Rag & Bucket Company founder and CEO Q L Cammack describes his company as a celebration of individuality. Cammack added that his company was founded in 2023 with a passion for slow fashion and a deep respect for timeless quality, and to create one-of-a-kind fashion wear that is as unique as the people who wear it.
“Every piece we craft tells a story,” Cammack said. “From the careful selection of premium, textured fabrics to the thoughtful addition of satin linings that protect and nurture all hair types, each item is designed with the wearer in mind.”
Rag & Bucket recently displayed their first fashion show, “Identity Reborn” at the Darlington last weekend. The Atlanta Voice sat down with Cammack to discuss his style.
The Atlanta Voice: The “Identity Reborn” Fashion show was this past weekend. How are you feeling?
Q L Cammack: I feel great. I feel blessed to be able to reach this milestone and to see it through, also excited that it’s over. It’s a good balance and I want to get some rest, but overall, just excited, overwhelmed with the support of everybody and the ones that dived in and helped to see everything through the end. It was a great experience.
AV: Talk to me a bit about the creation of Identity Reborn and the intention behind it.
QLC: The idea behind the show comes from self-evaluation. I took about two years of isolation, trying to figure out what my plan was and what I wanted. I was coming out of advocacy at the time, and had just moved from Chicago, so for me, it was a rebirth of my identity, because I was doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work for other people and helping people with their brandings. It was about creating a new movement. Even for the people that was included in the show, giving them new opportunities to see their stuff in a different light. The overall purpose of the evening was to inspire and have people feeling that spark.
AV: What kinds of challenges did you face along the way in creating this fashion show?
QLC: The biggest thing was trying to keep control of my vision and trusting people with that vision. No one is going to chase your dream or vision like you. When you birth something, you want to keep everybody on the same page. Another thing is just the climate of the world and the economy.
AV: How do you describe your fashion style?
QLC: It’s menswear, but it is also gender nonconforming. I want people to feel free, limitless, without labels. I want people to be able to feel expressive in whatever they wear and feel seen. So, a lot of my stuff is nontraditional and reflects duality. It’s like a flow of life, and this collection was about healing my inner child without people putting labels on me and saying who I was; this is stuff that I would want to walk down the street proud to wear. It’s a love letter to fluidity and freedom.
AV: There’s been a lot of talk about “fast fashion”. Why don’t you prefer it?
QLC: Fast Fashion is like SHEIN and TEMU, and there’s nothing wrong with that because style is style, but I want everything I produce to focus on quality and be passed down to my nieces and my grandmother, and others. I want to be able to carry my pieces through generations. My biggest take on fast fashion is that it pulls from creatives like me and others, like I fund a lot of these things from my 9-5 job, and companies like Akira, Fashion Nova, etc., they steal our designs and then they mass produce them, and this happens a lot. I do feel, especially in the economy right now with inflation, we should support local artists or people who create.
AV: What kind of advice would you give to aspiring creatives and artists?
QLC: Go for it. You’ve got to be delusional because a lot of people will not see the vision or the end goal of what you have going on, and a lot of those things plant bad seeds. That’s why it has taken me so long, because of limited beliefs that I may have applied to myself, or other people have put on me. Also, it requires a lot of sacrifice. I thank God I’m in the position I am now, but when I first got started, I was working a typical underpaid 9-5, and I had to sacrifice and choose not to go to the club or buy that bottle, and instead buy fabric. Invest in yourself.
AV: What’s next for you?
QLC: Rest, I’m going to take the month off. I do have some shows lined up, so probably be doing some commission work. There’s some advocacy work that I want to do and tie into the clothes. I also have a show coming up. Definitely New York Fashion Week in September, and a show lined up here in Atlanta for October. I would like to put on another show here before summer ends.
