FC History

Fine Culture

A small town of 828 people in western Montana is where the studio space of Fine Culture lives. To start, FC was coined my sophomore year of high school. I started with PRINTIFY to make my shirts, iykyk. I then found out about how manufacturing works and began to manufacture my own collections. Starting with the "Fucked Faces Tee." Thankfully the TikTok algorithm was on my side and we sold 300 tees after a month of tacky videos. After this I started to curate my collections around certain themes. I went on to release my "SIGHTS" collection which involved one of my first distinguishable logos. This was the "CROSSHAIRS" logo. 3 months later I released my "ARMED WORLD" collection. I really loved this one, I had 4 graphic tees, 3 hoodies and my first hat.  4 months later I released the "COLD KILLER" collection. Again, this collection was great, all pieces tied together and overall was pleased with the release. After this, my mom bought me a $20 sewing machine, and this was the era where I began my 1/1's. Lots of great pieces were made on this sewing machine. For a time reference, this was the summer of my junior year. After a few 1/1 releases, I then went on to release the "PEACE AND ANARCHY" collection. It was after this collection where I found myself in a hole. I felt like I wasn't making any progress at all, I was nervous about how much longer I could keep the brand going, I was barely making any money. Overthinking was at an ultimate height during this time. After a couple months of nothing, I decided to release a few 1/1 bags I made along with a $10 tee, I sold 0 tees lol. Yea this was the cherry on top to my hole. During this time, I always thought about designing more wild items, the problem was that I wanted to produce these ideas through a manufacture, the plus, I could guarantee quality, sell more units.  The negative, I would have to make certain quantity minimums and overall pay for the bulk. To start, I used almost all my money I made from my summer job as a grocery store merchandiser to make my first 10 samples of my wilder designs, some of these designs I have actually already released, the EBONY DENIM, DRAB TROUSERS, SAGE RAGE HOODIE, JAKIT, MERAKI DENIM, AND THE CROW DENIM. I spent a month designing these samples. I felt like if these samples went nowhere, then the brand would then come to an end. I really put my all into these samples. Once I actually received the samples, this was the hard part. I needed to build enough demand to be able to sell a pre-order for these pieces. I came back to my old friend TIK TOK. I made at least 30+ videos containing the SAGE RAGE HOODIE, DRAB TROUSERS, AND THE EBONY DENIM. I learned one thing, after 30+ tacky TikTok videos, a few are bound to get some views. I released the Sage Rage hoodie, no ad spend, no endorsements, just hope that the people who commented "tuff" on my TikTok video would maybe buy the hoodie. I sold 98 hoodies on release weekend. I made my first $10,000 in a weekend of the SAGE RAGE HOODIE. After 3 years of having the brand, I felt like I had made the most progress that month, I was designing pieces that I actually enjoyed and cared about. That month was surreal. The shitty part was that I needed to recreate that. I needed to release the Ebony Denim. I kept releasing the TikTok videos and hoping I could build some demand for the Ebony Denim. March 15th, I finished shoveling snow off our deck. I came inside to begin prepping the site for the Ebony Denim release. It was about 30 minutes until the release and there were 300 people on site, my heart genuinely dropped. I felt like this was it. That day changed it all for me.  I realized I could design what I actually liked, and people would like it too. Since then, we have had 10,000+ orders. We don't plan on stopping.

 

Do something wrong. Do something right.

 

- Walid Mustafa

(aka, Mr. Culture)