Founder Spotlight With Patrick Church

Patrick Church is a British artist and designer known for his unique hand-painted portraits on clothing and other objects. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Patrick and his husband Adriel Herrera launched their brand in 2018. Together they create small batches of products, exploring themes of love, queer identity, and personal memories. 

Our interview with Patrick was the best way to kick off our LGBTQ+ Founder Series. We talked business but the most memorable thing for us was feeling the strong love and partnership between Patrick and Adriel. As another married LGBTQ+ couple in a joint venture, it was so inspiring and validating to see. 

Now let’s jump into the interview.

Tell us the inspiration behind your brand and how you got started. 

Patrick Church: About ten years ago, I could never find anything that I wanted to wear that I could afford. I didn't have loads of money, and it was, I guess, designing from a selfish point of view. I would make things that I would want to wear but on a really small scale. 

I grew up in London and used to go out all the time. I'd just paint on my clothes before I went out. When I met my husband, he had seen my work before on Instagram and other places. He and I developed the first collection over six months when I moved to New York. We started it on our bedroom floor, honestly, with no help, just the two of us. My husband used to work in corporate fashion. So he had a background in it. 

I honestly never thought anything would really happen with it. So it's been a lot of just making it up as we go along. 

Cat & Marianna: Yeah, that's a lot of what entrepreneurship is, right?

Patrick Church: Yeah, fake it til you make it.

Can you tell us about your creative process and what does that look like when you’re coming up with new ideas for products? 

Patrick Church: So the first couple of years I would sort of just do whatever I wanted. My husband, Adriel, was still working while also helping me. It was really chaotic behind the scenes. 

Then two years ago, Adriel quit his job and stepped in as CEO of the brand to help me full-time. And that's when we had a lot more direction. My focus has always been on my artwork and turning my artwork into prints for clothing. 

And Adriel has always been so creative, and we discuss ideas together. So I'll create the artwork for the print and then Adriel will focus on design work and putting together lots of different designs that we’ll go through. 

After that, it's like a sampling process. It can take months of going back and forth to get a product right for us. 

We don't make many of each thing. The maximum is usually about 100-125 pieces. They just need to feel really special. A lot of it is because we don't have a wholesale method, so we can kind of do whatever we want. And that's what we love.

When we first started, we sold at one store, and it was good in the beginning when we didn't have much visibility, but we built ourselves up enough to be able to sort of trust our instincts. Now it's making fun ideas come to life, which is scary, but it's also the reason why we do it. 

Cat & Marianna: How do you come up with those ideas? Where do you draw your inspiration from? 

Patrick Church: Honestly, I just try to live my life as flamboyantly and as authentically as possible. And it's a natural instinct for me to be creative. I can't really imagine doing anything else. The same with Adriel. He's super on another level to me, gifted at so many things. So I just think it's so nice to be able to watch him flourish and be able to do the things that he wants to do. And the same for me. It's so nice that I'm able to use those skills. I feel like I'm not very good academically but I have quite a lot of life experience, and I'm kind of a hustler. We work quite well together like that. 

Can you share with us a major challenge that you have faced in this journey of building the Patrick Church brand? 

Patrick Church: I used to look at it as a challenge, but now I guess it's a superpower; being put into a box as a queer brand. For example, we always have so many emails around Pride Month. Now, I look at it as our superpower because it’s about having our own point of view. I’m kind of glad we're not for everyone. It's good that we have a strong vision and people either love it or hate it.  

Everything that we're doing now is way beyond what we expected. We honestly thought nothing would ever happen. It's just so amazing to see everyone wearing all the pieces and the fact that we're able to still do this given we started in 2018. It just feels so amazing and we appreciate all the support. 

What is your long-term vision for the brand?

Patrick Church: It always changes, but at the moment, we would love to open our own bar in New York and have the whole thing painted in my designs. People could buy clothing in a little store in the front and the bar would be in the back like a speakeasy. I feel like it would be fun to have it really chic. Something that's just a little bit different. You could go for a really nice mocktail because I don't actually drink, or like a business thing in the evening. 

Then personally as an artist, I just want to be able to show my work in more fine art settings. I would love to do that as well.

Patrick, if you could give one piece of advice to future entrepreneurs in our community, what would that be? 

Patrick Church: I think we definitely have a point of view. Just figuring out what your point of view is and leaning into it is the advice I’d give. The thing that makes you unique is what will make your business special.

I've learned resilience is key. If you’re really passionate about something don't let anyone take that away. I remember I nearly gave up on doing all of this so many times that I fought within myself.

I know it's so hard. The resources you have or can get are important for this resilience. For me, it was my husband. Luckily, he was able to pay the rent for the first two years of my pursuit of this dream. 

Cat & Marianna: That's great advice! Our community is by nature and by necessity, naturally resilient so it lends itself well to entrepreneurship. 

Tell us about your go-to LGBTQ+ owned brands or businesses.

Patrick Church: Our friends in LA have a shop that opened a year ago called Green Qween, which is like a dispensary and community space. Honestly, they're the nicest people, and we collaborated with them. We did a big mural outside in downtown LA. It's very cool. It's enormous and looks amazing. We also did some limited-edition clothing with them. And we don't really do that for anyone because, as I said, we don't really do wholesale. 

Photo Credit: Green Qween

But the values that they had when we met them, it just felt so right and natural to collaborate with them. Watching them grow as a queer business is so inspiring. It helps uplift us, too, because sometimes when you're doing this, it can feel so daunting that you're doing everything yourself. But to watch other queer people flourish, it feels so good. 

So shout out to Green Qween because we love them!

How are you celebrating Pride this year? 

Patrick Church: So we just launched a new swimwear collection on Friday, May 26th! It is our biggest launch of the year, so we're really excited. It's been so much work, maybe three months of preparation. We've shot like, four different campaigns in different states. I really love telling stories within my work. And my favorite bit is obviously making the artwork, but I love producing photo shoots because it can really bring my vision to life. 

For Pride, we're actually going to throw a huge swimwear pre-pride party on June 5th. It’s a pre-pride party because we are going to Portugal for my sister’s wedding at the end of June. The swimwear party is going to be at night in New York, so it's called Night Swim. It's going to be really fun. So I'm so excited about that. And it will be great to meet everyone. I love meeting everyone and everyone is wearing the stuff. We need some joy right now, if you know what I mean.

I'm also painting a mural for this queer-owned restaurant in New York and we'll be having dinner there, so that's fun. 

And also spending time with the people I love for Pride.  

How do you take care of yourself, especially during this moment in history… a record number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills being passed… an increase in violence against our community?

Patrick Church: I think, honestly, all of us are probably feeling the same way. And it just feels so frustrating and really scary. It makes me feel so insular and I’m honestly not really wanting to go outside. You know what I mean?

I guess what I've been doing to take care of myself, and the people around me is ringing my friends, like my queer friends, pretty much on a daily basis and just checking in on them. Being able to discuss our frustrations or if we're having a good day as well because we’re just taking things one day at a time. 

As I'm getting older, I'm really realizing how important my queer friends are to me. We all share this bond, which I can't really explain. That experience, the queer experience, brings you closer together. And in moments like this, that's so important. 

Also, focusing on something that's positive for me. At the moment, I'm producing a new art show in September. When I’m feeling overwhelmed, focusing on something like that will hopefully feel more uplifting. 

Who's your favorite LGBTQ+ celebrity or icon and why?

Patrick Church: You mentioned my work reminds you of Keith Haring. I was like, oh my god, it has to be Keith Haring. He died a long time ago but he had such a strong point of view, which I love. He had such a sort of signature style. And even now, everywhere I look, his iconography and his artwork are there.

And I just love that he was so prolific in such a short amount of time. One of the reasons why I love his work so much is it's so intentional and instant and it’s almost like an elevated form of graffiti.

He also worked quickly, and I work quickly as well, so I just see some of the references. I just find him/his work quite inspiring. I feel like he has such a signature thing and that's what you need to find as an artist, your own voice. And I think he helped me find that subconsciously.

Can you share one fun fact about yourself? 

Patrick Church: Oh my god, I'm so boring! Would this count? I email my grandmother every day. I’m really close with her and it's a nice thing that we do. She's super supportive of my work.

Cat & Marianna: Aww we love that fun fact! Does she live close to you? 

Patrick Church: She lives in England. I bought her an iPad when COVID happened. She loves it and goes on the Internet. She has an Instagram, too! Technology and stuff can be helpful in certain situations. 

Check out Patrick Church’s profile and some of his products here.