Quality. Black. Owned. Brands. 1.

This will be an ongoing series dedicated to quality brands of businesses that are also black owned that folks can, and should, support.

1. GOAT by James King

I started this search many years ago because I grew tired of only seeing black owned brands that either sold food or t-shirts. I knew that there were brands out there that not only sold items of quality, but also had its own distinct flavor and vision. So I started with something that I knew that I would have to wear on a daily basis at my office job: Rugby shirts (i.e. Polos). I started searching and searching until I came across a brand named GOAT by James King. It was a black owned brand based out of Atlanta and their aesthetic was essentially “Black Prep” to me.

When I saw this and saw the material, I was like, “let me go ahead and cop this”. I received the shirt with a note thanking me for my purchase. I appreciated the gesture and it’s those small details that can leave lasting impressions on your brand (I mean, I’m literally making a blog post about it so…). When I put this shirt on and went to work, not only was this super comfortable, I was getting compliments on it asking where I got this from. That’s when I knew, “yeah, this is it”. One item lead to two. two lead to 4. Now I have shirts, jackets, Lettermans, and vests by them. The Lettermans are among my favorites from the brand because not only is it extremely fashionable, but it is also heavily insulated so you can look good AND feel good during the winter months. The tagline on the jacket resonated with me to the point where I changed my handle on social media and used it in the name of this blog.

I recently met with the owner when I was in Atlanta. He has a space in Bloomingdale’s in Lenox Mall where you can also purchase his clothes and talked to him about how he got started and what’s his vision for upcoming drops. If you want to know more about that convo. then you can look no further because I didn’t record any of it.

Far too often, when it comes to black owned brands, folks don’t do enough digging because they don’t believe that we can be so diverse in the realm of clothing, or any realm for that matter. I’m glad that brands like GOAT by James King exists so people can realize that Black Owned shouldn’t be treated as a label to treat those owners and their products as lesser than. The quality of their products should speak loudly and if you need a tiebreaker on what to go with, then Black Owned should serve as that extra push. So, if you’re looking for a brand that exudes quality and committment to the vision, check out GOAT by James King.

TCI