Brands own the designers, but the designers should own their product and their ideas. It’s going to be led by culture or led by people like me, a designer who saw blockchain as a tool. For me, blockchain is the most human future, and the future of fashion.