VMSD - November 2017 - 56

CHECKING OUT
Interview by Jennifer Acevedo

Peter Kim

How did your upbringing influence the
entrepreneur you are today?
I grew up with a hard and troublesome life. I like to
believe that it not only made me tougher, but also
resourceful and scrappy as well. [My past is] always
reminding me to be humble and respectful to all life
- human or non.
How do you pass those lessons learned
on to those you mentor?
Whether with my children, company, employees,
students or mentees, I always try to lead by example.
I would love to meet the person who came up with
the phrase, 'Do as I say, not as I do,' and kick them in
the nuts ... for coming up with one of the most cowardly sayings ever!
Explain the creative vision behind
Hudson Jeans and what drives your
process.
One of the most important pillars of our beliefs lies
in creativity. We believe when you freely express
passionate and unfiltered creativity, it creates the
opportunities for magical things to happen. Here is a
formula to our beliefs: Creativity creates inspiration,
which engenders hope and enables forward progress. Combine it all, and you can change the world.
Our goal is to immerse the consumer in our world
through a 'five-senses experience,' so by the end of

NOVEMBER 2017

VMSD.COM

the journey, our product becomes a souvenir of that
experience.
Hudson is on the brink of opening its
first physical stores. How will the design
reflect the brand?
The goal is to create an environment that is consistent with what we believe and what we're about.
These days everybody appears to be searching for
the now-bastardized word 'authenticity.' That seems
like such an interesting and, frankly, sad concept,
because if you have to search for it or talk about what
that is, then I think it's safe to say that you're kind of
f---ed!

C OUR T E SY OF HUDSON J E ANS, LOS ANGE LE S

R I C H AR D C AD AN , FAIR FIE LD , C ONN.

The maverick founder and vice chair of Los Angeles-based
Hudson Jeans shares his thoughts on the future of retail, the
meaning of authenticity and the importance of creativity.

The
Meaning
of Life
Having launched
multiple brands,
what life lessons
can you share
with young
entrepreneurs?
Here are my learnings and
discoveries: Find your
purpose and meaning.
Discover your passion, love,
bliss in life. Once you find it,

Service and community are two of the
brand's core pillars. Why are they so
important?
Because of the general failures of our leaders - from
parenting to school and education to our government and our current broken capitalist system. More
so than ever before, I believe corporations, companies, businesses and organizations have a major
responsibility to communities, both local and global.
I like to imagine a world where every company genuinely cares for every one of its employees, cares for its
vendors and partners, cares for its customers. I like to
imagine how different the world would be and what
that might look like. 

own it and make no excuses
about it ... it's yours. Bust
your ass and never give up on
that passion; if you've truly
found it, this becomes almost
automatic. Don't listen to
anybody else, because they
will tell you every reason why
it's not possible.

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of VMSD - November 2017