At fourteen-years-old, Bryan Jimenèz found himself in a new school, in a new city, trying his best to speak a language he didn’t fully yet grasp. Having grown up in the ‘rural’ landscape of the Dominican Republic, the designer moved to New York to join his mother and start a new chapter in his life. Now in his late 20s, Jimenèz is one of the most hyped young names in New York fashion. His eponymous brand has gone from strength to strength, steadily building a reputation for its off-kilter approach to classic menswear silhouettes. This year alone, Jimenèz is showing in Paris twice. The phrase may be overused in fashion, but with Jimenèz, it feels right: he’s one to watch.

Barry Pierce: I want to go back to the beginning with you. You grew up in the Dominican Republic, could you tell me a bit about what it was like growing up there?
Bryan Jimenèz: It was lovely. I was with my family. I think about the memories I have there a lot. I lost my dad when I was three, so I didn’t grow up within the normal household framework. My family was very close, we’re all still close but there’s family who lives in New York, there’s family in Texas and Boston, we’re more spread out. I always had a very strong support system around me – my grandma, my mom, my aunt, her children. I’m an only child but I had all my cousins and it never felt like I was truly alone. Although, I am a natural loner. I would go off by myself on the staircases, on the roofs. [The Dominican Republic] is very rural – concrete, brutal, religious. But it was lovely. The lessons that I went through there have allowed me to be resilient with things that happen in the day to day here. Even when I came to New York and wasn’t necessarily tapped into the culture or knew how to move or knew the codes, I was OK with not being accepted right away because I had already had hardships in the DR.

“The lessons that I went through [in the Dominican Republic] have allowed me to be resilient with things that happen in the day to day here.”

Barry: Did the internet have any influence on you in those early years?
Bryan: I didn’t get on the internet early, but when I did, it was really slow. It was me and my cousin, I remember, we’d get on it to download the music that was coming out in the Dominican Republic at the time. There was this guy who was called Monkey Black, he was kind of like the Young Thug of the era in the Dominican Republic. There was another guy called Lápiz Conciente, which translates to something like ‘pen’, he was a very lyrical guy. He would be considered the Kendrick [Lamar] of the time. We would get on the internet and download their music. We were tapped into that.

Barry: And then it was in your mid-teens that you made the move to New York?
Bryan: When I was fourteen my visa came. My mom had already been living in New York for eight years, I think. My visa came and I moved here.

Barry: What was that like? The differences in environment must have been extreme.
Bryan: Yeah, definitely. The desire to go to New York began when my family started to move there. Being Dominican, there’s always that dream of making it in New York. It took longer than expected, but when it did come, I was really excited, and I knew things were going to change. I didn’t necessarily have an interest in art or know what was even possible in New York. A year before my visa came, I started listening to English-language music like Drake, Lil Wayne. Then when I came here, it was a mind-bending experience. You see the infrastructure, the surroundings – that alone challenges your thinking. The environment changes your perspective. I’ve gone back to the DR, and it now feels very small.

“When I came [to New York], it was a mind-bending experience. You see the infrastructure, the surroundings – that alone challenges your thinking.”

Barry: What was it like to be thrown into a New York high school?
Bryan: It was definitely intimidating. I remember going in on my first day and luckily finding someone who spoke Spanish on the way. We started talking, and he explained to me what needed to be done. It was a whole system. But it really pushed me because I didn’t like being looked down on. I learned English in two years. I had taken English classes in the DR, but when I got here, I realised they didn’t do anything. [laughs] I wasn’t actually practicing it. So when I arrived, the alarm went off in my head. I told myself this needs to change. It was a good push, but it was definitely uncomfortable.

Barry: When did fashion first come into your life?
Bryan: There was a time when I felt a lot of pressure from my family about what I was going to do career-wise, and it was around then that I found out about the Fashion Institute of Technology, FIT. I think I was on Facebook, and there was this girl who was really fashionable in high school, and she posted something about going to FIT. I was like, “Oh, they have programmes where you can learn how to make clothes.” It sounded new, something I’d never heard of before. I was like, “I’m gonna do this.” It was around the time when there were a lot of fashion influences in music. There was a certain allure to it. I didn’t necessarily feel connected to myself yet. When I was on the computer and I was reading about it, I felt the drive towards it. It was kind of one of those first experiences where I was like, “Oh, I’m being myself. This is the person inside of me who I haven’t yet reached.”

Barry: You applied and, presumably, you got in.
Bryan: Well, not right away.

Barry: How many times did you try to get in?
Bryan: I got in on the third time. But I think that there has been a plan all throughout. I feel very fortunate and very looked out for. The thing that kept setting me back was, because I was an immigrant student, I had to take an English test that I kept failing. So while I got rejected, I went to another college for fashion merchandising. On the third time, when I had applied, I think that they had recognised me – also by then, I had already done some physical pieces, I had done a professional lookbook – FIT reached out and asked me for my grades at my current school. So it was because my grades were good in that school that I was admitted into FIT.

Barry: It’s almost a case where you were lucky that you were rejected because it forced you to go away and really focus on what you wanted to do.
Bryan: For sure, definitely.

Barry: What was it like when you got in? Because I’m presuming you were suddenly faced with people who had been designing dresses when they were three-years-old and staged catwalks all through their childhood. People who had wanted to do this for their entire lives whereas you were very much relatively late the realisation that this is what you wanted to do.
Bryan: It felt good. I sensed the difference – I remember being in the draping room and it’s all girls and I’m the only guy and you could tell that this was their dream, this is everything they’ve ever wanted and I’m basically just figuring it out, trying to make it happen. I think I found myself more through seeing those differences. I was able to see myself even more and it helped strengthen what it is that’s inside of me.

Barry: Did you align yourself with any designers at the time? Who were your idols?
Bryan: Yeah, Shayne Oliver and Hood By Air – they had such a chokehold on New York. I loved the dramatic work they were doing at the time. Also, Rick Owens. When I saw that photo of A$AP Rocky in Paris wearing full Rick Owens, I was like, “No, what is this?” I just rejected it completely. But it ended up being an exercise for my eye. I wanted to understand why it was cool. I wanted to know who made it. With Rick, it was the craftsmanship, the unconventional garment-making, and going the hardest with every collection. And then Shayne Oliver, because of the freedom, the freedom of his whole narrative.

“When I saw that photo of A$AP Rocky in Paris wearing full Rick Owens, I was like, “No, what is this?” I just rejected it completely. But it ended up being an exercise for my eye. I wanted to understand why it was cool.”

Barry: When did you first have the idea to start your own brand?
Bryan: When I kept getting rejected from FIT, I continued making clothes and I did an internship at a tailor’s shop. The idea was already clear to me that even if I didn’t get into FIT, I was still going to make clothes. I wanted to appear established from the very beginning. I wanted it to look like I knew what I was doing. So for my first set of clothes, I shot a lookbook. My friend who’s a photographer helped me out. I never treated this like it was DIY, I treated it like it was a brand. The other day, someone was telling me that they’ve been following my work for like, six years. And I was like, “That’s insane.” I feel like this is my first year… Every year I feel like this is my first year. I’ve started doing more collections season to season. This year is the first that I’m in Paris twice, in January and in June. And I am excited for what’s to come, but I’m also a little scared of this just becoming very season to season, like – OK, this season’s over, let’s move onto the next one right away.

Barry: How would you describe your brand?
Bryan: I think my pieces stand in a classical point – they’re not avant-garde, nor are they conservative. I think I’m right in the centre. My references are from classical, staple menswear: jackets, denim pants, cargo trousers. The allure of it is in the fabrics, in the construction, in the attitude that they provide for the wearer. I spend a lot of time making sure the fabrics have a certain weight to them and that, once the piece is done, it feels almost like armour. It’s classically-informed menswear done in a modern way.

“I think my pieces stand in a classical point – they’re not avant-garde, nor are they conservative. I think I’m right in the centre.”

Barry: I have one more question and it’s about being a young designer in New York. We all know it’s tough to start a brand but, at the moment, we’re seeing even established brands having to cut costs, skip seasons, all that. How has it been for you?
Bryan: In New York we’re very lucky to have the garment district. It gives us a lot of access to garments and trimming. I could go there right now and find the exact fabric that Ann Demeulemeester uses. I can actually see it and feel it. That’s informative. That’s something that you might only learn in a fashion textiles class. Like, what’s the fabric that Ralph Lauren uses? Having that access has been really helpful because it taught me what the standard was for fabrics in this space and the feel of the clothes. It is costly. It’s quite expensive to get things made. But I spent a long time making sure I knew the craftsmanship. FIT did this very well, they basically teach you how to work in the industry, how to work for a company. I took those tools and used them for my own company, rather than working for somebody else. I have an entire studio with multiple machines, the right size cutting table, the right tools and the right team. I think if I were starting the brand right now, it would be a different story. It’s such a long route. I still have such a long way to go before I’m fully grounded, before the brand is set in stone. I’m aware of that and I’m ready for that challenge.

models MEDHI ABOUZAID and ERINN MOMMSEN at NEXT, DANIEL ABRAMSON at SOUL ARTIST MANAGEMENT, REILLY BOYD at DNA MODELS, EMMANUEL POPOTEUR and PYLON RES hair by DENNIS LANNI; make-up by DEVRA KINERY; casting director BARBARA PFISTER; fashion assistant ILANA GUARACA