On a dreary February day in New York City, the Queens-based fashion designer Telfar Clemens is 3,000 miles away, sitting in a thatched-roof bungalow overlooking a beach in the Mexican resort town of Puerto Escondido. Beside him, his business partner and co-creative director, Babak Radboy, is wearing a faded orange tee and round wire glasses, rolling a cigarette. Clemens himself is shirtless, wearing a gold necklace and black shorts, both emblazoned with his brand’s logo, a T encircled by a C.
The pair look cozy together. “My Wikipedia page used to say that Babak and I were a couple, and that we had a son together,” Clemens recalls, laughing. (Radboy is actually married to Telfar’s stylist, Avena Gallagher, and their 8-year-old son, Malcolm, sits behind him playing a video game.) “I just believe in never working with anyone I don’t like.”
Telfar and Radboy hopped on a plane to Mexico after shooting their Spring/Summer 2023 collection for a weeklong escape from the frenetic pace of their past couple years. Telfar’s logo-embossed tote bags, priced between $150 and $258, were the most-searched accessory of the pandemic, according to shopping app Lyst. They’ve been spotted on everyone from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Megan Thee Stallion; Beyoncé gave them a shout-out on her 2022 album, Renaissance, saying that she’d put her Hermès Birkin in storage in favor of a Telfar status bag.
Those bags, which sell out on the Telfar website in seconds, have become the foundation for a fast-growing fashion brand that includes streetwear, shoes, and other accessories. In 2019, Telfar reportedly took in $1.9 million in revenue. Today, the company can make upwards of $7 million in a single product drop. In part because of its move from a wholesale model to a direct-to-consumer one in 2019, Telfar’s DTC U.S. sales grew an eye-popping 362% in 2021, according to Bloomberg Second Measure, followed by 17% growth in 2022. So far, Clemens and Radboy’s 2023 has involved transforming the brand’s new Ridgewood, Queens, studio into a soundstage for film and photo shoots; collaborations with Ugg and Canadian outerwear maker Moose Knuckles; and the release of a highly anticipated wallet that sold out within five minutes. “Sometimes we need a trip away from it all,” Clemens says. “We hang out here in Mexico a lot. And even here, you see people carrying our bag.”
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