“South Street is so random,” Ky said. “It doesn’t make sense, but for some reason, it works because the owner of each shop is most likely going to be working when you walk in. It’s a big melting pot of different things, from junk food to organic food, cheap shoes to expensive shoes, music shops, tattoo spots, everything. We all mix well because we’re all from Philly.”

In March, South Street and the rest of the city and world beyond had to shut down, instantly bringing business to a screeching halt. A global pandemic compounded by a crushing economic disaster, it was more than most businesses could bear, and an overwhelming amount of them closed for good.

“The pandemic hit us pretty hard,” Ky said. “We learned a lot, though. We’ve always been focused on in-store only, so it was hard. Why would a customer buy The Hundreds from us online when they can have way more pieces to choose from on The Hundreds website? The shop was 95 percent of our business.”

Surviving this kind of upheaval took a miracle in most cases, but Ky and Rick banded together and got creative to ensure P’s and Q’s could come out on the other side.

They were sitting on a lot of inventory for their then-upcoming Summer collection, and now without the ability to sell it to their usual shop customers, they figured out a brilliant way to market it online and get the community involved. Ky and Rick asked their following on social media to tell them why they should be selected to model new P’s and Q’s pieces in a new lookbook and then sent gear to their favorite responses, asking them to shoot photos of themselves wearing it.

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