Seriously, don't name your brand after yourself

We speak with designers like Heron Preston, who learnt this the hard way.

By Joe Bobowicz

Heron Preston, the brand, is now back in the hands of its rightful owner. It’s a cautionary tale that begins in 2016, when the namesake designer began making small runs of apparel, building a visual lexicon – safety-orange colour blocking and a cyrillic translation of ‘style’ – that would become the foundation of a global label.

Preston had already built up traction as a respected pioneer in the 2010s streetwear movement. A founding member of the Been Trill collective and brand (alongside others, including Virgil Abloh and Matthew Williams), he had also worked as a leading strategist in Nike and as an art director for Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo merch and the Yeezy brand. Going it alone, at least from the outside, seemed like a logical and only reasonably risky next step.

So the story goes, Abloh and Williams had introduced Preston to the Milanese-founded production and distribution company, New Guards Group, which works with Off-White. “I thought that was the path to success,” says Preston, who in July 2025 finally regained the rights to his brand after a gruelling legal battle. “I had a creative vision, but scaling a fashion business to an international level requires infrastructure, capital and operational expertise.” This seductive opportunity looked and, at least initially, felt like a dream come true: a logistical boost and validation.

Karl Lagerfeld, the fascistically tasteful designer, must turn in his grave every time someone buys a mass-produced, Choupette-illustrated pencil case from the brand bearing his name.