Pieces create the Puzzle

Ripped-up clothes from hand for my often naked Barbie dolls started the very foundation for my story. I came from humble beginnings in a provety stricken neighborhood in Saint Louis, MO. Due to the lack of resources all of my life came down to reworking an environment to make something new and valuable from things that may not have been previously. Hole in your jeans? Now you have a nice new pair of winter shorts. Shirt shrunk in the wash? Cut it to make a new crop top.

Every year I seemed to grow larger and larger at an extemely fast rate and eventually out grew my mother who has tried her best to afford and keep up with my clothing needs but had to choose between bills and food majority of the time. And after many failed attempts at local clothing departments I grew to have an anxiety while looking for new things, so of course when I was presented with the chance to take up fashion construction in high school I accepted without hesitation . Finally I would be able to make the things I saw girls my age wore I would be able to cut peices of colors and texture into images that have been limited to my imagination. Without my public education I wouldn’t have been introduced to this new creativity outlet and I made sure to take advantage of it everyday that I could. Prom came up and I absolutely knew that my mother would not be able to help me this year but I took every dime that I had marched proudly into Hancock’s fabric grabbed a pattern peice and created a flowing red tulle skirt.

I felt accomplished. What more could I create and why haven’t so many other girls like me know about how to construct their visions into reality? I sat on this question for 4 years now. It has been long since my fashions contstruction class but the art has never left me, as my options for styles have not grown. Young women in my demographic share the same limitations. No one makes the latest trendy shoe for women in a size 13 targeted towards 18-25 year olds. That is non existent. Just like the idea of making a statement from fashion and allowing that to spark to inspire a change.

That’s why I’ve let my scissors cut into the hardships of life by starting my own brand. Nectr is a source of inspiration just as real organic nectar is a source of nourishment in any ecosystem. Nectr will be a clothing brand geared towards those who sprout originality and genuinity into the lives that they touch. A clothing brand that’s obtainable and wearable by all shapes and sizes and inspires change. Through Nectr I plan to start a line of shirts entitled Y.C.I.C which stand for you can inspire change. With 22% of those profits going towards children, families, and other artists in need of the correct tools to shape their dreams in the hope to influence a chain reaction of change for everyone. I learned all of this through a pair of sheers and a needle, and I wonder what the next piece will inspire.

I say to you, cut up the madness and redirect its negativity into light that those may share until there is no dim area.