Hailing from Birmingham city, there lays a creative duo who are the masterminds behind one of the cities notable and street credible brands, Lowkey Supply. A high demand, wavey supply. Lowkey Supply, spearheading their creative nature from a bond and passion over design and street lifestyle saw the brand flourish into a self-esteemed, independent designer brand from the street, for the street.

Lowkey’s Supply have put up pleasant offer isolation essentials and at home must-haves in style. SS20 enabled Lowkey Supply founders Jordan & Tom to transcend the norms of UK streetwear by experimenting with new graphics and prints for the season and tailoring the cosy levels on 100% for every piece.

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We had the pleasure of teaming up with Lowkey Supply owners and creative directors Jordan & Tom for an in-depth insight to Lowkey from their minds to our wardrobes, the spark which ignited the Lowkey Supply chain and more importantly what it means to be Lowkey! In an exclusive interview with the masterminds of the brand for VIPER.

What was your earliest memory that ignited an interest in fashion? 

We used to laugh about how sick it would be to make our clothes and stuff when we were 15/16 in school but didn’t know how we’d do it with no resources, after ‘real-life’ taking over, Jordan went to University in Birmingham to study Sport T got a Job in recruitment, we were 18. Jordan started an events movement with friends called Tektu in 2014 focusing on events in Ibiza during the summers working with clubs. Tom at the time was working full time in the motor trade and ended up writing off about 13 cars by the time he left in in 2018

In October 2016, Jordan & I was living in the area, so we had a catch up we had a flashback of when we were younger and wanted to start a brand and make our own clothes. Our first idea on the spot was ’Stay Weird’… Jordan had that tattooed in 2016 and we thought we could do some cool weird shit. Eventually coming up with the concept for ‘Lowkey London’ as we were based around North London and Hertfordshire, then rebranding to ‘Lowkey Supply’ When we moved to Birmingham to study in Sept 2018, and now we are here in 2020 with our first collection. Birmingham is a cool city and has contributed a lot to where we are now, we’ve built up a good base in the year and a half we’ve been here and met some cool creatives. We’ve winged so much and just taken risks as we didn’t know what we were doing for a long time but we knew what we wanted. 

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The name of your brand positively stands out to us, What does LOWKEY mean for you? 

We have no creative backgrounds, didn’t go to art classes after year 8 in school. We taught ourselves everything by meeting up overnight with our laptops for a few years trying to teach ourselves digital design which didn’t look great but it was a start – Lowkey to us is about being under the radar, least suspected, the underdogs of the game that we just started playing. We’re sure none of our teachers would’ve ever imagined we’d be the kids to start a clothing brand if you could’ve seen us then you would never of guessed that we are the same two boys from back then.

Do you feel where you have come from has inspired your creative outlook?  

Not really, the best thing about where we have come from is that it’s inspired us to not want a 9-5 job in an office working for someone. We think we’ve got the potential to do something good with Lowkey, we’ve only just began our journey, it’s been never-ending obstacles but solving problems is part of the fun.

You’ve recently released your SS20 Range. What provoked the style of the collection? 

This was our first attempt at a cut and sew collection, we wanted to push our boundaries creatively and just have some fun with it: playing with dyes, fabrics, different finishing and printing techniques, for example, we made our tie-dye cargos in the garden on tarpaulin.. contrast stitching like on the lowest of the low tracksuit, relaxed silhouettes, and also a secret in-seam pocket in the reflective bag. 

The collection is us trying out different techniques and experimenting in different ways to create garments which are recognisably Lowkey, creating that brand identity.

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Is there an outfit from your collections which you can’t seem to stop wearing? 

We wanted the collection to be suitable for all occasions. During these quarantine times both the tracksuits are getting worn daily by us, our contrast stitch tracksuit and all-over reflective tracksuit are getting a sh*t ton of us it’s the ultimate chill-out gear with added shine. Our puffer jackets were a game-changer for us over the winter months too and wear graphic tees with our cargos a lot too. The Kimono is a mad one, we used Iridescent fabric one side and black ripstop the other to make it reversible so you could change it with your mood if you wanna be out there or not. It’s a sick one to be fair, that’s our most expensive item too. Hand made and unique. 

Your play with graphics and typography originally caught our attention, if you could describe the designs of your clothes in 3 words what would they be and why? 

Experimental, Functional, Underground. 

Experimental because we’re learnt a-lot from this collection. We’ve done a lot of things we’ve never done before, it’s been great fun and a rollercoaster. Functional because we wanted our range to be useful. We developed our first bag, and inserted a ‘’secret’’ in-seam pocket as well as creating space in the bag with the added room. We’ve used big pockets throughout all of our items especially trousers and joggers because there’s nothing more annoying than small pockets and your phone or wallet drops out! Underground because that’s what we are, we just two guys showcasing ideas and concepts that we wanna pursue.

Is there a specific end goal you wish to achieve with LOWKEY? or is there something bigger you’re embarking on? 

We want Lowkey to evolve into a creative outlet, people are starting to really feel what we’re doing which is sick, our ultimate goal is to be a recognised brand for what we are creating, and become a staple amongst the youth. A brand that springs to mind when you think about streetwear brands would be the ultimate goal. Together we wanna carry on experimenting, having fun and coming up with cool graphics. We’d want to take that lifestyle brand idea further and eventually expand Lowkey into other directions. We aren’t where we wanna be yet with the clothes, we know we can do a hell of a lot more and that’s gonna be our main priority.. more events/popups and stuff would be cool for future though. Our goal to become more sustainable, as at the minute we’re using packaging made from sugar cane, our L/s Tee is made from quality cotton grown without the use of herbicides or pesticides, it’s a start and a work in progress something we wanna do more of. It would be cool to collaborate with other brands as we haven’t done anything like that before and it would be a sick experience to come together and get creative. 

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Congratulations on your SS20 Collection, what else can we expect from LOWKEY for the rest of 2020? 

Thanks for having us and recognising what we’re doing. As for the rest of 2020… Coronavirus, unfortunately, cancelled out a lot for us. We had 3/4 collaborative pop-up shops planned across Birmingham and London.. So I guess with the lockdown we’re gonna keep our heads down and work on what’s next. Half of our collection we make to order, which help with overheads and costs, so that’ll be keeping us busy locked in the studio.

We’ve also been thinking about getting Lowkey into streetwear retailers across the UK and Europe and the US but with the virus we aren’t too sure if that’s possible this year, 2021 will be good though we hope!

Stay Connected & Tuned in with all things Lowkey Supply and on their latest drops and releases now, by following Lowkey Supply social media and shop their SS20 collections now online now at https://lowkey.supply/