The First Addition
The First Addition, the first clothing collection for LEMON designed by Pierce Marengo.
I remember fabric being a huge part of my decision, and I remember not being very happy about going to an elementary school with scratchy uniforms. Fortunately, my high school experience was far from that. I grabbed every last ugly green shirt off the rack of the local H&M on the street fair and asked,
"How much?" They were on sale for $4 each, and there were roughly 20 of them.
"I'll give em to you at a dollar each" he said.
"Deal."
I took em home, grabbed some bleach from the dollar store and got to work turning that ugly green into something that would become somewhat of a popular trend in the coming years. My mom also said that I was drawn to what she would call strange colors as a child, but in the next issue of GQ, they were everywhere. From H&M, to Forever 21, to Vans, and American Eagle, I saw the lime green everywhere. The weirdest part is it wasnt that bright neon green that Billie Eilish had made so popular, but a desaturated one, that oh so closely resembled what I had stumbled upon and decided would represent the beginning of my brand.
Not much later after I had bought the shirts, I discovered there were accompanying shorts and that's when it was sold for me. I brainstormed and reached out to a few friends for feedback. My good friend Jordan proved essential in this process, steering me in a good direction with the designs so they were unique but not too crazy.
Once I had the stuff, I needed to shoot, so I borrowed a digital camera from Kauffman (my film teacher) and went out to my friend's house where we shot the first collection in his neighborhood. A few more joined in and the collection was immortalized. I still think it's one of the most iconic designs from the brand to this day, even with hundreds of concepts on the way.
What really stood out to me was the back, and the title of the collection
NOT DEFINED BY FLAW. It became the tagline I associated with it. LEMON was meant to be understood by the lesser known definition:
'a vehicle that turns out to have several manufacturing defects'
I felt like a lot of the youth could relate to it, with our varying issues so early in life. To not be defined and weighed down by something so pertinent in your life can be liberating.
