“I am going to be a senior at Kearny High. I have family down here, so I stay for the summer with them. I want to go into fashion and merchandising, or get a major in business and minor in fashion. Ever since I was little I liked making my own designs, then following what other people were wearing. I always wanted to make my own clothes, but it is really hard. I have a line called TSLY Clothing with my friends, which stands for ‘That’s So Last Year.’ We design them, then ship them. I do this with two friends, one who lives in Canada. They are really into the trends, and so my one friend came to me and said we are going to start our own line and make t-shirt designs, and I was like, ‘Ok.’ And this kid drew a portrait of a girl wearing sunglasses and it says, ‘That’s So Last Year.’ We made two colors, black and white, and put the design on long sleeve t-shirts. We did a photo shoot and put them up on an Instagram page. We only ordered a hundred, because we didn’t know how many we would sell. 50 were shipped here, and 50 to my friend Steven in Canada… and they completely sold out. People kept DMing us and commenting on our Instagram that they wanted them.
“So we made a new design for new t-shirts. I helped design them, and they are going to be shipped from Paris. We will be getting about a hundred again. This is it for me. I know what I want to be doing for the rest of my life. My friends and I want to start doing other designs, like ‘dad hats.’ and mini backpacks, things that are trendy, but with our own unique touch.
“I don’t think people take me seriously because I am only 17. I know I am young, and people think my friends and I are just a bunch of high school students, and that when we get into college it won’t be as important to us, but I think it will be. Just because of how fast the first order of shirts sold out, not just here but in Canada. There are people around the world that are wearing our clothes. In our school, we have to wear school uniforms, and it’s crazy because on dress down days you see people wearing our shirts, and I helped design that. It is such a cool feeling.”
~ Lavallette
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