Clout

Via and Benji want to be remembered. To write a legacy. To be celebrated for all the dope shit they’ve done and are about to do. They want to be loved.

But in the bizarre and extraordinary world of sneakers and street fashion, you’re only remembered by your imprint on the culture and the hype behind your name. In this world, the hype is the love.

CLOUT is a serial, darkly comedic drama about two self-made tastemakers looking to leave their mark in the ever shifting and unpredictably cutthroat business of sneakers. It’s a battle to stay relevant without falling prey to the sex, drugs and mania inducing snares of a relentlessly stressful world that has no blueprint. But we all fall prey, eventually.

Present day Montreal. Olivia “Via” Silva and Benji Trent are 30 somethings, lifelong friends and partners in Colere, a once super hot but now struggling boutique sneaker and culture brand. A brand built from grit to represent the urban streets that raised them. But those same streets are now questioning who and what they really represent anymore.

Benji is the founder and unmistakeable face of Colere. His knack for hustle and results pulled them up from throwing parties and selling merchandise from the trunk of a car to now having several storefronts and major brand partnerships today. While not the face, Via is quietly the genius behind it. A creative force from a family of artists, style and invention runs in her blood. She will be the central focus and anchor of this story while Benji’s shadow looms above, until her quiet genius realizes it must get loud, for the sake of their survival.

Via and Benji are as thick as family. Their trust and loyalty has carried them through the everyday challenges and impossible demands of what Colere has become. And it’s even deeper than that, the bond between them, though the constant pressures of their venture and having grown up together has forced them to set their feelings aside. An unspoken love remains everpresent, but it’s just another complication they can’t afford to address.

Now as their enterprise faces it’s first existential crisis and their personal lives and dreams get tangled up in the mess of it, they’ll have to choose to either stick together and finally confront the pull between them, or end their partnership, and more so their friendship, for good.

A Caribbean beach party. Silhouettes revelling in torch light under the moon. Exotic and hedonistic. It’s juxtaposed with a minimalist, city condo in Montreal. Tasteful. Colourful. Yet cold, somehow. We meet Via here. It’s early morning and she’s hurrying last night’s hookup guest, Tristan, out the door. Via has a huge day ahead, a rare and exclusive product - a posthumous sneaker collab with late, iconic streetwear designer, Veuws - is being delivered for their brand’s biggest drop ever, and there’s no time to breakfast and cuddle.

The sun has barely risen and Via’s phone doesn’t stop, texts, emails and endless calls. One of those calls is, Mara, an investor who’s been pursuing Via to start another brand apart from Benji. Via declines politely, as she always has, already raising too many “babies” as is. Via arrives to the doors of Colere A Deux, the latest of their storefronts spun from their flagship mission, Colere. Her assistant, Rosie, and the rest of the team greet her, frenzied, needing her to calm them.

Though Via’s own calm is shaken when she enters. Nothing about the store’s assembly is to her designs or specifications. Changes were made without her approval or even her input. The team tries to explain, but Via already knows the cause of the undermining - Benji. She’s been trying to reach him for days with no response, yet he’s pulled strings with the team behind her back. They don’t know where he’s been either, his location turned off and his social media dark. Before Via can think, the floodgates open - more items she didn’t order arrive, expensive set pieces and signage. A call from their accountant, alarmed by the purchases, as if Via wasn’t already aware of Colere’s financial straits.

Via is blindsided again when Efren, their brand rep, shows up unexpectedly. He’s perturbed by the store design, it’s nothing like what Via had pitched him. Via does her best to manage him, assure him that they’re aligned and all will be well, doing so without ever throwing Benji under the bus. And if the day couldn’t get worse, Via gets a panicked call from her brother, David… their father has suffered a bad fall.

Via abandons the chaos of the store, meeting David and their sister, Fay, at their father’s house. Gaston “Gus” Silva, the patriarch of the family and diagnosed with ALS, he’s refused specialized care and roams his bungalow in little more than a robe and his cane. The siblings rally around him, his stubbornness and growing frailty, the absence of their mother felt but unspoken. They argue but he refuses to go to a care facility. Over his dead body.

Via returns to Colere and more bad news, they won’t be receiving the Veuws collab product. Tailspins. Via tries to reach Efren but he’s ignoring her. The team scrambles, spinning postponement narratives on social media as whispers of their brand’s fall off continues to spread. Amidst the spiral, the orchestrator of the mess finally arrives when Benji and his girlfriend, Rashida aka “R-Shee”, turn up hungover and travel worn. They’re like celebrities, Rashida a rapper/singer and Benji the founder of Colere, dressed in head-to-toe designer, their luggage a year’s salary for most. Benji’s charm and influence over everyone around them is clear from go. Even amidst the chaos that he caused, their staff and their clients are pulled in by his aura, his ability to make them all feel special being the one gift Via lacks that Benji’s always been able to wield in order to get his way.

Alone, Via and Benji have it out. She goes off on his string of absences. Or manipulating the staff behind her back. Or how he’s been unreachable for the past 5 days with so much at stake. He may have cost them their chance at a major moment. She’s about to tell him she’s had enough before Benji stops her cold - Rashida is pregnant. They went to Jamaica to be together, discuss their future, a family home, etc. It’s bullshit, they were partying and Via can tell by Benji’s drug-wired eyes and weathered skin, but it does exactly what Benji wanted, backing Via off the attack. Via is conflicted and we glimpse that unspoken thing between them, that Via and Benji may have already missed on the shot they never took.

Benji is let off the hook, until a meeting with their accountant changes things. The kid gloves come off, it’s a house of cards. Via knew they were in tough, but months of overdue invoices and lease payments, outstanding loans and liens, all hit Via like truck. As the creative driver of Colere she’s allowed herself to be willfully ignorant, while Benji continued to tap dance and double down with their finances behind the scenes.

Amidst this discovery, Benji reveals a plan he’s been working on for months - a brand takeover. For a global apparel giant, a fictional Adidas, to move into Colere for 6 months, holding all of their exclusive drops and releases on Colere floors. The mutual benefit being the giant riding their grassroots cultural clout, while Benji and Via get a massive influx of revenue. It’s Benji’s magnum opus and to be their revival. But to Via, it’s the ultimate sell out. Everything they’ve built and everything said they would never do would be completely undone. Benji and Via argue the merits, he even goes as low as to remind her that he’s the majority partner and doesn’t need her approval, even if he’s always sought to have it. Benji figures it’s either this game changing deal or he starts burning things down. Via stands her ground and it fractures them. They say things they shouldn’t. Hurtful things that send them retreating in opposite directions.

Furious, Benji returns to Rashida and resumes partying, now in their local, tastemaker scene. Their life is a cycle of booze, drugs, group sex and denial of what’s in store for them. They shop for their dream home, far outside their means, as is with their cars, clothes and travel habits. After waking up from another bender, Benji logs onto a virtual appointment, a therapist he’s begun seeing in secret, and we learn of the growing anxiety and paranoia he’s been hiding from within his lifestyle.

While Benji disappears into his vices, Via is left with the job of bailing water from their sinking ship. Two of their managers quit to take jobs at a rival brand and another leaves to start their own. Then at the worst possible time, Tristan shows up, flowers in hand, looking to woo another date. The pressure gets to Via and she embarrasses him, biting his head off and sending him running for the hills. At her lowest, Via hears from Mara again. Mara knows what happened with their Veuws drop and takes the opportunity to make Via another offer to branch out on her own.

Via is more vulnerable, this time believing she and Benji may have truly parted. Though Via decides not to give in. Instead she finds out where Efren is, a private party for industry heads. Via talks her way into the party and finds Efren. He’s truthful, he likes her and believes in her vision, it’s why he took a risk on Colere. The problem is Benji. Via convinces him that her eyes are now wide open and if he gives her the chance to make it right, she will. Via walks out of the party with a deal and their product shipment back on.

The first good news in some time, but Via can’t ride high yet, as a call from her siblings brings her to the hospital. Gus had another accident. Though when she arrives she finds Benji asleep in the chair next to Gus’s bed. When the siblings couldn’t reach Via, they called Benji. Although unfortunate circumstances, they’re brought back together, Benji even helping to convince Gus to receive specialized care. It reminds them that they’re family. In every sense. When Via tells Benji about the shipment and the drop being back on he’s proud of her, taking care of business where he failed to. He’s not thrilled to hear that Efren wants Benji to be hands off in their dealings but he agrees, understanding how much shit he’s caused.

Via spends the next two days leading a deconstruction of their store design and back to the minimalist buildout she’d envisioned from the start, an ode to the Veuws aesthetic. Efren is elated, personally overseeing the product delivery to Colere a Deux. Finally able to exhale, Via tries to get some sleep but is awoken to a distress call and hurries back to the store. When she gets there it’s nothing but flames and firefighters trying to put them out. Via, Benji and their team watch in horror as all their hopes are engulfed in smoke, the once in a lifetime merchandise burning within it. Via’s gaze turns from the crumbling store to Benji as he continues to watch, flames flickering in his eyes.

Tragedy will beset both Via and Benji, bringing forth the question, is blood thicker than water?

1. Convinced now that Benji burned down the store, Via looks to exit their partnership, returning to Mara and the offer she still has on the table.
2. In a surprise turn, a pair of the Veuws collab sneakers emerge on an exclusive online auction site. The rest of the Veuws inventory Efren supplied to other retailers is all accounted for. These sneakers could only be from one source, the stock that supposedly burned in the fire at Colere A Deux.
3. Suspicions are momentarily set aside when Gus passes away, leaving Via and her siblings reeling. Benji steps up for all of them, taking care of issues they’re unable to. Even more so when Georgette, Via’s estranged mother, shows up unexpectedly.
4. Hugo is nowhere to be found when Via is grieving and in need of his support. Instead he’s stolen the idea she shared with him and used it to make a lucrative deal for himself.
5. Via is back on the warpath, now ready to confront her suspicions with Benji. Did he set the fire? Did he steal the product first and is now selling it in backdoor markets online? Instead she finds Benji and Rashida dealing with their own loss. A miscarriage. Rashida retreats to her family for support and Benji disappears again. His destructive habits return and he barrels towards self harm.
6. Season One ends with Via getting her creative muscle back and striking a deal with Mara on a new venture, bringing Rosie along as her right hand while Benji remains in the wind. With Efren still breathing down her neck, Via discovers a storage unit connected to the Colere LLC. Inside the unit is the rest of the missing Veuws collab stock, stolen and stashed there by Benji.

Unapologetic hustler with only one goal - WIN. Benji has always beaten the odds because he never considers them. If he can’t get a seat at the table, he will make his own.

Benji’s ambition is the foundation of their success. It’s also their biggest threat. An enigma at first, his fingerprints will be on all of their troubles, from the periphery, as Via must deal will them head on. His entitlement comes from being the founder of Colere and having done all of the dirty work needed to get them to where they are today, and a slight envy for not having Via’s gifts.

A teflon exterior and playboy lifestyle masks a life of trauma and a deepening spiral into anxiety and paranoia. Worsening as drugs and alcohol become less recreational and more selfmedicinal. Benji is the life of the party, but he’s afraid to let the party stop, where he’d then be forced to face his demons.

Benji and his partner, Rashida, begin like a dynamic duo. They’re a force together, ambitious, conspiratorial and for kicks, very sexually promiscuous. The fun ends as Benji’s mental state deteriorates, money gets thins and finally worst of all, Rashida suffers a miscarriage.

Benji will try to cope with his losses alone, becoming unpredictable and a danger to himself and those he once held close.

Each episode will continue the overarching story where Via, Benji and their Colere brand cling to relevancy, desperate to not become played out. Building and maintaining, selling and marketing, the inside baseball stuff that will be woven into their entrepreneurial world.

Interpersonally, their love story will take its time, instead focusing more on their friendship at first and the roles they play in each other’s constant ordeals. Their complicated relationship and backstory will be the crux of each storyline as their gradually intensifying desire for one another is continually tested, clouding their better judgement for all other things not them.

Not a mystery or crime show, the turns and surprises will be sentimental and come from the emphatic moments of discovery, betrayal, loss, personal risk and of course, joy.