This year has been a constant battle for entrepreneurs everywhere, with the pandemic crushing countless businesses in its path. Streetwear hasn’t been safe by any means, with many brands having to call it quits or shutter their brick-and-mortars in favor of online operations. Only the most agile, creative, and consistent are weathering the storm.

But there are no participation trophies in this game and those that find a way to win, reap the benefits. And in this kind of battle for attention and support, you need a strong team around you, ready for whatever and committed to the cause. An Infantry, if you will.

“All the homies have been a big help,” Infantry Collective co-founder George told me. “Infantry is about unity. And without support from the homies, it would be nothing. Truthfully. We really move like an Infantry.”

Infantry Collective was born in 2018, the brainchild of George and his partner, Keem, both interns at The Hundreds and working at Rosewood at the time. Keem started working for The Hundreds first, about a month before shop manager 5ive brought in another intern to help out. Keem wasn’t all that thrilled to have new competition for a full-time spot but he saw it as a challenge.

“I’m not even gonna front, it was a weird situation,” Keem said. “I was already there interning. One day, I came to work and 5ive was like, ‘Yo, I have my other homie George here interning, too.’ So, it was kind of whatever, fuck him. I was going to outwork him and he was going to leave. After we met and shook hands, we didn’t talk at all for like two hours. And then we were both folding shirts and started talking, asking each other where we’re from. That was it, then we were cool.”

“Lowkey, at the time, we had both been talking about our brands,” said George of those early conversations with his nemesis-turned-friend. “I had a little sneaky brand at the time called Point of View and Keem told me he had a brand called Stay Working, and that we should collaborate. We decided to call ourselves a whole other name. Infantry was never supposed to be a brand, it was just something we collaborated on away from our own brands.”

“But then, after we dropped our first piece, our other brands went out the window. [Laughs] This was the one.”

But looking back, that first piece was regrettable, even though it represented a successful drop for the new brand. Chalk it up as a lesson learned.

“Those were some weak-ass sweatpants,” said Keem. “They were the worst thing I’ve ever put my name on.”

“People still ask about them,” replied George. “But once you washed them a couple of times, it was a done deal.”

“That’s when we decided to start making Dickies,” said Keem. “Now when we make something, we wear it and wash it a bunch of times before ever selling it. We want you to be able to wear this stuff forever and it still looks fresh.”

Though George and Keem just met a few short years ago, the well-oiled-machine of a brand they run makes it seem like they’ve been partners for decades, with each knowing their own strengths and weaknesses. It’s helped Infantry Collective become very solid very quickly, establishing a signature design aesthetic and core values early on that have resonated with their supporters.

Infantry doesn’t employ loud graphics but instead focuses on their core logos and simplistic, bold hits in the perfect placements to strengthen their pieces. I should have known where this idea came from but Keem and George had the answer on the tip of their tongues when I asked.

“It’s Polo, man,” Keem shouted emphatically. “Polo and Nike are our biggest inspirations. If you see the horse, you know it’s Polo. If you see the barbed wire, you know it’s Infantry. The simpler something is, the more often someone is going to wear it.”

And I promise I didn’t pay them to say what they did next about other brands that influenced them greatly.

“The Hundreds. Like 6th, 7th, and 8th grade? What! Definitely The Hundreds,” George said. “I was also a big Billionaire Boys Club fan, I was a Supreme fan back in the day. Crooks and Castles was hard, too.”

“Crooks was hard. Diamond, too,” added Keem. “If you didn’t have a Diamond shirt under your sweater with the tag hanging out at the bottom, I don’t know. That was top-tier streetwear shit. If you didn’t have the bomb on your back, you weren’t tight.”

For George and Keem, Fairfax wasn’t something they only saw in lookbooks, on the blogs, or via social media. Fairfax was where they hung out and went to work every day. Places like RSWD were part-clubhouse, part-school, allowing you to pick up free game from any of the laundry list of legends who passed through constantly. But they also embraced this culture because they wanted to stand out from their peers.

“Growing up in the inner city, these brands were so big to us,” said Keem. “We just wanted to be fresh. You woke up in the morning and put on a crisp pair of jeans and a T-shirt. It was about getting certain shit your homies weren’t getting. We know a lot of you were shopping at Zumiez. Y’all was not hitting the spots. Everyone had on forever logos, we had the collections. We were at Rosewood.”

Brands like The Hundreds became incubators for the many startup brands of their employees, sharing knowledge and passing along tricks of the trade to the next generation. The family trees that branch off all of the original LA brands is immense and is a testament to how much of a community streetwear really is.

“All the homies at Rosewood were doing something,” George told me. “A lot of them had brands or took pictures or made music. It was a melting pot, everything was right there. It was the Boys and Girls Club for Adults.”

“I’ve never seen Ben or Bobby in a suit in my life and that was it for me,” Keem said. “I tell my girl all the time I’m not even wearing a tie if we get married. I’m just pulling up normal. And seeing Nick with those cars, too. I mean, c’mon. I wanted it all.”

The founders are putting all that knowledge to good use with Infantry, plotting carefully to ensure they’re around for the long haul. This level of patience is one of the reasons they’ve gained so much momentum and seen huge growth this year. A hat and T-shirt emblazoned with a flip of the Menace II Society logo to read “Menace II America” was a standout piece for Infantry this year, their response to the perception of young Black men. It was a powerful piece that focused on the message and subsequently gained Infantry many new supporters.

“We came up with that in 2018 when we first started the brand,” Keem explained. “And that was all George. But we knew we had to wait until we were more solidified to release it. Then, the social climate dictated it. I hit George to see if he thought it would be hard to drop it now and he said, “What. Why haven’t we done it?”

“We honestly forgot about it,” George added. “At the time we made the design, a lot of the same stuff was going on. And a year later, it’s worse? We had to drop it. It’s our statement shirt. Menace is just a statement of how things are going in America, that’s how we really feel. Something has to change.”

After seeing how many people connected with the message, I asked if there were more social commentary pieces coming from Infantry.

“When it’s the right moment for us,” George said. “A lot of times, we wait for that feeling. With Menace, we both felt like it was time so we pressed play on it. We never want to force anything and we’re not trying to capitalize on social injustice.”

“But as Black Americans, our lives are a story of injustice,” Keem said. “I think we do a good job of letting people know the company is Black-owned and we’re about the community and bringing power to our people. That’s a big part of our brand. We’re not going to do anything that’s not part of our ethos. If it’s not something we’re ready to talk about, we’re not going to do it just to make a dollar.”

Their quest to keep Infantry pure and all about their community has led them to curtail any courtship from retailers that hope to land Infantry accounts. George and Keem explained that ignoring wholesale allows them to run the brand exactly how they want and keep costs low for their supporters.

“We’re from the inner city and know what it’s like to not be able to afford something,” George said. “We want everybody to be able to buy some Infantry. And if you can’t, nine times out of ten, we’ll just give it to you — especially kids.”

Keem jumps in, knowing they’re about to get flooded with 20,000 sob story DMs looking for free gear.

“If you got a job, you’re paying for the INF,” Keem said very close to the microphone. “But it’s bigger than money. If you do wholesale and those kinds of things, you have to hike up your price. And then you have to change around your brand to appeal to this person or that store. We just skipped over all of that. Basically, we’re just giving Infantry to you at the wholesale price.”

George squashed any hope shops around the world may have they can one day stock Infantry, saying, “We’re not giving out any accounts ever. Never. Well, never say never. Dover Street, maybe.”

“[Laughs] We’re not trying to keep anyone out,” Keem said assuringly. “We just want to continue giving people these prices. If we do have to raise up the prices, it’s only because we want to use better materials. Like, we’re not going to start charging $60 for a T-shirt after this interview drops.”

It’s an authenticity that radiates around them. When I interviewed Keem and George, five or six of their friends came, all wearing Infantry and gassing them up when they were being too humble in the interview about various milestones the brand has hit this year.

“When you look at Infantry, it’s all original. It’s all us,” George told me. “When you see our Instagram posts, those are our friends. And all my friends really think they’re models now, it’s crazy.”

“I think I’m a model now, too, not gonna lie,” said Keem, lightly brushing off his shoulder.