Who Owns Paper Planes?
Paper Planes is owned by its founders and operates under Roc Nation. The streetwear and lifestyle brand was founded in 2014 by Shawn "JAY-Z" Carter and Emory Jones, and Carter later trademarked it, establishing Paper Planes as an independent brand rather than a licensed line.
That distinction is the thing most people are actually asking about. Plenty of musicians lend a name to a clothing line someone else manufactures and controls. Paper Planes is not that arrangement, it is an operating company with its own leadership, its own wholesale network, and its own retail.
Who founded it
Shawn Carter, who records as JAY-Z, is a founder and the reason most people arrive at this question. He is also the founder of Roc Nation, the entertainment company Paper Planes sits under.
Emory Jones is the co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer, and Head of Lifestyle at Roc Nation. He is the one who has spoken publicly about where the paper plane mark came from.
The brand is run day to day by people whose names are less famous and whose work is more visible in the product: Ronnie DeMichael as President and Just C as Creative Director.
What Roc Nation has to do with it
Roc Nation is the parent organisation. Paper Planes is its apparel and lifestyle arm, which is why the brand shows up in Roc Nation's structure rather than as a standalone fashion house with an investor list.
Practically, that relationship shows in access rather than in ownership paperwork: artists, athletes, in-store appearances, and the cultural adjacency that a clothing brand of this size could not otherwise buy.
Why the brand exists at all
Paper Planes was not a rebrand of anything. Co-founder Emory Jones, who had worked inside Rocawear's merchandising, diagnosed the category's problem as brand fatigue, "when you do urban brands, the life of them is: we move on" - and the conclusion was that you do not fix fatigue, you start clean:
"I can pull this brush out and I got a blank canvas."
And the canvas was never really about apparel:
"It ain't about no clothes. It has nothing to do about selling your clothes. It's all about a feeling."
That is an unusual thing for a clothing company to say on the record, and it explains most of the decisions that look slow from outside, the gifted-only launch, the narrow catalogue, the pace. The hat you couldn't buy →
Where the name comes from
The mark is a black-and-white American flag folded into a paper plane. It stands for reaching a destination mentally before arriving physically, the idea that you have to picture the place before you can get to it.
The founders' framing of this, recorded in trade press, is that you could be in Brooklyn in the projects and mentally be in Paris today or Brazil tomorrow. Before anyone gets on a plane, they have to believe they can. That is also where the tagline comes from: Greatness Is A Process.
How the brand actually operates
Two things distinguish it from most celebrity-adjacent apparel.
It sells wholesale to small independent retailers rather than to chains. That is a stated strategy, not an accident of scale, and it is why the shop that stocks Paper Planes near you is more likely to be a neighbourhood store than a department store. The network runs to 63 shops across 21 states.
It has its own retail. The flagship at 252 Lafayette Street in SoHo opened in October 2023, the brand's first permanent brick-and-mortar location, preceded by a Gurney's Montauk pop-up and a continuing seasonal Hamptons presence.
FAQ
Who owns Paper Planes?
It was founded in 2014 by Shawn "JAY-Z" Carter and Emory Jones and operates under Roc Nation. Carter trademarked the brand, making it independent rather than a licensed line.
Is Paper Planes a JAY-Z brand?
Yes. He is a founder, and the brand sits under Roc Nation, which he also founded. It is an operating company rather than a name-licensing deal.
When was Paper Planes founded?
2014.
Who runs Paper Planes day to day?
Emory Jones is co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Ronnie DeMichael is President, and Just C is Creative Director.
Is Paper Planes the same as Rocawear?
No. Different brands, different eras, different business models. The comparison in full →
What does the Paper Planes logo mean?
A black-and-white American flag folded into a paper plane, representing arriving somewhere mentally before arriving physically.
Quotes from Emory Jones on Boardroom Talks with Rich Kleiman, also on YouTube.