Partners in Ferris, (R to L) Taylor Conlin wears a Ferris sweatshirt ($55) under a Ferris custom jacket ($130); Taylor Spong models a Ferris custom button down ($120); and Andrew Livingston sports a Ferris beanie ($10) Photo by Colby Blount (cblountphotography.com)
Great Young Designers Flock to Brooklyn
What they lack in experience they make up for with raw talent and determination. The owners of Ferris (ferrisnewyork.com), Williamsburg’s funky new clothing shop, may be young, but A.J. Livingston, 20; Taylor Conlin, 21; and Taylor Spong, 22, are reinventing men’s fashion while most of their peers are still in college. Their cozy 600-foot space— previously a pet store before they gutted it, painted over a giant cat mural, and filled it with furniture built by Spong— boasts an eclectic mix of vintage garments and trademark Ferris apparel.
San Diego native Livingston designs most of the signature pieces, like “The Borough of Life” fleece ($50) bearing the motto “Made for Destruction,” or the beloved “Underdog” T-shirt ($37), featuring a prancing pup logo. Apart from providing a livelihood, handcrafted T-shirts brought Conlin and Livingston together (Spong and Livingston have been pals since high school), and they’re partially responsible for why the business exists today. “I was at a Parsons party last October when I noticed this guy wearing a sick shirt that I could tell he’d made,” says Conlin of Livingston. “We started talking and realized we both had clothing backgrounds.”
The locals beat me up every hot summer day in 1950s south side Chicago. I was in late middle school and didn’t fit in as I was not from the neighborhood, merely a seasonal, summer visitor every year for three long summers. My status changed dramatically in the second year when the local Italian street gang found out that I made a better zip gun than anybody else. That was a good thing, because I was skinny, relatively weak and a bad fighter. Instead of being a victim, I became one of the boys, but a boy who didn’t have to carry a knife, a car antenna, a baseball bat or any other object that might be useful when you ran into rival gangs. I had status.
