American fashion designer, founder and CEO of the hip hop fashion brand Karl Kani. He comes from a kani family from Brooklyn, New York. Carl Williams was born in Costa Rica to a Panamanian father and Costa Rican mother. The family migrated to the United States in the late 1960s, and he grew up in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn.
At age 16, Williams started designing clothes after learning the essential handcraft at his father’s company. He never studied tailoring or design, but he had flair for coming up with unusual concepts. He would buy material and tell a tailor exactly how he wanted his garments to look. After seeing him on the scene in local clubs, men started asking for a Carl Williams outfit of their own.
Soon he was taking his first orders in his car. The death of one of his close friends inspired some deep contemplation. It made me think about life differently”, he added ” I thought I should really do something positive. In 1989 he went to Los Angeles, where he and a friend opened a clothing shop on Crenshaw Boulevard. 2 that he and his partner had put together. During Williams’s rough start in Los Angeles, the question that had obsessed him for years, “Can I do it? He kept asking himself: “Can I do it?
Can I build a fashion empire? Can I become the ‘Ralph Lauren of the streets’? He didn’t have the answer for these questions, but it did provide the basis for his new name, Kani, a variation on “Can I? In 1989 Karl Kani was launched as a Hip Hop fashion brand. He was inspired by his passion for Hip Hop music and fashion and decided to design clothes that appealed to a large public, including friends and celebrities from his hometown Brooklyn, New York. After watching The Today Show, Kani had the idea of paying a friend in New York to make a sign with his label’s name on it and hold it up during the taping of the show.
The idea worked as people started calling and orders began to come in. In addition to working with a mainstream color selection, Kani modified the baggy pants that had become the basis of street fashion. According to him, black people never liked tight-fitting jeans. They would always buy a bigger size but then the waist would be too big, so he decided to increase the pant size. 500,000 in profits to launch his company “Karl Kani Infinity”.
In addition to his old partners, Kani now faced a marketing onslaught from hip-hop entrepreneur Russell Simmons’s Phat Farm and a number of mainstream clothiers. Staying ahead of fashion counterfeiters who aped his signature and sold cheaper versions of his clothes, Kani began fastening a metal-and-leather plate to his product. After some resistance from the people who made the plates, Kani decided to go ahead with it and it turned out to be his best-selling jeans ever. A sister brand, Kani Ladies, was launched in 2001.
Kani after numerous conversations with National Basketball Association stars, who complained that they could not fit into much of his merchandise. Kani Ladies is a fashion label for young women launched in 2001 as a sister of the brand Karl Kani. Kani Ladies started with a small urban collection next to the men’s collection and was sold in the same stores as Karl Kani. In the following years, Kani Ladies evolved into an independent street fashion label for young women. In 2008 Kani Ladies has officially launched a lifestyle blog.
The blog features news on fashion, beauty, gossip, music, well being and Kani Ladies. Since its start the brand has crossed over to street fashion. Today Kani Ladies is an independent fashion brand that represents the glamorous girl next door. He began a trend of merging hip-hop with fashion. He spotted an area in the market that had been ignored and paved the way for other hip hop fashion brands. Black Enterprise magazine named Karl Kani Infinity Corporation the most successful Black owned firm worldwide in 1996. In 2002 Kani was honored with an Urban Fashion Pioneer Award for his lifetime achievements, at the Urban Fashion Awards.
From here to infinity Karl Kani. Karl Kani : New School : The godfather of hip-hop clothes heads into different territory with business suits and women’s and children’s wear”. Diddy Makes Big Moves on 5th Avenue”. From here to infinity: Karl Kani”. VH1, Snoop Dogg takes home New Urban Fashion Celebrity Line trophy”.