#youth talent

[higherlearningtvshow]

MEET THE FOUNDERS

Teens Designing & Selling Streetwear

Some high schoolers say they started their brands for the profits. Others are jumping into streetwear in pursuit of a creative outlet. A large cardboard box covered in Chinese customs labels sits in the attic of Jack Lee’s parent’s home in the Roscoe Village neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side. The lanky teenager slices into the box and produces a pair of black basketball shorts adorned with white bolts of lightning. He smiles as he traces the mesh material with his fingers.

Lee is the founder of the streetwear brand Snker Method. He is one of many high schoolers in Chicago — most of them boys — who have started their own clothing companies in recent years, selling everything from hoodies to ski masks. The teens operate out of homes in all corners of the city and its suburbs, mostly selling to their high school peers, but also shipping clothes to young people as far away as New Jersey or California. Lee’s goal is to make a million dollars in sales and eventually get hired at Nike. “I want to make a mark on the world.”

Keyon Hackle & Jacob Hunter, Designers & Classmates at "Kenwood Academy" (Photo: Manuel Martinez)

Lee, the budding businessman, sketches his designs before he sends them to his manufacturers in China. Shipping costs are a nightmare, but Lee says it’s still cheaper than manufacturing on American soil. He puts the lightning bolt shorts up on his website for $60, then immediately marks them down to $35 — a sales trick he says he doesn’t like to tell people about. Over on the South Side, designer Jamari Jackson is selling his t-shirts for $15.

Jackson has set up a pop-up shop outside Kenwood Academy High School where he is a senior. Kanye West’s Good Morning blares from a small speaker as seniors mill around the folding table Jackson set up, signing each other’s new t-shirts in rainbow-colored markers. Once class lets out, customers flood Jackson’s pop-up. One kid calls his mom to ask permission to buy one of the shirts — a white tee with the words “See No Evil” written in faded black letters on the front. Two clothing designers who also go to Kenwood show up to check out the competition.

Three Models Pose in Hoodies & Lightning Bolt Shorts Designed by Jack Lee (Photo: Allison Peevy)

Keyon Hackle and Jacob Hunter, who runs a brand named CLRVNT, did a recent pop-up of their brand, where they gave out a bunch of free clothes to students. Several months ago, the teens also gave out a bunch of free samples to their teachers, who wore their CLRVNT swag to school.“We’re only in our first year and we’ve already generated about a quarter million in sales,” Hackle says. “So I can see us on that path to making millions of dollars.” Aside from Hackle and Hunter, Jackson can name at least five other streetwear brand owners who go to Kenwood. They have a little bit of a rivalry going on.

“At the end of the day, it is a market, so there’s always naturally going to be that competition,” Jackson says. “But we kind of work around each other.” While this friendly rivalry drives Jackson, brand owner Tevence Smith over on the West Side says he’s in the streetwear market to create art. Smith runs a brand named Oswalt. His earliest designs were heavy with lightning bolts and clouds, inspired by the Greek God Zeus. But Smith says his clothes also tell the story of the Black community in Austin, the West Side neighborhood he calls home.

Student Designers at "Kenwood Academy High School" Sign Each Other’s Shirts (Photo: Manuel Martinez)

“Clothes mean a lot to us,” Smith says. “Whether it’s the way you tie your shoes, whether it’s the way you wear your pants. Clothes [are] a way to express yourself, a way to be free.”Free from the problems plaguing his people, he says, like gun violence and racism. The teen looks up to Virgil Abloh, a designer from Rockford, Illinois, who made a name for himself by melding streetwear with luxury fashion as the artistic director of menswear for Louis Vuitton.

“A lot of the clothes he makes are beyond clothes,” Smith says. “It’s art pieces. And that’s how I like to look at my clothes as well.”Abloh passed away in 2021. But Smith sometimes looks up videos of his fashion shows on YouTube for inspiration. He dreams of one day hosting his runway in Paris like Abloh did. “To know someone from a small town like Rockford can make it gives me hope,” Smith says. “It helps me keep pushing forward.” - Content Curated By Anna Savchenko

[otaku553]

Haha

[uncanny-tranny]

Some more advice for fellow adults: set your ego aside and let younger people (even kids!) educate and teach you. There is no shame in looking to a younger person for education and knowledge. It is, actually, a big facet of humanity that we teach each other - why, then, does that teacher need to be the Right Age in order for you to be willing to learn from them?

[urfavcrime]

dsmp is still SO insane to me. still not completely convinced it wasn't a social experiment. it is something that can never be replicated again due to the really specific circumstances that attributed to it's creation and popularity

[esevik]

Sorry for saying this but Dante, the final villain in Fullmetal Alchemist 03 is one of the most incompetent villain's I've seen. Or rather, for all the talk about her being a powerful alchemist she doesn't live up to the hype.

Her plan is to cause misery upon people in the hopes one of them starts searching for the philosopher's stone out of desperation. Then, when this potential person then creates a stone she'll take it from them and use it to keep herself young/hop body to someone younger and prettier. The reason she needs someone else to create the stone is because she herself don't know how to create one. This 500+ years old woman, who was right next to Hohenheim when he created a stone, someone who knows the ingredients to a philosopher's stone, somehow doesn't know how to create one.

I can buy Hoenheim hiding the specifics of how it's done from her, but that she still doesn't know after 500 years? That she needs Ed, a fifteen year old who only studied about the stone for about four years, to create one for her instead of her doing it herself. It doesn't make sense.

The only "amazing" alchemy thing she seems to have done is to create Pride, a homunculous who can age, but how she did that is never explained.

[fuckrealityfictionisbetter]

Not to be a bitch but if Watcher wanted more money maybe they should of produced more then 1 project a month

[tessabennet]

Band lead singer Ken edition!

80s Rock Ken Edition

Barbie vocalist edition

80s singer Barbie Edition

[anemoiawithatouchofobsession]

.•:°:•. C ' e s t s i b o n .•:°:•.

‧˚₊ ❆ ‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ 즐 거 운 ‧˚₊ ❆ ‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊ ❆자 유 ‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊ ❆ ‧ ₊ ⊹

~ Korean and european 80s- 90s advertisements

[didnt-hear-idsb-live-again]

The thing is it is the literal best thing in the world driving across the country with a group of strangers who start becoming family with incredible music blasting all the way down the freeway…….. I just don’t wanna have to do work to unlock that lmao

[the-dust-jacket]

The Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Awards recognized Jade Adia in the author category and Briana Mukodiri Uchendu in the illustrator category this year. Congratulations!

[theclassymike]

Tequan RIchmond via instagram.

[higherlearningtvshow]

Youth News!

[enpassants]

being an alter in a system is so weird like yeah i can do that but the body cant

[dollelujah]

That is wiiiild how much paint can affect a sculpt

[aorish]

and yeah taking a bunch of kids aged 12-16 whose other unifying characteristic was "scored significantly higher than the average high school student on the SAT at age 11" and putting them on a college campus together for several weeks did in fact lead to an anarchic hormonal nerd soup of catastrophic proportions. in retrospect most of the weird rules they had were likely because they were so desperately trying to prevent us all from fucking each other whenever their backs were turned, and given the fact that at least a handful of kids got caught doing so every year i was there, they probably weren't very successful. also i assume given the changing views on same-sex relationships since I was a teenager they're probably much less successful now given that the main way they busted people was "in the wrong gender dorm after-hours"

[itgetsbetterproject]

📢 Calling LGBTQ+ creators, storytellers, artists, cosplayers, drag performers, comedians, and educators on TikTok:

Applications are OPEN for our next round of LGBTQ+ It Gets Better TikTok Creators!

If you can see yourself...

🟣 Filming a skit about how you came out to your parents or friends

🟣 Telling entertaining queer stories and starting conversations for viewers to join in on

🟣 Mixing up some satisfying slime in the nonbinary flag colors while saying queer affirmations

🟣 Doing a GRWM while talking about the unexpected parts of your transition

🟣 Filming a queer craft tutorial

🟣 Taking us along for the day while you attend a protest/do community work, or

🟣 Filming a timelapse drawing or cosplay of your favorite queer character while talking about representation in the media

...then you’re probably a good fit!

LGBTQ+ creators 18+ can apply now to be part of our ongoing paid TikTok Creator program to create content for our itgetsbetter channel that helps uplift, empower, and connect LGBTQ+ youth.

Learn more about the program and apply now through through Jan 7, 2024 here: itgetsbetter.org/blog/tiktokcreators