Claim to Fame Mr. Flemons is the founder of the unisex label Phlemuns, perhaps best known for creating the two-piece outfits for Solange Knowles’s “Don’t Touch My Hair” video. “It was a very easy collaboration,” he said. “They gave me options from my spring collection and adjusted some of the details.”
Big Break In 2013, a year after graduating from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles, Mr. Flemons started Phlemuns to create clothing that subverted traditional gender roles. As part of the rising Los Angeles fashion scene, his spring 2016 collection got picked up by Opening Ceremony, where he had once worked as a sales associate.
“That’s the collection that changed everything,” Mr. Flemons said. It featured tie-up bralettes in iridescent raw silk and fringed denim, and drew upon the Moulin Rouge outfits worn by Christina Aguilera, Mýa, Pink and Lil’ Kim on the red carpet at the Video Music Awards in 2001. “I have such a soft spot for tacky early 2000 fashion,” he said. Then Ms. Knowles spotted one of his off-the-shoulder dresses on his Instagram feed and commented, “ooooohhhhhhhh the black dresssssss.”
