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Over the past 15 years, through the creative genius of Homer Bair and Susan Kreitman, the Cooyah brand has achieved what few others have in the fashion industry - sublime equilibrium. Despite its hard driven Reggae, Roots and Revolution ethos, the creators of Cooyah have mastered the proverbial high wire balancing act, tip-toeing the fine line between urban aggression and non-threatening commercial palatability, even transforming a word, which was simply jargon to the non Jamaican ear, into one that rolls euphoniously off the tip of foreign tongues – Cooyah!.
But the industry has its pitfalls, and with success comes drama, littered with sub plots of betrayal and disloyalty. What should have been a story book ending, gradually transitioned into a saga of lies and trickery, causing a cataclysmic rift between factions of the company.
The biblical story of Jacob and Esau probably stands as the ultimate act of betrayal, and as the story goes, Esau, already fooled into selling his birthright to his brother Jacob, is undermined once again and robbed of his paternal blessing, when Jacob covered in goat hair, deceives his blind and dying father Isaac, into thinking he was the hairy Esau. Isaac had sent Esau out to hunt for meat to prepare his favorite meal in anticipation of his own death. Upon receiving the meal, Isaac sensed the voice was not that of Esau, but eventually conceded, stating, "The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau". Jacob would receive his father's paternal blessing, his descendants would become the 12 tribes of Israel, and Esau's descendants would be their servants for 400 years.
Like the story of Jacob and Esau, the Cooyah drama unravels in a similar fashion, a bond between siblings severed by greed and the lust for power. To unearth the seeds of treachery that has harvested the fields of contempt, we went directly to the source, Homer Bair and Susan Kreitman.
P.S.: How did Cooyah begin?
Cooyah : Well Cooyah basically started from a child in the St. Mary country side of Jamaica. The people in the township use to call me Cooyah every time they saw me on the street. So in 1987 after graduating from college in New York I was in Jamaica on vacation where I met Susan and the concept of Cooyah began.
P.S.: Did you guys know of each other before then?
Cooyah : No, I was on vacation also with some friends, and by chance met Homer on the beach. When I returned to New York we linked up again, he told me he was doing some screen printing, I always loved Reggae and being an entrepreneur I wanted us to do something together. I had a great business of my own at the time, but I said to Homer, lets start a business, he said ok, we found a place, got some equipment and that was the start of Cooyah.
P.S.: How did you guys get the company off the ground, were there any initial investors?
Cooyah : Homer and I- used our personal money to acquire the equipments and so on.
P.S.: Who was the original crew?
Cooyah : Homer, Susan and my brother Wayne.
P.S.: What position did Wayne play?
Cooyah : Wayne was our printer; he is a genius at printing –
P.S.: How was business in the first few years?
Cooyah : Good. We had a distributor in New York, some good clients, namely Russell Simmons when he first started Phat Farm, we were growing, and everything was good – We had a lot of clients at the time, Method Man, Mary J Blige, Russel Simmons' Rush Productions, we were basically just printing whatever they gave us.
P.S.: At what point would you say Cooyah entered the mainstream and what would you say caused it?
Cooyah : When we came to Miami in 1993 and opened a shop in South Beach. – initially support came from white Americans and tourists, West Indians did not buy our shirts until we started to become popular – but soon after business slowed because of tourist killings and violence in South Beach. That is when we decided to bring it to the Caribbean, to places such as St. Martin and Jamaica. We were looking at it from the perspective of – where can we be the big fish? – And Jamaica was the answer.
P.S.: There are rumors that there is a division within the Cooyah camp, how true is that?
Cooyah : Well not the original crew. When we were showing our shirts to everyone in Jamaica, all the stores, from Sandals and other hotels, Homer's brother Nigel who was living in Jamaica told us we could send him the shirts, he would have them cleared through his connections and his people would distribute the shirts for us. That was working well for us and we began to grow, Nigel really was not interested in the beginning and thought what we were doing was silly, his involvement was attached to the fact that we were using his employees who he paid commission to, based on the leg work they did. He then opened a showroom, which he claimed was ours, and then slowly turned that into a store. Before we knew it he had opened up 9 more.
<span style="font-weight: bold">P.S.: How was he able to do this without your permission?
Cooyah : Well unbeknownst to us, about five years ago, Nigel trademarked the Cooyah brand in Jamaica in his name, knowing his brother would not be suspicious of him; he came to the U.S. and obtained the necessary paperwork and information. So now in Jamaica, he owns Cooyah. He also tried to trademark it in the U.S. but failed. So he basically stole our company, after we had worked 18 years to build it.</span>
P.S.: So is there a way to fight this?
Cooyah : Oh yeah, we need an investor to step up, and open an official Cooyah store. We are Cooyah, so all we need is someone to invest in the name and help us distribute to the whole world – a lawyer would be nice (laughs).
P.S.: So what is the fate of the company if you don't find an investor?
Cooyah : Not good. Nigel has stolen our company, and in Jamaica they think he is the owner of Cooyah, so we can't do business there. He is printing shirts in Jamaica with our logo – if we can't find an investor then the future is bleak, because in order to grow the company we need the money, if not we have to file for bankruptcy.
P.S.: So what do you guys have planned, if you do close shop?
Cooyah : Homer is a fabulous artist and we are all creators, so we are not done yet. In fact we are working on a new line called C.Y.
P.S.: What is C.Y.?
Cooyah : Well during what you can say was our down time, the idea occurred to me. In Jamaica whenever something happens, people usually say, well you "see why", so that's the concept behind it and C.Y. is basically a spin off from Cooyah. So the new line is totally inspired by the entire drama. We have hand drawn prints and great artists working on the new line (holding up one of the shirts), people will see the new ad in Jamrock Magazine, C.Y. is coming. There is actually a funny T-shirt that reads "C.Y. we created Cooyah", and there is so much more to come. Now if we have to make the transition to C.Y. and walk away from Cooyah, we will.
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