Celebrating jL

As many of you reading this would know, BlackMilk founder James Lillis – or, as he was best known in the BlackMilk community, jL – sadly passed away on 22 February, 2024.

We wanted to make a permanent space on the BlackMilk website to recognise the incredible legacy jL built with this brand, to pay tribute to and honour the memories and stories of the past 15 years. 

Although it is impossible to capture every aspect of jL’s BlackMilk story, we wanted to highlight some of the moments that exemplify the charismatic, creative visionary who built an entire world from a piece of nylon fabric.

Vale jL, Nylon Emperor.

2009

The beginnings of BlackMilk read like a superhero origin story (apt, considering jL’s love for comic books). You can read the whole thing in jL’s own words here, but to summarise: it all began when a broke and bored jL sold his CD player and bought a sewing machine and some nylon lining fabric. Many late nights of sewing (and resewing) at his kitchen table later, he made his very first pair of leggings.

At the same time, he was posting daily on his blog Too Many Tights, which was partly a fashion appreciation blog, and partly a documentation of his own creations. 

And something rather unexpected came out of this blog: a few readers started emailing jL, asking to buy the leggings he was making and posting about. He created a small online store that he named “BlackMilk”, and before he knew it, he had so many customers he was at the post office daily with piles of packages that looked like this:

2010–2011

Between December 2009 and January 2010, BlackMilk orders had grown by 500%. jL’s once-little-label had officially outgrown his kitchen table. He brought on marketing extraordinaire Cam Parker, who basically became his partner in crime / fashion for the next six years. He also began to hire employees – a lot of them – and opened the first ever BMHQ in Fortitude Valley. That location soon proved to be too small for the staff and equipment needed to keep up with demand, so BlackMilk moved again (and again – four times in as many years, in fact!).

Around this time, jL also started the BlackMilk Facebook page – a place where customers could gather and talk about the clothes, as well as interact directly with jL himself. At a time when social media was still in its fledgling stages, a clothing brand having so great an online presence was totally unheard of – and so a community was born.

BlackMilk Second Birthday Party at BMHQ

2012

jL was known for his love of pop culture, and his dream of combining that with his love for fashion was realised when BlackMilk created its first officially licensed collection: Star Wars. 

It also became known as “the collection that broke the Internet”, because so many people swarmed the website at release time, the whole site basically collapsed and had to be shut down for two days for repairs. jL made a post likening it to a feeding frenzy of sharks – and inadvertently coined the term “Sharkies”. 

So of course, when the first gathering of BlackMilk fans, along with jL and Cam, took place in Las Vegas it was dubbed “Sharkiecon”.

2013

After the success of Sharkiecon Vegas, meetups continued all over the world. For many Sharkies, this was their first time meeting jL in person, and experiencing his energy, generosity and passion for the community firsthand. 

BM Euro Tour, 2013

QLD Boat Party, 2013

Adelaide Sharkie Meetup, 2013

LA Sharkie Meetup, 2013

Sharkiecon, 2013

Supanova, 2013

While 2013 saw many iconic BlackMilk collections and designs come to life, none could surpass one of jL’s most unique – and awesome – creations: the A-Sassy-Nation Bodysuit, which has since been worn by almost 15,000 customers. 

The first of many social milestones was reaching 500,000 followers on Facebook – again, almost unheard of for brands on social media at the time, and especially one as relatively small as BlackMilk. jL and the team celebrated with a special collection and a party at BMHQ.

And…BlackMilk went viral.

2014

In many ways, this was the year that really put BlackMilk, and jL, on the map, with some of our most iconic collections (Disney Princesses And Villains, Battle Of The Kings, Pulp Horror, Game Of Thrones and Witch Please, to name just a few).

Pulp Horror Campaign Shoot, 2014

Witch Please Fitting Night, 2014

It was also the Year Of jL’s Big Ideas: his constant entrepreneurial spirit and drive to push BlackMilk further saw the beginnings of a concept store and cafe, about a million Sharkie events, and a new headquarters in LA. Some of these things worked, and some didn’t – but it was in jL’s nature to always strive for more. 

Sharkiecon Majorca / USA, 2014

Along with another epic Sharkiecon that spanned from Spain to Las Vegas and back to Brisbane, and Supanovas across Australia, the party to end all parties took place at the Queensland Museum in celebration of BlackMilk’s fifth birthday party.

Sharkiecon Brisbane and BlackMilk Birthday Party, 2014

2015

If there was one thing that jL was known for, it was his obsession with coffee. So the opening of a cafe at the front of the new BMHQ at Newstead was perhaps not as strange as it might have seemed to an outsider. 

jL was, of course, determined to make sure the coffee itself was the best available, so for weeks leading up to the cafe’s opening, staff were encouraged to try out all kinds of blends and report their findings. Everyone was just a LITTLE extra caffeinated that year.

(You can still find the playlist jL put together for the cafe on our Spotify.)

Along with the cafe came the concept store, which became home to lots of collection previews and customer try-on events – some of which were planned, and some of which were jL going up to people perusing the store and saying “hey, do you want to try some cool new things on?”.

In November, Sharkies were invited to tour BMHQ as part of the BlackMilk sixth birthday celebrations, culminating in an epic pool party (where jL challenged just about everyone to a push-up competition).

BlackMilk Birthday Party, 2015

2016

A return to major collection campaigns meant a return to epic photo shoots. In January jL accompanied the shoot team to Vegas to shoot the campaign for our Fear And Clothing In Las Vegas collection.

Fear And Clothing In Las Vegas Campaign Shoot, 2016

And returned to BMHQ Newstead, which we had recently vacated for our current home in Banyo.

Unicornia Campaign Shoot, 2016

Anyone following the brand in 2016 would know why jL has his phone out filming the models in that last pic: this was the year that jL became totally obsessed with Periscope, a live-video-streaming platform that was as-yet largely unknown. If you saw jL coming towards you with his phone, you knew you had to be camera-ready!

2017–2019

After almost a decade of being singularly focused on BlackMilk, jL took a sabbatical through much of 2017 and 2018 to explore other projects and ideas – ever the restless entrepreneur. 

However, he couldn’t stay away for long – by early 2019 he (and Mr Shark) returned to the brand full of fresh ideas and a desire to create some brand new BM awesomeness.

This was when the concept of the Design Challenge was born. The idea was that jL had free reign to come up with some totally-out-there new design, and – along with the design teams – had a week to bring it into being. Some of these pieces were made available to buy, and some were made to be admired from afar – but all exuded that unique jL magic. 

In August jL and the shoot team once again went globetrotting – this time to Tokyo for the Neon Demons and Hello Tokyo campaign shoots.

Hello Tokyo Campaign Shoot, 2019

And for the first time ever, jL was featured directly in a campaign shoot – alongside a few iconic BlackMilk friends – for our BM 10th Birthday Bash collection.

BlackMilk 10th Birthday Bash Campaign Shoot, 2019

2020

Never one to stay behind the scenes, jL was always looking for new ways to communicate directly with the BlackMilk community and share – well, basically everything. In 2020, he launched the first BlackMilk podcast with former Social Media team superstar Sam. Every week they would get together and chat about upcoming collections – along with a whole lot of pop culture tangents. 

In fact, opining on pop culture is something jL never missed an opportunity to do.

We – and jL – had hoped to do lots more in-person Sharkie events in 2020, but a little something called a global pandemic quickly put a halt to that idea…

2021–2023

Post-pandemic BlackMilk life slowly began to return to normal. We were finally able to hold in-person sample sales once again, with jL making his usual guest star appearance and prompting many selfies with Sharkies waiting patiently in line.

jL was back in his creative element with the BlackMilk Design Hub, essentially a think tank for coming up with exemplary, cutting-edge designs. You will see some of jL’s specially created pieces coming through collections later this year!

For BlackMilk staff, a jL moment we will never forget is his transformation into The Prodigy’s Keith Flint at the 2021 BlackMilk Christmas party, complete with karaoke performance.

A little-known fact outside of BMHQ is that our Christmas parties are always themed, and jL always turned up dressed to impress and ready to party with the team.

2024

Over the last few weeks, we have seen an incredible outpouring of love, support and collective grief from the BlackMilk community. We have loved seeing your memories of jL, and hearing your stories of how he, and this brand he created, have touched your lives. You can see these stories through the #jlforever tag on Facebook and Instagram.

We encourage you to keep sharing, and keep remembering, and we will continue to add to this page as an evolving space to keep jL’s legacy alive. 

#jlforever