The YMA Fashion Scholarship Fund recently announced the expansion of its portfolio of scholarships to include the Alumni Dream Grant. Continuing the organization’s mission of identifying the best and brightest talent from the 61 partner colleges and universities for the future of the fashion industry, the Fashion Scholarship Fund Alumni Dream Grant will support an early stage start-up for further growth through mentorship from industry experts and an equity-free $50,000 grant. The Alumni Dream Grant will be given out annually to one promising startup led by an Alumni of the Fashion Scholarship Fund undergraduate program. The first application round is expected to launch in January of 2018 at the Annual Awards Gala, with the first winner being announced in the summer of 2018. Kathrine Zeren and Jameel Mohammed are two YMA FSF Alumni who have taken a leap of faith and chosen to start their own fashion lines. Both attended our Alumni Dream Grant social at the Zola offices in New York and shared their journey’s with a selection of YMA FSF alumni.
Kathrine Zeren is an YMA FSF Scholar Alumni from 2006 and 2007. She has started her own brand within the menswear accessories space based in Houston, Texas. “I graduated about 10 years ago from the Rhode Island School of Design,” she said. “Upon graduating, I went to work for Abercrombie & Fitch's brand Ruehl until they closed. I then went to work for Hollister for a year, followed by Abercrombie for my final two years at the company. I stayed in women's fashion woven tops, shirting, & dresses the entire time, so wovens kind of became my focus. I loved the opportunities that A&F gave me at a young age, and learned so much. However, after 4 years, I was ready for a change. I wanted to spend some time traveling and doing volunteer work overseas. Toms & Warby Parker were relatively new companies, and I was inspired to see if I could create something with a socially-minded focus as well. I needed to raise money for my trip, and on a whim, I decided to try making ties to sell.
“Fast forward 5 years, and I now have a line of ties, bowties, and pocket squares, as well as a selection of candles and soap. I also source and sell vintage finds such as handkerchiefs and tie bars. Back when I started out, however, I just wanted to challenge myself in a different way. Having done patternmaking in school, I knew I had enough experience to make something. I had never really tried menswear or accessories, so I thought, 'Why not?' After finding some nice-looking ties, I took them apart and figured out how they were made. In the end, I sold enough ties to help fund my trip overseas.
"Shortly after returning to the States, I decided to take a job teaching high school art, but later realized that teaching alone wouldn't be enough. I missed being able to create something that was my own. A friend of mine who was in grad school at the time seemed to be doing these amazingly creative things, and I felt a little envious. After confessing how I was feeling, she asked me, ‘Why don’t you just start something? You already have these products that you’ve been making. Why don’t you just launch your own line?’
“In my mind, I was unsure. I had no idea how to start a company. I think that some level of business education is becoming more common in fashion programs, but I never had any of that. When I was in school, it was more about pushing boundaries creatively, and less about building a business. So, I did tons of research and talked to anybody who was willing to give me advice. I went back to school. I also ran a successful Kickstarter campaign that funded my first factory order.
"In order to do something that felt a little more meaningful - and that would end up helping set me apart - I decided to work with only sustainably sourced fabrics. At the time, people thought that I was crazy for restricting myself in this way. Nevertheless, I really felt it was important to make my line as sustainable as possible. I also wanted to keep production exclusively in the United States so that I could have more oversight into how everything was being made.
"If you ever start your own company, you should have certain non-negotiables. If you compromise your core values to please others, then you'll put yourself in danger of compromising the very reason you wanted to start something in the first place. As I've said, sustainability and domestic production were my two driving factors initially, and they are still at the heart of what we do today. We’ve since collaborated with other artists, expanded into candles and soap, both scented with essential oils, and we are exploring other ways to expand the line.”
Jameel Mohammed is an YMA FSF Alumni from the year 2015, and a recipient of the Jim Edelman Scholarship endowed at The Wharton School. He is also applying for the Alumni Dream Grant to be awarded in 2018. Jameel’s line is a luxury jewelry collection inspired by the African diaspora. “I’m originally from Chicago, Illinois, and I’m currently a student at the University of Pennsylvania studying Political Science,” said Jameel. “I started working in fashion when I was 16. I did design internships at Nicole Miller and Narciso Rodriguez. Before that, I was honestly a really awkward kid. I’m very tall, very long, and was not very confident growing up. In the seventh grade, I had an Aunt who brought me to J. Crew around the age of twelve and basically just told me that we needed to pull my look together. That was how I first became interested in fashion. I came into high school knowing that I wanted to go into the fashion industry.
“When I came to Penn, in my first year I did a collection of clothes just as sort of a hobby. That year, the CEO of Barneys came to speak at Penn Fashion Week, an annual event at my school. I asked them, rather shamelessly, what it would take for a designer to get their clothes into Barneys. They told me to show them what I had made, so I brought all of the garment samples that I had created in my dorm room. At the time, I had also developed some jewelry, and Barneys really took a liking to the pieces. They offered me an internship in buying for the coming summer, and every few weeks while I worked there I would bring in new samples to be reviewed by the Fashion Director.
“I worked in jewelry for a while, designing, sketching, and really honing into my vision. My sophomore year of college I did the YMA FSF Scholarship and won the Jim Edelman Scholarship. I took the entirety of my scholarship funds and used that to live in New York for the summer after my sophomore year and to produce my second set of samples of jewelry. I went to all different sorts of suppliers in the jewelry district in Manhattan saying, ‘I want my jewelry to look like this. Can you help me make that happen?’ Everyone would give a ‘get-out-of-here-kid’ response at first, but while they did so, they all helped me out by recommending another place I could look for help. I put together my first collection that way.
“I took photos of my line and sent them to some editors and started getting press pretty early on. Our first big exposure was in Paper Magazine where I was a freelance writer for a while. The images that I had taken of our first campaign got a lot of traction. From that, we were able to place ourselves in a good position for press outreach. We had The New York Times, Elle, Teen Vogue, and Vogue Paris give us editorial support that led into a greater reputation at wholesale.
“Today, we are being sold in Barneys New York. Our brand is called Khiry. Our goal is to be the first luxury brand inspired by the African diaspora. I went on a trip to Japan with The Wharton School for an international program and had the CEO of a luxury conglomerate say that the only true luxury brands in the world are those that have originated from Milan or Paris. I’m a contrarian and a political science major, and so I set out to create a black luxury brand. I think it is important that there is a perspective in this industry that is not entirely western. A broader set of cultural references is important, significant, and deserves to be approached with the seriousness and gravitas of any other luxury brand.”
The Fashion Scholarship Fund’s mission is to advance the fashion industry by encouraging gifted and enterprising young people to pursue careers in design, merchandising, retailing and business, ensuring the industry will continue to attract dedicated, capable and creative individuals. The Alumni Dream Grant is another step in making this mission a reality. Kathrine, Jameel, and a number of other alumni will be submitting their applications for this amazing opportunity in January of 2018. The winners are to be announced in the summer of that same year.