Wear Many Hats Episode 22 — Eric Mayes — Fragile Glass

Hey everyone it’s Rashad and this is Wear Many Hats presented by Dahsar where we talk about your main gig then we talk about your side hustle.

Eric Mayes has a personal mission curating and contributing through an intersection of art, science, and education.

I met Eric at Lichen, a furniture shop based in Brooklyn and we connected right there on the spot through our mutual friends and love for furniture.

Eric runs Fragile Glass, a Brooklyn based candle company that is all about smell goods, handmade right in NYC. He recently put out his first commercial featuring King Heroin by James Brown directed by Eric and produced by Clips Co-Op.

Eric’s a set designer, curator, connector, collaborator.

Where are you from?

Eaten Alive / How To Make It In America

Renald Louissant mentions How To Make It In America and the grind.

I read your mini bio on Clips Co-op site about being eaten alive in DC and you expressing to your father about coming to NYC and he would say New York will eat you alive. You just want to do that fashion-hip-hop shit. You can’t handle New York City.”

But then when you came to DC it was eating you alive as well but it was preparation for NYC than anything else you could have done.

You worked at a restaurant in the East village and your manager the drip was too much for him. What were you wearing?

When you were moving apartments you had a real magazine rack that you see at the newsstands such as Soho International, Eames, o32c, Popeye, Kinfolk, Cult Classic, you were absorbing culture.

You told me the story at Lichen that you met Bryan Greenberg Summer of 2020 so this story that Clips Co-op is recent. How was it like to meet your heroes?

QUOTE FROM ERIC: I mean, here we are in 2020 and like the theme-song “I Need A Dollar” proclaims: “Everything around me is crumbling down. And all I want is for someone to help me.” I’ve busted my ass for two years straight to make it in America, only to end up on unemployment insurance. I was literally 2 hours away from getting a plane to Paris to work my second fashion week there in 6-weeks, and then BOOM: CORONAVIRUS!!!!! *Cardi B voice*. Trip Cancelled. Two weeks later, both my jobs have to close, then BOOM: another innocent black man is killed at the hands of the police and we have the biggest civil rights movement in history happening during the middle of a deadly pandemic. And you ask yourself, how can something like fashion, or restaurants even matter anymore? Did it ever matter?

A lot of millennials including myself have made it to this point in our careers just to finally find out that everything starts to fall apart. Do you believe you will get back to where things were or for better? This had to happen.

Set Design

You were supposed to go to Paris Fashion Week. Were you going to do set design? Who were your previous clients or who did you used to work in the past?

What is your favorite part about working in set design?

Fragile Glass

How did you get into making candles?

(Show the Fragile Glass Candle)

If you were to get a chest tattoo quote in olde english what would it be?

Plug your socials where can people find you?

Till next time this is Wear Many Hats presented by Dahsar with your host Rashad. Peace!