Julian O’hayon: Pioneering a New Type of Lifestyle Focused on Quality and Design

I am the founder and designer behind the lifestyle brand, Blvck Paris (www.blvck.com). The brand was founded at the end of 2017 and is known for its ‘all black’ clothing, accessories and aesthetics for both men and women. From visual content to merchandise, we strive to pioneer a new type of lifestyle focused on quality and design.

Tell us about yourself?

My background is in design. Before Blvck, I set up my own digital agency company, Anckor whilst studying business engineering at university. At the time, I was working with clients worldwide from different industries designing their websites. In all of my projects, I honed my focus on minimalistic, functional and aesthetic design, which can be regarded as my distinctive signature.

At the time, I was very active on social media, sharing my interest in design and living a monochrome lifestyle. I started applying my personal black stamp to household brands. I wanted to bring a memorable and aesthetically pleasing effect by ‘blacking out’ everyday items you wouldn’t typically see in black. My designs quickly went viral and got press recognition in Asia, USA and Europe. This is when I knew I wanted to explore this concept further and create my own lifestyle brand Blvck.

What is the inspiration behind your business?

I started Blvck Paris out of an obsession with the color black and design, there were not really any similar brands out there. When I launched Blvck, I had a very specific concept in mind and wanted to bring to our community this luxury and unique experience when buying from us. The vision is to ultimately ‘Blvck out’ every aspect of your lifestyle.

We recently launched our home collection, where you can find items you wouldn’t find anywhere else such as stainless steel black cutlery, an all black deck of playing cards and much more. We also launched digital items such as iOS icons to black out your home screen, digital art and presets to filter your photos in our signature Blvck Paris way.

What is your magic sauce?

What makes Blvck stand out from other brands is our branding. When you see a photo, a product coming from us, you can easily recognise our branding if you are familiar with the brand. On Google or Youtube, just by typing ‘Blvck Paris presets’, you will find a handful of tutorials on how to edit your photos like Blvck Paris.

We aim to bring to our customers this luxury experience when shopping with us from the packaging to every detail on the product. The brand is also very innovative and disruptive, we have always put a big emphasis on our digital footprint and release digital products such as our iOS icons, NFTs or our own presets.

Where do you see your company going in 5 years time?

Blvck is very much a global lifestyle brand and we aim to have more Blvck stores in different cities worldwide. In 5 years, we are looking to expand our offering to get a step closer to our vision to ‘blvck out’ everything your lifestyle. We are slowly starting with Blvck Food in 2022, by bringing our own ice cream in Taiwan and working on other projects related to that. We are also working on designing the first Blvck Villa in Spain where our customers would be able to stay.

What has been your biggest setback so far?

We are a small team and have a big vision for the brand and a lot of ideas. Resources to take on new projects can sometimes be challenging and we are definitely looking to hire more talent to help with our growth in 2022.

What is the next big challenge for your business?

2021 was a great year for the brand as we opened stores worldwide in Tokyo, Taichung, Taipei, Miami, Hong Kong, Kuwait and Macau and continue to increase our product range.

We have a great vision for the brand and a big challenge for 2022 will be to continue scaling the brand and hiring more people that are a good fit to join the team.

The company is also self funded, it allows us to move fast in making decisions but we also need to make sure that every decision will work well for the brand.

How do people get involved/buy into your vision?

For people who would like to partner as an affiliate, we just started our program on Awin and you can find us there! For fans of the brand, we have a great ambassador program on our website. We are also open to hire more talent and you can reach out on [email protected]