CAREER

Daily Paper Is Here to Take

Your Wardrobe to the Next
Level
From blog to brand, this streetwear label is taking
over.

By  Jodi Taylor   / Photographer Alec Kugler

JULY 18, 2019

It was never Hussein Suleiman’s plan to start a

clothing brand, yet the one he ended up founding
alongside Jefferson Osei and Abderrahmane Trabsini
has been worn by everyone from Lupita Nyong’o to
Lil Baby, Danileigh, Goldlink, Jorja Smith, and Brent
Faiyaz. Born in Amsterdam, Daily Paper originally
started out as a blog (hence the name) where the
three friends would interview prominent people in
the streetwear and sneaker industries, but following
the creation of a merch tee, the team made the
decision to transform their four-year-old blog into a
brand. Nowadays, not only are notable names
wearing the pieces, but they’ve also collaborated with
the likes of Alpha Industries, Wizkid, Havana Club,
Leomie Anderson, and NPO Elman Peace.

While Suleiman and his co-founders are focused on

creating high-quality streetwear pieces, they’re also
adamant about showcasing their countries’ heritages.
All three are of African descent and grew up in
Amsterdam, and they’ve made sure to proudly
showcase this since the brand’s inception, balancing
African and Dutch design elements into both their
menswear and women’s-wear pieces. To get the full
story behind Daily Paper, we met up with Suleiman
at their Paris showroom (casual, we know) for the
411.

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For Suleiman, it all began with a pair of Nike Air

Max:

“I’m from the Netherlands, and where I’m from,the

Air Max has always been a big shoe. I remember
when I was younger, my parents didn’t really have
the money to buy me Nike shoes, so I never had Nike
shoes until I was 13. I remember I was like, I can’t
wait to make my own money because that’s what I’m
going to buy. [When] I was 13, I had my first job, and I
saved up and I bought my first Air Max 1s. I made
sure they looked crispy—I was so proud.”

From there, the love affair began with sneakers

and streetwear:

“Fourteen or fifteen years ago was when I really

started getting into streetwear. It was the blog era,
[and] the Hypebeast blog is where I met a lot of people
and talked about products—and NikeTalk. First I got
into sneakers. What I liked about that era is there
were shoes that were only being released in the
United States, there were shoes only being released
in Japan, and there were shoes that were only being
released in Europe. Today everything is being
released for every country because of online sales.
Before that, you used to have blogs like NikeTalk,
where people used to trade, or [they’d] ask each other,
‘Can you get me these Jordans?’ This is the first time
I started thinking [that] I could make some money off
this, because people [in the United States] were
willing to pay more for the Jordans that were here.

“On the other hand, in the year 2006–2007, Pharrell

[Williams] was one of the biggest stars, and Kanye
West. I was exposed to new things, like A Bathing
Ape—all of these brands I’d never heard about
because we couldn’t get them [in Amsterdam]. That’s
when I started going on eBay and buying stuff for
myself. Some people called me a clown for wearing it,
some people were like, ‘Yo, I want that too,’ and
that’s when I first started making money off that
[and] really started paying attention to brands and
how one could get a cult following but another brand
couldn’t. I was really intrigued by that. I had all these
connections around the world, and before I even
thought of starting a brand, I thought it would be
cool to document all of this, because nobody was
really paying attention to what was happening in
Europe with streetwear. So I started a blog called
Daily Paper. It wasn’t until four years later that the
blog transformed into a global brand.”

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The transition from Daily Paper the blog to

Daily Paper the brand:

“[For] the blog we were interviewing a lot of very

interesting people from the industry, like sneaker
designers, brand owners, creatives [from] all over. We
started getting more and more traffic, so I printed
some t-shirts that said ‘Daily Paper.’ In my mind I
was thinking, If we wear them, more people will come to
our website, but what happened was people were
emailing us like, ‘Where can I buy the t-shirt?’ I
realized people really liked [them], and then that
became something that I really enjoyed doing,
making product and selling it. One or two years later,
we were making all of our money from t-shirt sales,
and that’s when we changed our business model.”

How the three founders divvied the roles up:

“A lot of people that look into our company say

things like, ‘It’s perfect that you guys all focus on
totally different things and you work so well
together,’ and that’s one of the things that I’m most
proud of. Everybody has natural roles. Jefferson was
always someone that was sales-driven, he can
package shit in a way that you’re like, ‘OK, I’ll buy it,’
[and] he’s always been strategic when it comes to
brand storytelling or art direction. Automatically, I
was doing more of the strategy and online marketing
for the brand. Abder is the only one out of the three
of us who went to a design academy, so he was a
natural when it came to designing our collections.”

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Why it’s so important for them to highlight

Dutch and African designs in their pieces:

“When I was growing up, people weren’t really proud

to say that they were from Africa—they thought it
was cooler to identify with black Americans or the
Caribbean. That’s because around that era, this was
the ’90s and 2000s, a lot of hardship fell on Africa;
whether it was famine or war, it was a place that
wasn’t sexy, so people didn’t really have the pride
that they do today. I remember [when I was] growing
up, I was seeing people around me distancing
themselves from their heritage and their roots,
because it wasn’t the coolest thing to be, and I
thought that was whack. Same goes for Jefferson and
Abder—we’re all from Africa, and we all grew up in
the west side of Amsterdam. I believe that any art
form is best if it’s a reflection of your true self and
your true identity.”

What a typical day looks like for him (when he

gets one):

“I live above the store, so I go downstairs and get

myself pancakes. I’m a big pancake fan, I eat
pancakes so often I’m like a pancake connoisseur—I
even have my own pancake at this restaurant around
the corner from my house. I go there and then make
my way to the office and spend as long as possible
there, going by every department and getting an
update because I’m more on the road then I am at the
office. After that, I like to be where the designs are
being done, where people are creating stuff—I try to
see as much as possible and give as much of my
feedback as possible. Then I go see family or friends
for some food, and that’s basically it. I don’t like to
be out too late in Amsterdam anymore [because] I’m
trying to be up early, catching up on whatever else is
happening in the world so I can continue scheming.”

The most surreal moments of the brand to date:

“I think all the small little victories that we get. I had

some goals when I started the brand, and seeing
them coming through is amazing. I still remember
the first day we were published on Hypebeast, they
published our first lookbook. I couldn’t believe it.
This was around the time that a Hypebeast post really
meant something; they were so particular about what
they would and would not post on their website. I
loved that moment. What else? Seeing famous people
randomly wearing our stuff. I love the Migos, and I
saw this picture on Instagram of Offset wearing
[Daily Paper]. This was one of our first collections,
and I have no idea how he got it, because we were
still a very local brand. That was a very proud
moment. We just moved into a new office in
Amsterdam, it’s 13,000 sq ft, and we’re the first
people to ever be in there.”

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