Hypebeast Interviews Style Icon Glenn O'Brien

There's more to him than just the "GQ Style Guy"

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Complex Original

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Glenn O'Brien, amongst one the most prominent fashion figures in NY as well as a major art and music enthusiast, recently caught up with Hypebeast for a full on interview. In the interview, Glen O'Brien details his overtly successful career and gives us some words of wisdom. Visit Hypebeast for the full interview. 

In your view, what are the keys to being successful in any sort of business?
For me the main thing is sort of being true to yourself and doing what you like, instead of trying to second guess what a client wants. I always approach a commercial job like it’s an art thing. My basic idea was that the only difference between a great advertisement and art is that an ad has a logo on it. You can entertain, you can be funny, you can make a statement. But really it’s about pleasing yourself first.

Our audience probably knows Glenn O’Brien as either the “GQ Style Guy” or “that guy who wrote the intro to my Supreme book.” But really your career began nearly 40 years ago at Andy Warhol’s The Factory. From a business standpoint, did you take away any valuable lessons from that environment which you carry with you today? 
Well, when I started doing commercial stuff I was best known for writing a column in [Andy Warhol's]Interview [Magazine] known as “Glenn O’Brien’s Beat.” I was covering the music scene, writing you know, whatever I was thinking about at the time. But that was my biggest audience and so I developed a style and I think my style kind of went into the advertising I did. Most of the stuff that I did for Barneys was sort of my first showcase and a lot of it was humorous.

[Hypebeast]

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