Inspiring Conversations with William Boston

Today we’d like to introduce you to William Boston.

Hi William, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My journey as a designer and street wear brand owner started in 2002, my freshman year of college. I started out customizing shoes by hand with paint. At the time I was doing it, because I was trying to find ways to make money in college. I’ve always been able to draw and I’ve always been creative so I used this talent to create art work on shoes. Which eventually led me to doing the same type of art work on t-shirts. So while in college, I became the guy to go to for customized shirts and shoes. I started to put more focus on what I was doing and changed my major from criminal justice to business management, so I could understand how to run and manage a business. Being that I was the go to guy for custom apparel, people would send me clientele and when they were asked who made their shirts they would always say my full name “William Boston” so after hearing it so much, I decided to stick with it and name my brand William Boston Apparel. I eventually shortened it to “WLMBSTN” which is a play on my name with all of the vowels taken out, but it really means “When Life Misleads Be Strong Through Negativity” The message was in reference to all of the struggles I had to go through while building the brand and overall life struggles. But through the process I always stayed Strong and Kept a Positive outlook on things. That outlook allowed me to have my brand sold in 23 stores throughout the U.S. several celebrity customers, publications in GQ magazines and countless other accomplishments due to that fact that I never gave up on my brand or myself!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road; I started this brand in an era where social media wasn’t as heavily used as it is now. When I started we only had MySpace, and FB was only allowed to college students and at the time the college students were my biggest customers. Most of the struggles came from not knowing anyone of my age with their own brand, I saw brands like FUBU, Karl Kani, and Sean John that gave me hope that it was possible. But I didn’t have anyone to reach out to for questions, so I learned a lot through trial and error. Finding vendors, getting wholesale garments, learning how to screen print, learning how to design in photoshop, learning how to promote and market were all struggles in the beginning because info like this was limited at the time, so it caused for me to literally have to learn on the fly, those were some of the struggles but learning from actual experience helped me in so many ways. Which is why we’re still here and relevant today.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
William Boston Apparel is a Luxury Street Wear Brand. We officially launched in 2005, we started with only t-shirts at the time. Since then we’ve expanded to a full clothing line, with shirts, shorts, pants, hoodies, jackets, hats, and we now have our own shoes that have really taken the brand to newer heights. What’s sets us apart from other brands, is that we are truly original in all of our designs. Our designs come from a more abstract art form, all of our patterns are created from scratch and we only use the highest quality in all of our garments. What I’m most proud about is our longevity, the ability to always be ahead of the curve and the ability to always recreate ourselves with meaningful wearable garments.

Who else deserves credit in your story?
The support that we’ve had over the years has been amazing, the credit really goes to GOD because he instilled this vision into me, it was just on me to carry it out. Our customers have been the cheerleaders and the supporters over the years and we wouldn’t be where we are now without them. I would also like to thank my fiancé for being such a supportive partner, she’s always down to listen to my ideas, or look at designs and give me her input and she tells everyone she’s comes in contact with about my brand and I truly appreciate her.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.wlmbstn.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/williambostonapparel
• Facebook: Facebook.com/williambostonapparel
• Twitter: Twitter.com/wbapparel

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