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If you know anything about how the best things in fashion actually happen, you know they rarely start in a boardroom. They start with a feeling. A vision someone had to get out of their head and into the world. For Dreamerz Creative Group, it started with a single Instagram post — one image of custom Timberland field boots that hit different enough to go viral, different enough that Timberland itself came calling.
Today, April 11, Dreamerz Creative Group makes it official. The Harlem-born creative house debuts its Timberland custom boot collaboration — the Dreamerz Collective — with a pop-up experience at the Harlem Haberdashery, 245 Malcolm X Blvd. The venue is no accident. The Haberdashery has long been one of Harlem’s most culturally resonant fashion institutions, a bespoke boutique that has dressed everyone from Beyoncé to Puff to Mary J. Blige. For Dreamerz to debut here is a statement about where the brand belongs — in the company of Black excellence, by design.
The founders: two visions, one dream
Dreamerz Creative Group is built on the complementary strengths of two co-founders who arrived at the same destination from different directions.
Justin Payne, Creative Director and Bronx native, has always operated in visuals. His entrepreneurial instincts were sharpened over years of building, designing, and refining his eye for what cuts through. The viral Instagram post that launched the Timberland partnership was not a calculated marketing move — it was an act of creative expression that the internet decided was too real to scroll past. Timberland noticed. The collaboration was earned through the work itself, the way the best things always are.
Deisia Hopkins, Brand Director, brings something equally essential — the strategic and cultural architecture that shapes how a brand moves in the world. Harlem-born, with more than 15 years across contemporary and luxury fashion, Hopkins studied at the High School of Fashion Industries and is currently enrolled at FIT in Production Management. But perhaps the most formative influence on her craft is quieter than any institution: her great-grandmother, Alyce Robinson, a seamstress who migrated from Charleston, South Carolina to Harlem and whose dedication to handcraft and intentionality became the foundation of Deisia’s creative philosophy.
“I’m not just building a brand,” Hopkins said. “I’m building legacy.”
Together, the two named their brand in Paris at a Yves Saint Laurent fashion show — surrounded by the kind of creative legacy they intend to build themselves. That origin story tells you everything about how Dreamerz thinks.
The collection: bold, limited, already co-signed
The Dreamerz Collective is the brand’s debut custom boot series — vibrant, limited-edition colorways that wear their Harlem roots openly. The three colorways on offer are Toasted Peanut Butter & Jelly, Slime Time in neon green, and Raspberry Cornbread in neon pink. Prices run between $375 and $450, firmly in the territory of a considered purchase — a piece, not a product.
The cultural co-signs came organically, which is the only kind that counts. A Boogie wit da Hoodie, Fabolous, Jadakiss, Max B, and French Montana have all been spotted in the Dreamerz Collective. Complex covered the brand through tastemaker Izzy Izzo. None of this was manufactured. The boots moved through music culture the way the best footwear always does — from the ground up, person to person, block to block.
Today’s pop-up: Harlem, in full
Today’s event at the Harlem Haberdashery is a curated shopping and viewing experience for the Dreamerz Collective, with bites by Harlem Baked and expected appearances from A$AP Ferg, Dave East, and Fergie Baby. The lineup alone tells you the kind of room this will be — Harlem talent, Harlem energy, Harlem celebrating its own on its own terms.
For a brand that began with a single image and a creative conviction, today is both a debut and a declaration. Dreamerz has New York Fashion Week on its 12-month horizon and plans to expand into apparel, accessories, and full seasonal collections. The trajectory is clear. The culture already knows.
“We created what we wanted to see,” the founders said. “And the world responded.”
It still is.
Follow Dreamerz Creative Group at @dreamerznyc and visit dreamerzgroup.com.
The Harlem Haberdashery is located at 245 Malcolm X Blvd, New York, NY.
The post Harlem Dreamed It First: Dreamerz Creative Group Brings Custom Timberland Collab to the Harlem Haberdashery appeared first on The Hype Magazine.
