AMERICA, STILL: KEITH HERRON ON THE ART OF REMAINING
Words by Bobby Trendz
Photography by Brandon Battle
There was something particularly fitting about speaking with Keith Herron inside the Advisry showroom while the work itself was unfolding around us.
As Herron and I sat down for our conversation, the AoD crew moved throughout the showroom, preparing for the shoot that would follow. Garments from his newest collection, America Still, were being pulled, looks were being considered, and the scene was taking shape around us as we spoke. There was something fitting about discussing the evolution of Advisry while simultaneously watching the pieces of its next chapter being assembled just feet away. We were not simply entering the world of Advisry to talk about what Herron had built; for a few hours, we were watching that world operate in real time.
That distinction matters when considering Herron’s story.
He founded Advisry at just 13 years old in Sacramento, California, initially driven by a desire to participate in the streetwear culture that fascinated him. What began with graphic design, screen printing, and an almost innocent belief that he could make something of his own has developed over twelve years into an increasingly expansive design practice—one encompassing fashion, film, music, storytelling, and cultural commentary. Along the way, Advisry has entered the official New York Fashion Week calendar, while Herron’s work has earned recognition from the CFDA, including his selection as a finalist for the 2025 Empowered Vision Award.
Yet what interested me most about Keith was not simply how far Advisry had traveled. It was how much of the instinct that started it had survived the journey.
That made him especially important to profile for REMAIN.
At the center of Issue 004 is a question about endurance: What allows a creative person to continue building after the novelty of arrival disappears? Keith began before he understood the systems, expectations, and hierarchies of the fashion industry. In our conversation, he describes staging his first runway show without even knowing when Fashion Week was. That freedom—the willingness to ask what if? before asking how is this normally done?—still sits at the center of his practice.
He remains curious, deliberately resistant to becoming too comfortable with expertise, and committed to approaching each new medium only when he believes he has something meaningful to contribute.
And perhaps there could not have been a more appropriate collection through which to document this moment than America Still.
Looking toward America roughly fifty years ago to interrogate the America of today, the collection draws connections between periods of cultural anxiety, political uncertainty, beauty, resistance, and survival.
Through references spanning cinema, music, and figures including Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Nina Simone, Sly Stone, and James Baldwin, Herron considers a recurring human impulse to believe that the crisis of our own moment is unprecedented.
His proposition is more hopeful: People have stood in moments like this before. They created through them.
They responded to them. They endured.
Continue reading in print
Issue 004
The full story continues in this limited print edition.
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PRODUCTION
Words by
Bobby Trendz
Photography
Brandon Battle