Fuck This Industry: The Myles Underwood Interview
Words & Interview by Max Harrison-Caldwell
In his 1991 classic Postmodernism, the late philosopher Frederic Jameson wrote that “the writers and artists of the present day will no longer be able to invent new styles and worlds — they’ve already been invented; only a limited number of combinations are possible.” When I spoke recently with Myles Underwood, the young CEO of clothing label Fuck This Industry, he said something similar: “Nothing is original anymore.”
But this doesn’t mean culture is consigned to endless rehash and regurgitation. Postmodern artists can still stand out by mixing unlikely influences, like, in FTI’s case, emojis, Twilight, Spiderman, and the sexual stimulants known as “honey packs.” The formula seems to be working — Underwood’s brand of Obama-era nostalgia has attracted nearly 50,000 followers to the FTI Instagram and caught Supreme’s attention. I called up the East Village designer early one morning around 1 p.m. to ask about irony, trends, and 2008. Eventually, he woke up and called me back. Our (edited and condensed) conversation is below:
What did you get into last night?
Nothing crazy. We just kicked it at my house for a little and then went to Winnie’s, which is this karaoke bar that everyone goes to and doesn’t sing. I left at like 1:30 and made mac and cheese and went to bed. But, I don’t know, I woke up and thought it was 11 o’clock, and then it was 1:30 (laughs).
What’s your karaoke song?
I, like, never sing. If I’m really wasted, and Kiss Me Thru the Phone comes on, I’ll do it, but I don’t go out of my way.
What were you doing in the year 2008?
I was in third grade. I think I started skating in 2009, so I was snowboarding, listening to Soulja Boy. The Celtics won the NBA Championship. I was probably playing Nintendo.
What’s the significance of that year?
It’s a nostalgia thing. Before I was making clothes, I would always be like, “2008, it’s fire, it’s the best year.” Soulja Boy, T-Pain, Obama, the Celtics. I think the shit from your childhood that sticks, especially in your taste, is from that age. You’re not five anymore. That’s when you actually start to find things that you like on your own.
That era is really influential because of the internet, too. Soulja Boy was the first rapper doing shit on YouTube by himself. iPhones came out in 2007. Twilight. There’s a lot of influential shit, especially for people my age. When I started making clothes, I just started using it [2008]. The number looks good. I use that way more than I use FTI or Fuck This Industry just because it’s symmetrical and fits better, and people definitely take to it.
Why did you start making clothes in the first place?
It was during COVID, I was living with Waffle [Devin Woelfel], and everyone was saying “son of a bitch”, talking in Southern accents, and using cowboy emojis. So at first, FTI was Son of a Bitch Company. I was bored, I made one shirt — it had Tech Deck guys and said “all cops are bastards” and I made 24 of them. Those sold pretty well among friends. Then I made another shirt, and then another shirt, and a crewneck, and just kept making shit. No expectations, no goals.
People have a weird thing with goals. Not that working toward something is bad, but if you set your mind on one thing, it kind of can fuck your shit up. You just have to keep doing your thing, and if you actually care about it and love it, you’ll get into a good place. Whether it takes six months or ten years.
A few years ago, everyone was talking about Y2K nostalgia, and you still see the influence of that era, but you were the first person that I saw doing late-2000s nostalgia. You were doing a 15-year nostalgia cycle instead of a 20-year cycle—
I feel like now, it’s, like, ten. 2013 Diamond Supply Co drip is going to be a thing, which is fire.
Who’s that dude on Diamond who did nollie late flips, and would always wear a tank top and a backwards hat?
All of them (laughs). Uh, Nick Tucker.
Yeah, I’ll be pulling up like Nick Tucker in 2025.
That’d be hard. Literally, snapback flat brims and big tees and small pants.
You should skate to that song Snapbacks and Tattoos.
That’d be fire. That’s a banger. But yeah, I mean, nothing is original anymore at all. It’s, like, impossible. You have to take influence from some era or some shit, you know. If you try to get original at this point, you end up looking so fucked. People try to get hella different and look like what someone else doesn’t look like. If it’s something you’re really into, it’s sick. But I think people will just do stuff for the wrong reasons. For a reaction, you know.
I can imagine some old heads accusing you of that.
Of course.
I read a blurb on a resale site about Fuck This Industry that said, “If meta-irony was a style of clothing, this would be its magnum opus.” Are your designs ironic?
I mean, yeah, for sure. I think some things are more for the irony than others, like the emoji hats. I kind of got over doing the funny word t-shirts, like the “Bro, let’s go out this weekend” shirt. I sold more of those than anything I’ve ever made. I made that video with Malik and it got like two million views.
But also, I actually think this shit’s fucking funny. I don’t make something unless I really like it and think it’s fire and cool and I want to wear it — or I think it’ll sell. Usually the shit that I think is the best and all my friends think is the coolest doesn’t do well. Then the shit that I’m like, “Whatever, this is bullshit” — it sells out. But I feel like it’s like that for everyone I talk to who makes clothes.
What’s one piece you were really hyped on that didn’t sell well?
I made this striped zip-up based on a Fallen zip-up. It was really simple: black and purple stripes with three patches on it, and it had thumb holes in the sleeve and a double weed zipper. Everyone I gave it to was like, “Oh my God, this is awesome.” You can tell when you give someone something and they actually wear it consistently. It was kind of expensive. I dropped it and did a whole shoot that I was hyped on, Fin [Flint] shot these cool photos. And then it didn’t hit that hard online.
And then I’ll make a hat, like that blinged out, Canal Street-vibe 2008 hat. I made the sample for fun, almost didn’t make it, and then I sold like 300 of them. It’s kind of annoying.
How would you describe the FTI aesthetic?
I don’t know. So much of my brand is the Instagram and the edits and the challenges. If you look at it, you can tell. But I would say nostalgia, bootleg, fuckin’... drunk.
You grew up skating Eggs a lot. The style there is steeped in tradition — very simple, very classic. It’s a style that’s endured since the ‘90s, in different forms. FTI, on the other hand, is very maximalist. How does a kid skating Eggs every day start getting into this stuff?
The internet. Memes. There was definitely a Bronze influence, for sure, and Dime. This dude Imran Potato has been doing Alibaba bootleg shit forever.
But I was never on the Eggs steez that hard. When I was younger, more, for sure, but once I was like 17 or something, I feel like I wasn’t being directly influenced by it at all. Even my skating was never Eggs skating — I can’t back nosegrind pop out, I can’t switch back tail.
Speaking of Boston, Dana Ericson does your animations. I saw he posted a text you sent him where you were describing the animation you wanted him to make, and it said something like, “Spiderman doing a backflip sack tap into courthouse but the board is a honey pack and then he shoots a guy with a gun and the guy explodes.” What’s your process for coming up with these ideas?
I’m deadass just in the crib, and I just think. It seems like a lot of this shit is bullshit and doesn’t take effort or a thought process, but I really be thinking. Like, mad hard.
Shoutout Dana. My skate camp counselor, and the best skater of all time.
When you’re designing clothes, do you think about trends? Are you responding to — or trying to drive — broader shifts in the way people dress?
It’s weird because trends are so fast now. I think a big reason why my shit even picked up steam was that when I started making shit, the ironic t-shirts and that whole steez had just started to get popping. The crazy hats, hats with ears, all that shit was just starting to be in, and I caught it. But I wasn’t trying to follow the trend, I was just making what I wanted to make. Words on t-shirts was a really big trend. Like, put any crazy saying on a shirt and people are going to be like, “Whoa! Wow! Fuck! This is sick!”
There have been times where I’ve seen some shit and been like, “You fucking jacked my steez!” but it has to be insanely specific to the point where there’s no doubting. But I just ordered these Twilight hoodies, all-over print Twilight with the 2008, and there’s this brand called Haunted Starbucks that’s a pretty similar vibe, and right after I ordered them, they posted a Twilight hoodie, and I was like, “Fuck.” I DM’d the dude and I was like, “Yo, I just ordered a Twilight hoodie and then I saw yours. Like, I’m not biting.”, and he was mad cool about it. But yeah, people have the same ideas. Everyone is looking at the same shit.
The culture of saying someone’s biting you or whatever is so ass. It definitely happens, but if they surpass you or something, whatever, maybe they’re just better at it.
I made this Supreme graphic that just says ‘FUCK MONEY’ with a cross. I guess there’s a band called Fuck Money, and they were in the comments going nuts, like, “You clearly ripped off my design!” And I’m like, “Bro, I actually have no idea who you are. You can’t have a name like that — you can’t put “fuck” with any word in the world and say that’s original to you. It just doesn’t work like that.”
Do you take any credit for the way kids dress now, at least in the New York skate world?
No. I think my edits were more influential. I’ve seen Instagram edits that were hella similar — speeding up everything and the level of bullshit and the music I use – at the time, no one was really doing that. But with clothes, no one person is responsible, unless you’re, like, Playboi Carti, or Kanye. There are so many brands, especially in this scene. Star Team has a store next to Tompkins. That’s a way bigger influence, I think. We’re all friends, so it’s, like, collective: Star Team, Melodi, Atticus [Torre] with Settings, Homies Network, Punk and Yo. Everyone is actually so intertwined. It’s fire.
Who are some people outside that little scene who are making sick clothes?
Happy 99, they have a store right off Canal, they make really sick shit. Not skate-related at all. I’m trying to think. I feel like I don’t look at other stuff that much.
Is that intentional? There’s the story about Vin Scully, the famous Dodgers baseball announcer, who said he never listened to other announcers because he didn’t want them to influence him.
I don’t think it’s on purpose. There’s just so much shit. Especially in New York, you don’t have to research other people’s shit because there’s so much shit everywhere you look.
My friend Sage [Thomas] has a brand called Nightwear that’s really sick. He helped me with this hoodie recently. Ish [Diallo] makes cool stuff too, he’s helped me out with a couple things. There are talented people everywhere.
Are you able to support yourself just off the brand?
Yeah.
Do you pay anybody to help you?
No. I want to, but I’m not that far in yet. It costs so much money.
You mentioned Ish, Sage, Father Bop — who else is in the FTI design team brain trust?
When I make something, I always ask Ish, Kei [Tsuruta], Sage, Malik, and Troy [Gipson]. That’s whose opinions I trust the most, who’ll actually tell me if they think some shit is ass, and I feel like they actually like it.
Besides Supreme, have any other brands hit you up to ask for design work?
Yeah, but nothing ever went through. I’m not, like, a graphic designer. I didn’t go to school for this shit. There are times people want something, and then they’re like, “Oh, this is too FTI!” And I’m like, “Well, this is what I know how to do. If you don’t like it, I can’t really do anything else (laughs).”
But I’ve definitely gotten better at doing other styles. You have to transition. Especially now, it’s been three, almost four years. You can’t do the same thing forever. And also, your taste changes.
I was talking to Ben O. who does Grand Collection and he was like “Your brand is your portfolio. You’ve done pop-ups, you’ve done all these ads, you’ve made all these clothes, videos, you’ve collabed with these people, you know how to do a rollout, you know how to do all these things that people don’t know, or they think they know because they did it for someone else’s brand that has 1,000 employees.” Actually doing something on your own is not a fucking easy thing to do, and I think sometimes people think it’s hella easy, but it’s not, at all. It’s a real job.
How many hours a week are you spending on the brand?
It depends. Sometimes, if I’m in heavy fuck-off mode, I won’t do shit for weeks. But I was in London like two and a half weeks ago, and every day since I’ve been back I’ve been working. I dropped the Punk and Yo stuff, had to fulfill all the Punk and Yo orders, get all the ads ready, shoot all this shit, and then I’m dropping next month and going to Tokyo and Seoul with Kyota [Umeki]. We’re doing a collab pop-up.
I have three pop-ups planned for October in Korea and Japan so I’m doing all my wholesale shit right now. Twenty-five boxes in a one-bedroom apartment. Everything is out the crib. I’m dropping in October but then I really need to drop something in December for holiday season. It gets really fucking hectic.
And you’ve got to come up with an October challenge.
Fuck (laughs). I can’t do the challenges anymore man. I’m so over it. I’m so over the challenges, it actually stresses me out. I did it every month for like two years. It’s a lot of shit to think of. And then I’ll make one that doesn’t hit the same and everyone’s like, “You’re not funny anymore.” I’m fucking trying, dude! Jesus! Sitting down and thinking of shit to put in this chart. Hell no. I’m over it. I quit.
Do you have a favorite piece you’ve done?
The 2008 zip-ups, I wear the most. The tie shirt I made with my homie London. And the boxers probably — there was a boxer pack with a wolf howling and a gun.
When’s the sequel to CLUB DRAGON dropping?
I don’t know. I want to make a video. At one point, I got a real camera. But I tore my meniscus in 2022, so it basically made me quit skating. I can skate now, but I just want to skate flat. So I got a camera, but then never got started.
I have a little digi-cam I’ll take on trips, and this year I’m trying to travel as much as I can. I went to LA, I went to Tokyo and Korea and I’m going back, I went to London and Berlin. It’s not that I’m over New York, but I can’t be here for more than two months at a time without going insane.
What about Boston?
I appreciate a lot about Boston and the people I grew up with there, but I’ll never live there ever again. I’d rather fucking die than move back there, deadass. But, you know, not everything is for everyone. It’s just old. People are just in their way. I feel like it never changes. Moving to New York and falling into the friend group that I did was the best thing that’s ever happened to me. All my friends are so awesome and just as responsible for everything I’ve done in my life as I am.
I met Kei, Coles, and Kyota in Miami. So random. And then my mom sold the house we were living in and moved to the Cape. And I just ended up here.
Do you have plans to open a storefront?
Not anytime soon. If someone gives me $50,000 to open a store, hell yeah, but that shit is a lot of money. I don’t have enough money or enough product. You need so much product to keep a store filled. I was maybe going to go half with Kyota on a bigger space, which I think would be really sick. Instead of a strictly Star Team store, it would be Star but, like — this is gonna sound corny as hell — a Dover Street vibe where there are sections for other brands. Maybe one day. We’ll see.
Last words? Shoutouts?
Shoutout all my friends and family. I love you all. Peace.