‘Elevated Apparel’ founder pursues art through fashion, photography

When an artist’s thoughts and boredom fulfill, it can spark a fashion brand. That was the scenario for junior immersive media style and design and info science important Nnenna Elekalachi.

Elekalachi birthed her streetwear brand, Elevated Apparel, in late 2020. She was impressed to go after the concept after witnessing the results of other tiny apparel companies on social media. These corporations often paid out persons to develop their patterns, she said, but Elekalachi considered she had an edge around any rivals: she could draw.

An artist due to the fact pre-kindergarten, Elekalachi created her initially sale soon after shoppers created orders from the art they observed in her sketchbook.

The vogue brand also spreads an crucial information, Elekalachi added.

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“Elevated is intended to stand for positivity and uplifting,” she stated. “I’m also a Christian, so I needed to display that and place a minimal bit of me and my religion and my ideology on life into apparel.”

One particular of Elevated Apparel’s T-shirts features a graphic of a halo and wings, with the quantities 4:13 pasted on the front and the phrase “I am elevated as a result of Christ who strengthens me” on the back of the shirt, alluding to Phillippians 4:13 in the Bible. 

Elevated Apparel has also acquired guidance from the University of Maryland community. Equally directors and the wider university student populace have supported Elekalachi at campus pop-ups. She is specially thankful for Black local community associates on this university’s campus due to the fact they usually relate to her items most.

The creative’s style small business also introduced about a further expertise she never ever understood she experienced: images. Soon after a unsuccessful working experience with the qualified photographer she experienced booked for her clothing start in 2020, she acquired a digital camera for herself.

The photograph shoot was prosperous, so substantially so that she started pursuing photography by getting pictures of learners on this university’s campus. Elekalachi would write-up on her Instagram story and question if any students have been fascinated in modeling and do no cost shoots for them. The shoots also served as a portfolio for the commence of her photography small business identified as “Elevated Fx.”

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Jayden Gyamfi, a sophomore functions administration and organization analytics key, modeled for Elekalachi’s shoot, No Man’s Land, which was influenced by Brent Faiyaz’s Wasteland album protect. Gyamfi was on board with the job promptly due to the fact of his enjoyment of Faiyaz’s audio.

“What’s one of a kind about Nnenna’s pictures enterprises is her means to carry suggestions into fruition,” Gyamfi explained. “The outcomes of the image shoot seriously built my jaw drop.”

Finding out photography was not tough for Elekalachi due to the fact of her record in artwork, exactly where she learned about composition and color idea, she said. 

Her the latest photography get the job done, Flower girls, stemmed from 1 of her drawings, which she felt would be a very good strategy to replicate are living. She collaborated with her buddy,  Ikechukwu Ihejirika, who is a junior communications significant at Towson College.

Ihejirika describes collaborations and artistic sessions with Elekalachi as a press and pull, where they continually bounce off of each and every other’s creativity and end with “magic.”

“Nnenna type of has a tunnel vision, so she sees what she desires to make in her mind, and she finds a way to make it come about,” Ihejirika said.