Exclusive Interview: 40 oz. Van Talks Tumblr Porn and Fashion

His snapbacks have taken over the streets of New York, but you won’t see them littering the sidewalks. Van likes things exclusive. Each snapback has been a limited edition release, and each has been more successful than the last. Jumping from $12,000 to $24,000 to $70,000 for each release respectively, 40 oz. NYC is killing the game.

Van has also been killing the Tumblr side of the internet, as well. His NSFW page is scattered with fine beauties that will keep you company during those lonely nights — you know, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Check out our exclusive interview with the fashion entrepreneur down below.

First off, I want to thank you for your tumblr. It’s extremely helpful when my girl’s out of town.

[Laughs.] Well if you got you a girl and Tumblr you good. You got a lot of options now, man.

I heard you say you’ve been in a relationship for 7 years. How does she feel about the site?

Yeah, me and my girl been together for about 7 years now, it’s about to be 7 on February 14.  She’s cool with it. She really can’t complain. The girls on there are dressed in a tasteful manner so I’m smooth sailing with that.

What kind of women are you looking for to post?

I don’t discriminate. I go all shades of color — light-skinned black chicks, dark-skinned black chicks, Spanish chicks, Asian chicks, white chicks. Every ethnicity as long as they meet the criteria of small waists and big butts they’ll make the cut.

I’m curious, what’s the ratio of bad to good photos you receive? How many bad ones do you have to sift through before finding a dope one?

Man, I hurt my eyes daily for the posts you see. There’s a lot of horrible submissions, but with the horrible come the good, too. I would say about a 50/50 of good to bad ones.

If you could get your top 3 favorite female celebs on the site. Who would they be?

Shit, that’s a hard one. I would say Yaris Sanchez of course, that’s the cream of the crop, Stephanie Santiago and Ayisha Diaz. That’s a nice line-up right there.

Moving to the hat line, each release has been more successful than the last. Did you expect for them to catch on like this?

All the hats started off for fun. We just wanted to wear our own stuff. When I hit the streets with it, it just got mad love. That was my first time ever putting out an actual product in mind of selling. I’ve done t-shirts in the past, but that was minor.

From there, every hat that I’ve put out I’ve used the same marketing plan and same techniques of hitting the streets then doing online. It’s overwhelming but at the same time it’s fun seeing my love turning into a business. That’s what it is now, a business. I gotta file taxes. [Laughs.]

That’s a good problem to have. What’s your reasoning for only keeping the store open for 12 hours per release?

I think of things as a consumer. As a consumer, that lets me know whatever I’m pumping out is exclusive. It’s not something that’s over-saturated or you can go purchase at your local streetwear store.

A 12-hour release, what it does is eliminate hats hanging around on the site for 2-3 weeks, a month, then you gotta put a “Sale” section and you gotta mark it down 40%. We don’t wanna do none of that. We just wanna pump it out, 12 hours, you get it or you don’t, wait for the next hat. It keeps everything exclusive.

The first few hats had a Balmain influence and now we’re seeing some Givenchy styles. What is it about those two brands you like?

Those are two of higher brands that are popping in consumer culture right now. You can thank A$AP Rocky and all those other rappers that have fused those two worlds together.

I also got that for Curtis. Curtis is one of my partners, he’s over here wearing that shit. Wearing $1,4oo jeans, kids go crazy for that. A lot of kids can’t afford that, though. So, what I did was incorporate their font, transformed it into something that’s streetwear related and made the price point reasonable. That opens the doors to other kids that really don’t want to spend $2,000 on a pair of jeans.

What were some of the NY streetwear companies that influenced you growing up?

Supreme, of course. I used to make money off Supreme, reselling it. That used to be my hustle before I used to sell Reebok Pumps back in the day, too, when that throwback, retro shit was kicking in. Crooks & Castles, they had a nice run. I mean, they’re still out here but they’re not as relevant as they were. 10Deep and the list goes on, but Supreme, that’s what a lot of kids started off in.

Supreme’s kind of had a resurgence lately with Tyler, the Creator and others. They seem to be back popping.

Yeah, Supreme revamped everything they got going on on their side. Everyone noticed that when they started doing a lot of cut and sew products. They’ll always be relevant.

How was your experience working at Banana Republic when you were younger?

Man, that shit was horrible. I wouldn’t wish that for anybody. I worked stock so you know I was downstairs, cooped up, putting tags on, working with the walkie-talkies. That shit sucked. I don’t want to go back doing that shit. They gave me a nice check for working stock, but the hours were horrible. I had to be there at 8am, open up, stay late a night. When we got the restock I had to do overnight shifts. That’s why I tell kids, “Stay in school, man.”

Talk about the new “Rich” hat you guys just dropped.

That’s one of my good friends, Corey Shapiro. He owns that company Vintage Frames.  He pumps out all those Versace pieces, all that shit 2Chainz wears. That’s directly from him.

The “Rich” hat is more of a symbolism to represent wealth at heart, wealth at mind. It’s not always about the bread. I didn’t come from bread, I still don’t have as much bread as I want. I got some bread, but it’s all about how you focus and figure out how you’re gonna make that bread at the end of the day. That’s what we’re all waiting for, we’re all waiting to be rich.

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