[ What inspired the name The Blank Traveler? ]

The name was sort of an amalgamation of streetwear brand names that I thought sounded cool at the time. When I started this clothing company, I was being newly introduced to streetwear and learning about a fascinating world riddled with new vernacular and it seemed to me particularly difficult to familiarize myself with the linguistics of the industry, which seemed to play on some weird semantic filtration system. Of course, I wasn’t really thinking about all that when coming up with the name but I’m sure it had some impact. Because of this, I now sort of have a love-hate relationship with the name—I’m embarrassed by its earnestness in trying to be “hard”/”tough”/”sick” but I also keep reminding myself that its sincerity is kind of endearing.

[ Your pieces are self‑printed in Cambridge, MA—how does that location influence your creative direction, and how do you balance local craftsmanship with a global audience? ]

I grew up in Cambridge, so I guess it influenced me as much as anyone’s environment during their formative years—largely subconsciously, I think. Cambridge sits comfortably in a grey zone between traditional American suburbia and the city so I think I received a lot of moderate inputs from both sides; general, fairly normy pop/street culture and subtle, middle class, wasp-infused bohemia. This grey zone of moderateness kind of barred entry into any sort of interesting niche or underground scene so I can’t say I was influenced by anything cool like that.

[ You primarily use GILDAN® readymade blanks—what draws you to them, and how do these “blank canvases” shape your design language? ]

I print all of my clothes in my parent’s DTG print shop where they operate a t-shirt business selling mostly souvenir tees for cities across America and have pretty much exclusively been printing on Gildan tees since I can remember. Massive parent corporations like Gildan (who also own American Apparel and Comfort Colors) hold lots of conceptual weight for independent brands: patronizing a potentially unethical, vertically-integrated monolith has lots of dangerous implications. In most cases—like for my parents—buying Gildan products is a purely economic decision since Gildan practically has a monopoly over the blank t-shirt industry and has the lowest prices for the best, most standard product. Through this, they’ve established themselves as the industry default. I think a lot of my work generally grapples with the default as the ‘systems that be’ and this Gildan stuff seems to be no exception.

[ Your designs are direct‑to‑garment printed, with some natural inconsistencies in placement. Do you see those variations as part of the charm or a production challenge? ]

I try my best to keep things as close to the product image as possible, as that is how it’s intended. I think it’s a fundamentally good exercise to aim to be a purist as a craftsman and reserve the sloppiness for the design process. The semi-automated DTG printing process means that you’re already giving up some power to the machine, which operates on its own terms, spouting colors it calculates at rates and speeds it determines. By regulating the human hand in this process (i.e. placement of the garment), you’re eliminating the ‘you’ variable, avoiding an overly complex algebra equation which, crucially, allows room for the DTG printer to operate as its beautifully flawed self. I’m always kind of switching between the modes of laborer and designer and have found it best to not let the two overlap too much.

[ Do your ideas typically start with the graphic, or does the garment guide the design? Do you see yourself eventually moving into cut-and-sew or custom silhouettes? ]

This past year I’ve done a lot of cut-and-sew stuff where I’ve been collaging together a bunch of different blank readymades from the apparel wholesaler I buy from. I’ve tried to just amend the silhouettes I’m used to; polos and tees mostly. Nothing too crazy since I’m still experimenting with all the ways that graphics can be applied—where images and text can go as it pertains to the body. I’m kind of a lazy designer so it’s fun to take some of the workload off the graphic by creating new shapes and patterns with the garments themselves.

[ Has your work been inspired by any particular era or moment in fashion history—like 2000s bootlegs, ‘90s rave tees, or early Supreme-type graphics? ]

I like to look at graphic stuff from all eras, oftentimes just so that I know what's already been done. Some of those DIY things you mentioned are cool and I do think they are stimulating, but I’ve kind of trained myself to be cognizant of the fact that these images are relative and that nothing is inherently good or bad. Graphic ephemera is especially manipulative because it so easily plays to one’s nostalgia which can make it super difficult to separate the true, wholly objective cultural phenomena that produced that graphic from the arbitrary byproduct of the aesthetic object. I’ve been trying not to succumb to the temptations of image, which tries to bait us with these “good” looking things instead of letting us operate as ourselves. So, I guess, I’ve been trying to operate as myself, which often means I just try to make things that look like the Now; using, appropriating, and misusing the tools that are newly available. 

[ Are there any specific streetwear designers or artists who’ve influenced your approach—whether that’s in how you build a brand, use graphics, or keep things independent? ]

I have a really fraught relationship with streetwear in general. I think that the streetwear industry is especially prone to the temptations of image that I mentioned previously and has proven over and over again that it’s not really ready to do its part in progressing the graphic image. In the plagues of ‘vintage’ and ‘y2k’ came an unprecedented rejection of the contemporary which has basically been a nail in the coffin. This is really too bad because I do genuinely believe that graphic-based streetwear has great cultural potential; I think brands like HBA and Pyrex Vision were proof of that (I do also soundly believe that all current ‘memewear’ is just an iteration of those two brands). That being said, I do think that streetwear as a force against the fashion industry is very important. Of course I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Virgil, although I’d like to only mention him with four or five asterix’s next to his name. Whether he was the greatest con artist of the century or not is up for debate, but I do believe he was an undeniably pivotal figure and was hugely influential to me when I started this brand in 2016.

[ What kinds of visuals, subcultures, or creative movements influence your work—memes, art history, vintage advertising, streetwear? ]

Some artists I’ve been liking recently: Mike Kelley, Jeremy Deller, Genesis P-orridge, Mark Leckey. Some memes I’ve been liking recently: the “could you bless me, money wise?” lady, some of the goon brainrot stuff, FlightReacts. Not really that interested in vintage advertising. Streetwear I mentioned a lot above.

[ You’re stocked in places like Tokyo, LA, and Seoul. Has having global stockists affected your design approach or how you think about your audience? ]

I’m not sure that it’s affected my design approach at all, but it has definitely made me think about Japan as an interesting hub of downstream American culture—it’s fascinating to see a country on the other side of the pacific ocean so compelled by semi-underground New York and New-York-adjacent subcultures. 

[ Who do you picture wearing The Blank Traveler? What kind of reaction or connection do you hope your designs spark? ]

Everyone, I suppose. I’m not picky. I hope that people who understand some of the references buy it as much as I hope people who just like the look buy it. 

[ Since launching in 2016, how has your vision changed? Where do you see the brand heading in the next few years—any interest in new categories, materials, or collaborations? ]

I don’t really see it all as the same brand. In high school (2016–2018), I was operating the brand mostly as a business, selling bad, trendy streetwear out of a duffel bag in my school hallways. In college (2018–2022), I was operating the brand as a meticulously designed merchandise company, spending hours in photoshop making fairly derivative, hyper-detailed photo-collages to print in a 8x8” square on the center of a T-shirt. Now, I operate the brand as a fiscally irresponsible timesuck posturing as an art project. In the future (2025–), I hope I can make a consistently significant amount of money off of it so that I can do it full time. 

[ Anything else you want the [Lowheads] audience to know about your/your brand? ]

I’m not sure.