He met Hufnagel by going to HUF’s warehouse sales.
I just want people to know that,” Clark says.Īfter graduating from high school in 2012, Clark got an internship at HUF, the streetwear brand started by pro skater Keith Hufnagel. “It’s more like the fact that these kids are so hyped on receiving the FTP in the mail. And the young people who love his brand make him even happier. It hasn’t, to be completely honest.”įTP is what makes Clark happy. Though he says he’s grateful to have been able to buy his own house in the Valley, Clark explains, “I’m not really inspired by money. Now, as a grown man, Clark says money, like clout, doesn’t motivate him much, either. Though Clark doesn’t regret making those items, he looks back on some of his earlier work with a mix of amusement and chagrin. Before that, a hoodie that read “FUCKTHEPOPULATIONTERRORISTORGANIZATION” earned Clark a menacing government letter ordering him to stop. Last month, the latter item even caught the eye of the New York City Police Benevolent Association, ending up on its Twitter after cops confiscated one from political activists during a protest. Though Clark says he doesn’t want people to remember FTP for its most incendiary items, T-shirts that read “Columbine Physical Education” and box cutters that say “Aim for the neck” are hard to forget. Over the past decade, Fuck the Population has produced pieces that have stirred plenty of controversy. I just want it to be its own being, its own entity,” Clark says, keeping the focus on FTP rather than himself.Īnd with FTP’s provocative output, keeping the focus on the brand hasn’t been a problem. “I don’t want a face attached to the brand. “I'm not like some big clout guy,” he says. He’s private, long covering his face on social media and in the press, shielding his identity from customers for years. In some ways, Clark’s reticence to talk about his charges isn’t surprising. “You can imagine somebody with 16 felony charges will be facing a decent amount of time.” Still, Clark explains, “that’s, like, my main stressor right now,” as if to emphasize the scale of the trouble he’s facing. “It’s pretty much 16 weapons-related charges,” he says. “I definitely apologized to all my employees having to go through that.”Ĭlark won’t say much more. And Clark got pinched, headed to jail, before bailing out-streetwear success enabling him to come up with 10 percent of $415K quickly. Officers threw employees up against walls. “I definitely posted too much stuff on my social media and wasn’t calm enough with that.” And that led cops to raid his house in Los Angeles County’s San Fernando Valley and his Vernon, California-area FTP warehouse in search of firearms. He’s a gun enthusiast and hobbyist who enjoys cleaning his collection and going to the shooting range. On the day of this interview, he says he feels like he’s “fighting for my life right now.” It’s easy to see why.īut Clark, soft-spoken, humble, and intelligent, also has an explanation. “Bail Amount: $415,000.” They’re serious charges, and no one knows that better than Clark himself.
There, on Reddit, under /r/fuckthepopulation/, is an arrest record for Zachary Clark, age 25. And hard work alone might not be enough to make them go away.Īt first, it’s difficult to believe the charges are real. Today, Clark is fighting felony gun charges that could result in a substantial prison sentence. So I want to do 100 shirts, I could do 100 shirts,” Clark explains.īut now Clark faces a new challenge, one that has nothing to do with owning a company while still in his mid-20s. I’m just controlling it from the back end. That independence allows him to control his own messaging and production. And he’s grown the brand all on his own, with no outside investors. Over that decade, Clark worked hard to build FTP into a formidable operation, collaborating with everyone from Fuct to DC Shoes, and expanding his line to include hoodies, denim, flannels, slides, and even jewelry. Coming up in Culver City and Crenshaw, California, he started FTP in high school, making T-shirts for friends to wear, first spelling “Fuck” backwards to avoid detection. But he’s been running Fuck the Population, his renegade streetwear brand, for 10 years.