KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Chiefs are preparing for their playoff run and are teaming up with a local streetwear brand for their postseason merchandise.
“It’s cliché to say, but it’s a dream come true,” Vu Radley, co-owner of Made Mobb, said.
Radley and his business partner Mark Launiu started Made Mobb in 2013 as a passion project. He said the business wasn’t profitable until the Kansas City Royals’ World Series run.
“After we clocked out of our full-time jobs, we clocked back in to Made. We warehoused our stuff in our houses and in our cars, when people bought stuff, before we had a website, we were driving it to them and meeting up in parking lots,” Radley said. “Its crazy to see where we are now, where we are able to do a collaboration with kind of the biggest name in Kansas City, the Chiefs.”
Made Mobb consists of a team of Kansas City natives and long-time residents who have the city in their blood.
Radley said when they got started, they thought to themselves, “Maybe 10 years from now we can do this full time.”
Nine years later, they are teaming up with their favorite football team.
Their next challenge was to come up with concepts and ideas that represent the Chiefs and lets them stay true to their brand.
“The Chiefs official merch is very geared to a certain audience. It’s mainly jerseys, a lot of quarter-zips, hoodies, things like that. They do a great job of creating the merchandise, but with our collab, I wanted to really take our influences into things,” Radley said. “It’s not reinventing the wheel or anything, it’s just utilizing different things in certain placements, colorways and things like that.”
The team at Made Mobb came up with a slogan for their merchandise: From the Stadium to the Streets. The slogan is similar to the Chiefs slogan for their post season run: One Team One Vision
A combination of hard work and opportunity, Radley said he and his team at Made Mobb were ready for the partnership.
“We were all ready for it. It’s been years and years of work for moments like this,” Radley said. “So when it originally came through, I felt nervous, excited, but I was really confident in our skillset in being able to turnaround on quick deadlines and being able to work with such a high caliber business and team and being able to provide what they needed.”
Making officially licensed merchandise for the Kansas City Chiefs is a big deal for a small local business like Made Mobb, but Radley said the fact they were given the green light to come up with designs that are authentic to their brand is huge, not just for them, but the streetwear industry as a whole.
“In some bigger cities, it’s tough to even get in front of the teams and be able to do official collabs. I’ve seen a few official collabs done in the streetwear realm in some of the bigger cities, but just to see Kansas City being able to that, they’re one of the few ahead of the curve,” Radley said. “When you don’t forget about the local guys and the small guys and you give back, that opens us up to so many other things.”
As a Chiefs fan himself, Radley said he is excited to see fans and potentially players wearing the Made Mobb logo.
Amidst the excitement for the new collaboration, Launiu spent time in the hospital battling with an illness. So while the brand was making the biggest deal to date, the Mobb’s hearts were with him.
“Man, I’m doing ALOT better. Just as a business owner we still have to put in the work and show up daily. My team gets all the credit,” Launiu said.
After days in a hospital bed, Launiu was discharged and is back at home to continue his recovery and is expected to be okay.
“Made Mobb has always been a team. It only works with the Mobb. All of us together make what this is work,” Radley said. “Also, our supporters, people around the city that have given us love throughout the years, they are part of the Mobb. They’ve pushed us to where we are at now.”
Made Mobb believes the partnership will open doors for them moving forward and hope to one day work with other professional Kansas City sports teams.
The company will host a release party on Friday, January 14th. Stay tuned to their social media pages throughout the week leading up to the Chiefs’ first playoff game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, Jan. 16.
You can shop Made Mobb online, at several local boutiques or at their store at 221 Southwest Blvd. in, Kansas City, Missouri.