Harlem-born Kerwin Frost has kicked off a YouTube talk show called “KFT” (Kerwin Frost Talks) with an exchange with his friend, actor/influencer Luka Sabbat. Sitting on a coach in Los Angeles’ Chateau Marmont Hotel, the two break down their come up on the nascent days of New York streetwear culture.
While the exchange details their own personal hard knock come ups, the exchange also serves as a solid documentation on how SoHo acted as fertile meetings grounds for an array of young New Yorkers, who eventually would become influential players within streetwear.
The 21-year-old Sabbat cited working as an intern at The Hundreds store as his entry into what was then a burgeoning streetwear scene. Later, while a senior in a Lower East side public high school, he started an internship role at VFiles, where he recalled Virgil Abloh stopping in from time to time to check on how his Pyrex collection was selling.
Following high school graduation, Sabbat’s modeling career kicked off when he was spotted while at a coffee shop with his father by Ann Noel of Request Models.
Frost worked at VFiles at the same time as Sabbat, but admitted at the time he wasn’t a fan of Sabbat, who he viewed as a “flexasourus.”
Frost called out VFiles, Supreme lines and Apple’s Prince Street stores as locations where “no one would have anything to do but it was so much fun being there.”
Individuals they mentioned meeting and becoming friends with include Ian Connor, Heron Preston, “Tumblr famous” Glyn Brown and Justine Skye, Jonah Levine, Mike the Ruler, Steven Savoca and Austin Babbitt among others.
Check out the exchange below.
