Throughout this whole journey that started in 2013, I always avoided showing myself or revealing/associating an identity with Against All Odds.
Well, it’s been 12 years and with the start of this new chapter, I think it’s important to give a bit more context into who I am, my story, and where my inspiration comes from.
Back when I started this as a sort of blog, there weren’t many platforms in Portugal catering to the communication of street culture, fashion, photography, etc - and there still aren’t, but there are others now doing a wonderful job and that is no longer the space I want to fill.
I’ve always loved curating, gathering images, spending hours and hours on Tumblr (in my opinion, the greatest form of social media we ever had, until it became SFW), browsing with 30 tabs open at the same time because I was afraid I’d miss something. Those were the days.
The goal for Against All Odds was always for it to become a brand with tangible products, and I feel like I’m now at a point where I can finally make my ideas come to life and craft great products through my recent years of experience in manufacturing.
So the time has come for me to finally take that step that the 15 year old me dreamt of. Something that is entirely me and tells my story.
So who am I?
I’ll try to keep this first introduction brief so that you can get to know me a little bit better as I keep releasing more pieces and sharing more about myself.
My name is Nuno, I was born and raised in Lisbon, where I have lived my whole life.
I loved the Looney Tunes, and it was probably sometime in 1997 or 1998 when I asked my parents for the VHS of a very special movie.
Space Jam changed my life in many ways, and I believe that that was my first real interaction with R&B, Soul and Hip Hop.
I distinctly remember the first time I wanted to move my body to the rhythm of music, and that happened while listening to the Space Jam Original Sound Track.
I would spend hours rehearsing and trying to recreate MJ’s dunks in my bedroom while imagining the opening track from Quad City DJs playing in my head.
As a white kid in a private catholic school in Lisbon, I didn’t really have friends that were into the music and clothes that I had fallen in Love with.
It took me a few years to find the stores that sold the brands I loved because I didn’t know anyone that loved them as well and that could guide me, but I eventually did.
No one understood me but I didn’t care. That’s how I learned to think for myself, do what I feel is right and makes me feel good, and not really care about what others say or think.
As my Love for Hip Hop and “streetwear” (it wasn’t called streetwear back then) grew, my interest in fashion grew as well and seeing all my favorite rappers have their own brands had an impact on me.
I wanted to dress like Jay Z in Rocawear, I wanted to dress like 50 in G-Unit, I wanted to wear Ecko and Phat Farm - that was the dream.
I wanted a New Era fitted with my own logo. I still do.
Years passed and the dream sort of fell dormant for a while during the end of high school and early into college, but as I met more people that were into the same things I was, it started growing back and when I left college I started Against All Odds.
As I mentioned, this all grew out of my love for visuals, trying to bring ideas to life, materializing them.
In its first stages, Against All Odds was a blog/website/online store. I don’t know how many of you were here for that, if any, but I basically shared content in both English and Portuguese - Portuguese content out to the world, content from the world into Portugal, hoping it would resonate with someone else other than me. Maybe someone else also looking for a place where they could belong, feel like they were a part of something.
The name “Against All Odds” came to me back then because I guess I always knew this was the path I was meant to follow… even if I didn’t do it straight away, even if it didn’t work out the first time around or amount to much, even if no one else thought I should do it or believed in it, even if I wanted to do something that hasn’t been done before - just my own trip of discovery, by myself, against all odds.
This will always stand for perseverance, self-belief, endurance, and dreaming big. Showing ourselves that we can actually do it.
So thank you for still being here, thank you if you’re just joining the trip, and I hope that you Love it as much as I do - I can assure you that I will give it my very best, I’ll always be true to myself and deliver the best product possible while telling my story and sparing no details, as I’m sure you’ve noticed by now.
See you very soon!
Love is Love,
Nuno