Inside The Mind Of Design: Daily Paper Co-Founder Abderrahmane Trabsini

We started in 2012, like just five t-shirts. Now we have three stores in Amsterdam, New York and London and around 90 people working for us across menswear and womenswear. I think the key is being consistent and showing people progression.  It’s very important for us to build a community, to represent people that represent like minded people like us. It’s not our brand, it’s a brand for the community, it’s for the people.

At the beginning of the brand, we set rules for ourselves. I was the creative guy, the designer, Hussein, was more on the marketing side and Jeff started with sales and is very invested in the community and our activities around the world. I started as a designer, on Illustrator all the time trying to figure out how this clothing thing works. I’m design director, as well as co-founder, so I barely touch my laptop, I just coordinate. I see myself as a conductor, I got a band that makes the music.

My brain doesn’t stop. It’s ‘cause it’s constantly thinking, even before I go to sleep I’m thinking about my ideas. When I really like working on a collection, I wake up quite early, like 6am, because the motor is still turning, but I love what I’m doing, I love my job and I love getting inspired. It just sucks that you can never live by the moment because when it drops, you’re already two seasons ahead.

So often. I find this when convincing my business partners. It starts with the product “Do you guys feel it?” Their approval is very important. Most of the time they like it. I love getting feedback, that helps me see things differently. When you’re in the process, sometimes you don’t see certain things. That’s what I have with my design team when they present me ideas. At the end of the day, we all have the same goal and that’s making nice products that have a beautiful story to tell.

The logo is a Maasai Shield, it’s from the nomadic tribe in East Africa, Kenya, and the shield represents nomads. We feel like we’re modern nomads. We’re immigrants from Morocco, Somalia and Ghana and we grew up in Amsterdam and we also travel a lot. I’m in New York now, last week I was in London, the week before I was in the Dominican Republic, two weeks before I was in Ghana, Dubai – that’s why we call ourselves modern nomads, because we feel the shield is a representation of us as the brand.

We’re showing the world that we created a brand on our own, it reflects our household of three founders having a similar background. This means we can celebrate the beauty of our heritage in a positive and wearable way. We’re fusing traditional African references with contemporary designs. We’re kind of translating our heritage into clothing; modern day pieces that you can wear every day, that you can be proud of. It’s the substance that makes the brand beautiful.

It’s not very easy now with the pandemic still going on, but by doing events, doing offline events, inviting your community to them and having a relationship with new and established talent, we want to give a stage to a new generation. We want to scout new talent and give a platform to those people. For example, we do pop-ups in places where our brand is not accessible. Every December, we do a pop-up in Ghana, because we see, okay, it’s popping in West Africa. However, shipping there is expensive and challenging. We try to bring our brand to those people. I feel our community in Europe, US and UK is kind of growing, but we also want to give back to our continent. It’s very important for us to do more stuff in Africa, like we recently built a skate park with Surf Ghana and Off-White – RIP Virgil. Our mission now is to give back to the continent that represents the brand and inspires us the most.

Daily Paper has co-existed with Hip Hop since the brand’s birth in a way. We grew up listening to it and when we started Daily Paper as a blog, we were documenting street culture and artists in our surroundings as a source of inspiration. For our people, we wanted to dedicate this collection. Music inspires us a lot and we do a lot of collaborations with musicians. Now it was time for us to dedicate our main collection to music. It came out great, it’s a nostalgic and recognisable story. It’s like everybody will get it and I feel when you see the story in the clothing, it makes sense.

I think 90’s hip-hop – the Jay Zs, the Tribe Called Quests, the NAS, Missy Elliott, all that stuff. LL Cool J. These are types of people, and to this day, we still listen to them.

One of my favourite Nigo quotes is “the future is in the past”. I feel like we always look at the past, even with the heritage of the brand – we try to make it Afrofuturism. We always look at what’s happening now and what’s happening in the future. In terms of clothing, it always reverts to vintage. It’s a trend now, then it’s not a trend and all of a sudden it’s a trend again – like now for example, with those Avirex type jackets, we made one for our Fall Winter 22 collection, with the patch, it’s a full leather jacket. Yeah, it’s just looking at the past and seeing how you can make a new version. It’s a combination of trying new, crazier silhouettes, but also looking at your own wardrobe, like what have you been wearing? What can I do differently?

We spoke at length; we were in full flow, letting our brains fly. We both triggered each other into different conversational avenues throughout the interview, to a point where we both had to be objective and bring it back. The enthusiasm, the work ethic and charisma of Abderr are the elements of our chat that shine through the most, as well the fact the brand are now playlist curators on Apple Music. I wish the best for Daily Paper. Keep doing your thing Hussein, Jeff, Abderr and the wider Daily Paper team.