story

"My name is Jennifer Ford. I am the owner of Premium Goods in Houston, Texas. I'm Clarence Nathan and I'm the owner of Premium Goods in Brooklyn. My job here is to make sure when people from the community come in the store, they feel invited, they feel comfortable..."

"...and the product is approachable to them. Premium Goods is like an elevated experience of affordable luxury. My vision for Premium Goods was just to have a space where you can take something that's just an ordinary product..."

"...and just have it in a space where it looks elevated and it feels premium, it feels like something more than it might be. In Brooklyn, it wasn't being done. So we were the first boutique that fell under really clean, minimal store..."

"...curated inventory, really selective items. There were no sneaker boutiques in Texas at the time. I saw Clarence thriving and happy, and I wanted to be an entrepreneur too, and I wanted to bring something I love back to my city. With her, it was like, "Hey, please think about using the Premium Goods name."..."

"It only made sense when I got home. It just felt natural. He was giving me great advice, helping me to... Giving me connections to be able to do that, to bring the Co.JPs and the JD Sport additions to our city. Clarence is a visionary."

"He sees things and does things before it even happens. He sees it. He's just in style. He feels it. It's just something very special about him. So it was an honor to bring his vision to Houston. And we like to call ourselves sister stores because it's family. It's home."

"It's really scary to give all of you to something and all of you is financially, mentally, physically all to something. And it was not an easy journey. But I have to say, having the support and the mentorship from Clarence made it a lot easier..."

"...opening. I felt the warmth of the sneaker community in Houston excited to be able to get stuff that they didn't have access to, the warmth of all the brands who were excited to open a store different than the stores they had seen in our city before."

"I think the role of small and local shops is really important, especially in New York and in Houston. Our role is to be the voice of our community. We're the closest access to the people who are buying the shoes..."

"...especially as owners being in our stores, we get to talk one-on-one with customers, which you don't get to do at the larger stores or the chains. It's important for us to fight for our community. Be seen. Yeah. Be seen, fight for our community..."

"...and reach out to the brands that we have to do activations and things to give back to the community. I'm Jen. And I'm Clarence. And we are both Premium Goods. And want to thank you for watching Talking Shop on the SNKRS app."