Corrupt on what makes a brand successful, believing in yourself, and how their designs are made.

This month, we got in touch with Corrupt, one of the cleanest clothing brands in the past year, speaking on what makes a successful brand, how design ideas are made, their dream collabs with fashion brands, and any advice to anyone looking to make their own clothing line or brand. Be sure to follow their socials, shown at the end of the article and drop them a like. Stay tuned for Corrupt 2023

I’m Borys, 19, from Poland, living in South London and I started making clothes when I was 14, I had my first brand when I was 15 - did that for like five/six months, then I didn’t drop anything, and stopped doing that brand. Basically just started working on stuff behind closed doors until I had the perfect thing. The brand was started because I’ve always struggled with the way people look at me and what they think of me so to get out of that I started dressing differently and I fell in love with just being looked at and it really helped with how I felt about myself and I started Corrupt just a year ago now, the whole point of it was so you can express yourself with clothes, feel comfortable, so basically your safe place in your attire.

The meaning behind your brand is so sick man, what do you think makes a successful brand?

I don’t think the brand is successful yet, I think it’s doing well but I have a goal for Corrupt and I don’t even think I’ve touched the surface with it. I think it’s doing well because first of all I reached out to a lot of influencers, cause the way to make it, you gotta create a mob and to do that you need to get people that people care about to wear your stuff, cause if they think it’s cool if they like it then some of their followers might be onto it and it just spreads through word of mouth. I reached out to a lot of what you’d call drip pages and like archive pages and I just got my stuff on there basically, to create a sense of hype that I built up for a while. I utilised TikTok, reached out to influencers on TikTok, and thankfully my first ever drop, my friend Sasha Stevens, we’re really good friends now, posted a video and it got like 5.5 million views the majority of the comments were asking where the hoodies were from so that got me a bit of push and hype around that. Since then I’ve been trying to hype up my drops as much as I can, using as many social media as possible.

I hear that man, what does fashion and wearing your own stuff mean on a deeper level?

Fashion to me is like, first of all, a lifestyle you know, it’s a way to express yourself, a way to live, I think fashion is really important, wearing your own clothes, wearing what you like basically and not caring about what other people like is a big thing and a big step in loving yourself firstly, not caring about what other people think cause people are always going to say stuff but if you’re doing it for yourself and you like it then that shouldn't matter cause at the end of the day, you enter this world on your own and you leave on your own, why would you care what anyone else thinks. Wearing my own pieces, I mean it’s exactly what I like, I made it so it’s nice, it’s a nice feeling, it makes me feel fulfilled you know, especially when I see pieces in person and like being able to promote that when I’m going out, I love all for my clothes, there’s not a piece I don’t like, I wear it all the time, I pretty much only wear Corrupt really, I don’t buy myself clothes, I just prefer to make them.

I’ve got so much respect for the brand, where would you like the brand to be in the next five years?

The end goal has always been to have a physical store and be able to sell clothes and not just online, so people can walk in cause that’s been a dream of mine, I care a lot about customer experience, I wanna have the coolest shop in London, so everyone wants to go there, even if it’s not for the clothes but for the vibe and aesthetic, that means a lot to me, I want it to be the spot to go to, do you know what I mean? I want it to be successful too but I’m not really thinking about the numbers long term, of course, I want it to do well but the end goal is to have a physical store and maybe not even just one, maybe a few of them. I want some in France, obviously some in England, some in America, I wanna be scattered around the place man, I’d love to be worldwide in five years.

I’m positive it will be 100%, how do you get ideas for clothing? How Long does one design take you?

Ideas for clothes is a weird one, I have a bunch of ways but the main way I’ve got most of my ideas for clothes is like, it’s going to sound a bit unbelievable, but I have proof of it all. I’ll go bed and have a dream and someone will be wearing clothes, Corrupt clothes, and I’ll wake up at like 3 am, go on Snapchat, and just sketch it out with the pen and when I wake up I’ll just make the clothes. That can take anywhere from an hour to a couple of days, it depends on how much detail there is to the piece. I make a bunch of mood boards from brands I like and take bits for each to make my own, that’s only if I’m really stuck.

It’s so mad how different people get ideas but I respect it. Have you got a dream collab you’d like to work with or is it strictly Corrupt for life?

My dream collab would probably be my biggest inspiration, Year Of Tears, but that really is a dream collab cause I know how serious they are about brand image and what they want to put out, so I gave a long way to go but hopefully at one point you know, when he fucks with Corrupt and see’s I’m doing something he likes, I’ll be able to work with him and do something in the future, yeah definitely Years Of Tears, big inspiration to me. Can’t forget about Angeles either, I rate him very highly, I’d love to work with him, I love his clothes, all of my friends buy his clothes, Years Of Tears, Angeles or nothing.

I’ll have to have a look into them for sure, do you have any advice for anyone looking to start their own brand?

Yeah for sure, make what you like, take as much time as you need, if you want to do it, do it. You’ve got to believe in yourself fully and anyone really can do this, they just need to believe in themselves, that’s all you need. If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will, so you gotta step with confidence, you gotta step like your garms are the best thing in the world and everything else will come. There will be people that believe in you, there will be people that don’t but as long as you believe, it will come.

I rate that, that’s definitely going to help someone out there, do you have anyone you’d like to shout out, could be a friend, someone that’s helped you along the way?

Yeah, hundred percent, there’s a few people that come to mind, I'd like to shout out Hamza, he’s helped out with a lot of video stuff for me and like create stuff in the past. Right now to be honest, the most help I’m getting is from my friend Seba, he does stuff unconditionally that he doesn’t have to, he’s got a brand himself and he’s the most hard-working person I know, he pushes me harder to do better so shout out him. He’s @Sicrettuma_ on Instagram so make sure you check him out.

A huge shout out and big respect to Borys, we can truly say the brand is inspiring and we've learned a lot from speaking with him. Make sure you drop him a follow on Instagram @Bycorrupt, stay tuned for the next drop on their page.