502
Photography: provided by Jeremy Kirkland
If you’ve ever been within cooee of a nice oxford shirt and tailored trousers, you would’ve heard of Jeremy Kirkland before [Ed.’s note, cooee is an Australian unit of distance]. Another member of the music to menswear pipeline, he’s the brains behind the very popular fashion and culture podcast Blamo! Referred to as the Terry Gross of menswear by his friend Lawrence Schlossman, Jeremy explores creativity in fashion and design through a very humanising lens, if you’ve never listened to the podcast I highly recommend you do. I caught up with him over zoom at 5AM, dosed on too much instant coffee to chat about his favourite watch, the Dieworkwear link and his menswear hot take.
We’re big fans of Blamo! What's it like being a podcaster?
Thanks, I think I’m in a very privileged position to make a living as someone in the creative industry. But like any job in the world, it’s a polarising experience in total honesty; it’s great and it’s awful at the same time, but I love it that way. It’s a tonne of fun, because I get to meet people and talk to them about things I’m interested in, which sounds really tacky. But I think I’m in a better position than your typical journalist, because I don’t have to answer to an editor-in-chief who’s telling me what to work on. It’s as much selfish, as it is part of my job.
Podcasting has become very noisy and there’s so many people doing it now, so sometimes it can be really difficult to have consistent creative output and maintain the same audience. When I started doing this in 2016, the landscape of podcasting was different; I’ve seen people start podcasts and realise it’s a lot of work and then stop. I’ve consulted with brands and helped them launch their own, and I tell them “Hey this is cool, but once you open Pandora’s box, you can’t close it when people now expect it”.
I do think the tough part of this career, and anyone who isn’t telling you this is lying, is watching your value go up and down.
Whether you’re hot because you’ve put out a video, or had this person on and everyone thinks it’s a huge deal but then the next day no one cares and you have to accept that it’s fine, you can’t really coast on any specific thing.
You need to find a way to meet the bar you’ve just set, raise it or find a different way to challenge yourself and make a living.
What’s your day to day look like?
The best thing I didn’t realise I’d get to experience as a podcaster, is being able to see my kids every morning and night. When I’m at home and not on the road, I get to spend a tonne of time with my family. As a guy who grew up with a Dad that was a musician, touring with bands, I didn’t get to experience that. And although it’s true I deal with variations of income and partnerships, and I have to figure out how to stretch things, it’s still the best thing in the world. And if I need to log off for a minute, go exercise, I can go and do that. It's not as rigorous as a more standard 9-5. I think the last thing is that I’ve become good friends with people that started out as a guest on the podcast, which is pretty weird. But in saying that, it’s a testament to the style of podcast that Blamo! is, and how sometimes it’s just like hanging out with someone.
Is there a strategy to each episode?
I think there’s no control over the incremental growth, in most cases I think with good podcasts, the stickiness has to be the host. Because in any long term successful creative outlet or publication, what keeps people coming back is the tone of voice. At the beginning I tried to be this ultra polished professional journalist and I had a really formulaic approach to the intro; you know, this person is here because this, they’re known for ABC. But then I realised at the end of the day what people want is a human experience.
For Blamo! episodes, we’ll talk about things in a weird way, that’s more central to me. Like I love music, I used to work in the industry for years, it’s probably one of the most important things in my life. I also love fashion, but I'm not up with all the trends and gossip of either, I never try to make it something that’s informative. Like I might have a designer on, but hopefully what you connect on is a more human experience that either I shared or the guest shared. I feel like this is what makes the show sticky, like I can have Guy Berryman from Coldplay on talking about his brand, but we can also talk about fatherhood. There’s a genuine curiosity that exists and that's what I try to capture in any pod is a humanising element.
What do you think about the longevity of podcasting?
It’s a fair question, I think podcasting longevity is non-existent, it will last as long as people keep doing it. There’s so many people participating in it, it’s harder to get out in the world now and it’s a busier playing field. But the thing that everyone loves is building the relationship with the host, like people love Lawrence and James. The guests on Throwing Fits almost never matter because everyone wants to hear Lawrence and James talk because they’re so entertaining, they're geniuses. But I think the medium will last, because it's passive media and you can listen to podcasts while you’re doing other things. So I think it’s not so much how long will it last, but rather how much can it evolve?
You mentioned music before, what came before Blamo!?
I moved to New York when I was 18 and was really into fashion at the time, so I started going to a lot of the department stores and seeing premium stuff. You can kind of be anyone you want to in New York and experiment with your own identity, and fashion was a great medium for this. I got a job at Beggars Group which was like 4AD, XL Recordings, Matador and Rough Trade Records. I started working there and got my foot in the door and during that time I was doing some of their blogging on WordPress. I was like “Oh this is what Matador’s blog is?” I’m just going to start writing about clothes and watches myself, cause that's what I love, and I wanted a place to keep a record of my dumb obsession.
Working at Beggars Group was probably my first adult job and I was there from 2008 till 2014. During that time I started ‘Run of The Mill Shop’ with Lawrence and Jon Moy, I was also writing about watches for Esquire and working as a stylist for Paul Rudd and Topher Grace at the time. I went to Pitti Uomo with Lawrence and Jon, and ended up meeting Mark Cho while we were there. He told me about his store Armoury that he was opening and asked if I was interested in working there. My boss was like “You should do this, it’s something that you're really into”. I don't think I would’ve really thrown myself into this world more if it weren’t for the paternal guidance of the people at Beggars. As a person who hires people now, being at a place where you can encourage people to pursue other interests, takes a lot of compassion, which I thought was very cool. The Armoury was fun, but I then started the Podcast because I was looking for ways to capture discussions with my friends, who were just far more intelligent and successful than I was. I loved talking to people and I thought to myself, “If I just formalised this and hit record, it might work?” and it kind of took off from there.
Do you have any menswear hot takes?
Yeah, I love that everyone is wearing big fits, and I think there’s a handful of people that do it well. Akio Hasegawa, who was the stylist for Popeye and Monocle was one of the first people to put it on the map; David Marx talks about the receipts in our episode. Antonio Congioli of 18 East as well, I remember people being like your clothes are too big, your sizes are weird. But I think the dude is a genius, I think he’s a very smart designer and can see much further down the road than many others can, almost to a fault. People just don’t know how to get there yet and so it’s difficult if you’re a person trying to figure out your style, because you could either go 18 East or P.Johnson. Like anything else, you’re seeing people trying to do it and falling flat on their face, you have old dudes trying to wear big baggy pants, and they just look like an old guy in big baggy pants.
Favourite grail in your wardrobe right now?
Once you start finding your style, you realise that you’re still buying just as much stuff, you're just buying the same thing over and over again. For example I have Navy Hopsack jackets from both P.Johnson and Jake Museuer. I also have 4 Engineered Garments chambray shirts, and if I saw one right now I would probably still buy it. In terms of a grail I’ve owned, there’s definitely tons of watches. I got some watches for my kids and one’s that I wear myself. I’m always scared of acquiring so much stuff that if I have to give it away or hand it off, am I just giving someone something that I never wore? I say that as a person that recently lost their Dad. I’ve been going through some of his stuff and there’s a lot of things he never wore, they have no story to it. So I’m really trying to fuck up my shit more.
Yeah really get the patina in there. Do you have a favourite watch?
I would say my favourite watch is a Seiko Diver. I feel like I've said this all the time, they're the easiest watch to understand and acquire, without having a tonne of money. If you have a few 100 bucks you can go and find a vintage Seiko. But like anything that you start with, Seiko is X right? And once you get into other things, like clothes or whatever, you’re always wanting to upgrade and the next thing you know you’re like 10 pieces deep. Naturally you then don’t want what you started with; I don't know anyone who started with something and they’re like “I’m good now”. I bought a Rolex Daytona a few years ago, and my dealer who had sold it to me was like “Look, this is your last opportunity to get this, I’ve offered it to you a couple times now”. Thankfully at the time I had a few Seikos that had matured enough in value, and I told Mike Nouveau, and he said let’s sell them, and 2 days later he goes “Here’s the money, go get your watch”.
With watches and clothes, it's just so easy to obsess over because there’s no documented history on when these things come out. Rolex won’t tell you when the Submariner came out, but Longines and Patek Philippe will give you certificates of origin. So when you're really trying to find out stuff like what was the dial made with? Where was it sold? Collectors build the history, there’s just a consensus on “This is what we agree on, this was when this was around, based on this”. I think this, and all the polarising range of experiences that go with it, are like why watches are the final frontier for lots of people. But if you’re someone that’s like “Where do I start or where can I get a fun watch that I can enjoy?” Seiko Diver man all day.
How did the DieWorkwear connection come about?
I met Derek in 2011 right as he started, we were kinda just pen pals in a way. We would talk to each other here and there on occasion, or he would reach out to me on an article he was working on. And you know when I started doing the podcast and was able to make a living off it, one of the big things that I was trying to do was help other people start their own. Derek kinda just took a chance on me, but it was after years of coercing him to be a guest on my show. And now he’s doing his own show, and I think more people subscribe to the Blamo! patreon for Derek than they do for anything else, because it's the only place you can really get his stuff. Maybe I’m wrong, but people really love his podcast and hearing his thought processes on things, or how he’s acquiring stuff. I feel like he rarely gives his opinion but backs it up with actual facts. It’s been a really great relationship and I’m super grateful for it, because he brings in a different type of audience.
End.