Anyone looking to kickstart their career in the fashion world should spend more time on Twitter, it would seem. On Monday morning, Jaden Smith posted that he is on the lookout for a new Ceo for his fashion line-meets-creative collective MSFTSrep.
New CEO will need more than Twitter skills to find success
The MSFTsrep clothing line (pronounced: "misfits rep"; short for "Misfits Republic") has been sold online for the past two years, and mainly features a selection of graphic-print t-shirts and hoodies in the $35-90 price range. The venture launched in the summer of 2005 with a convoluted mission statement, and a Tumblr page filled with amateur-style black-and-white photographs of the brand's clothes.
With Smith and a small collective of other young creative-types (including his sister -- and sometimes recording artist -- Willow, child actor/photographer Moises Arias, and musician Daniel D'Artiste) at the helm, the label has grown to include more shirt designs, but has failed to reach the mainstream success of other artist-run fashion lines. As a collective, MSFTrep has also produced a web zine, "mystery school," and short video series.
According to Smith, he is looking for someone to assist "with the business aspect" of the clothing line, and there is no information on if the new CEO would be working with other areas of the collective's mission. Given that the first zine available on the website (entitled "The Subsequent Thought of Machu Pichu (sic)") begins with the words: "We hope that it thoroughly confuses and educates you on the non-existing culture of the republic," it is probably safe to assume any potential candidate is going to need an open mind and the ability to tie several seemingly disparate ends together to create success.
Model-turned-business mogul?
Smith has been making headlines in the fashion world for the past few years, even if they haven't been for his MSFTrep line. After he was spotted wearing a dress at the Coachella music festival in 2015, Smith became a passionate voice for removing gender boundaries from the fashion industry. In 2016, he told Nylon magazine that he chooses to wear gender non-conforming clothing as a way to start a conversation that may seem awkward now, but won't need to be in the future.
"I’m taking the brunt of it so that later on, my kids and the next generations of kids will all think that certain things are normal that weren’t expected before my time," he explained at the time.
As a model, Smith has posed in a skirt in Vogue Korea and was the face of Louis Vuitton's spring/summer 2016 women's collection.
It is obvious that Jaden Smith knows enough about the fashion industry to be able to turn heads, so hopefully one of his 6.3 million Twitter followers will be able to bring what he needs in a new CEO.
