13/11/2024
Meet Dean, the designer and founder of Fierce By Dre. His entrepreneurial journey began in ninth grade when he discovered a knack for making money by cutting up jeans and selling them to classmates, even taking custom orders from those who brought their own jeans to him and asked him to customize them. Driven by a desire for financial independence, he left high school early, knowing his mother, a teacher, couldn’t always provide the support he needed. At just 14, he set up a small bodega in his yard in Jamaica, embracing a hustler’s spirit and realizing that, with enough drive, anything was possible.
After grade 11, he started buying clothes downtown to resell for a profit in his hometown out of the trunk of his car, and when sales slowed, he used his hair-trimming skills, learned in high school, to keep the income flowing by cutting hair with his cousin.
In 2009, Dean’s journey took on new urgency and focus when he became a father, bringing more responsibility and a need to grow his business. Determined to expand, he sought his mother’s support to make a trip to China, where he could buy clothes in bulk and take his business to the next level. Trusting his vision, his mother allowed him to use $3,500 from her savings, giving him the chance to invest in a larger inventory to bring back to Jamaica. While his mother migrated to New York to work as a nanny, he stayed in Jamaica with his siblings, determined to pave his own way. On December 24, 2011, he opened his first shop in Jamaica, promoting it so effectively that it was completely sold out before he even arrived. This experience sparked a deeper passion for creating his own designs and building a unique brand. Dean, designer and founder of Fierce By Dre, knew his brand was ready for expansion beyond Jamaica, where he already had three public locations and one private one. With a strong customer base in New York, including many locals who had migrated from Jamaica, he saw the potential for a new storefront that could better serve his U.S. clients, eliminating the challenges of shipping from Jamaica.