We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ashley Alves. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ashley below.
Ashley, appreciate you joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
As a child, I was a quirky little creative. I was extremely amused with repurposing discarded trash, and I was obsessed with color – lots of it! Also, I loved to discuss the purpose. What is the purpose? How could I find my purpose? When will I find my purpose? It was a topic of conversation that I never got tired of. Not a day went by that I didn’t overwhelm my stepfather with burning questions regarding purpose and destiny. One day I was a painter, the next I was a sculptor, and around age seven, I settled at Fashion Designer. Through the years, that title, Fashion Designer, didn’t come easy or without a price to be paid.
I learned my craft in an unconventional setting, and I perfected it through formal training and professional application. When I was a child my schedule rotated around who was providing my childcare. My grandmother was a private duty nurse, and most of my days were spent alongside her while caring for her nursing home patients. I learned everything from feeding the elderly to entertaining the elderly. On Saturdays, they would have sewing parties in the nursing home lounge area in preparation for the annual craft fair. It was right there, smack-dab in the middle of Mrs. McCloud and Mrs. Fisher that I learned how to front stitch, back stitch, and then take-off. Every year for Christmas, thereafter, I asked for sewing supplies and machines.
My first client, a famously mononymous persona by the name of Barbie, was a faithful fit model. One design led to the next, and before you knew it I was designing seasonal mico collections. Being the nurturer that she was, my grandmother registered me for the children’s courses at the Rhode Island School of Design. There I learned the fundamentals of figure drawing for my fashion sketches, color theory for my fabrications, and advanced sewing techniques to elevate my petite creations. Years later as a professional student, I completed eight years of educational training. I obtained a Bachelor of Science in Fashion Design & Apparel Merchandising from Georgia Southern University, a Master of Arts in Illustration from Savannah College of Art and Design, and a Master of Fine Art in Fashion Design from Savannah College of Art and Design. Ten years ago, this was the highest educational advancement you could achieve in my field, yet I still knew nothing close to what I know now. Most of my acquired knowledge came from industry experience and daily practice.
If I could go back in time to speed up the learning process, I would definitely take more of a “blinders on” approach. I grew up with the social expectation that you must blend in as much as possible. I can honestly admit that approach has never helped advance my career in any way. The fashion industry is like a beauty pageant. If everyone shows up with the same talent then no one will stand out to be the show’s crowned glory. It is better to show your unapologetic raw self in your work so that your talent would prove to be worthy of an opportunity. Staying true to yourself will not only keep you unique in an industry based on self-expression but it will also help you maintain your peace and sanity.
I think the most essential skill is resilience. At the beginning of my career, I remember submitting five hundred job applications just to obtain one interview. Looking for a job was a full-time job. In addition, back then, many design firms would have you work on “design projects” that would last two-three weeks to determine if you are worthy of the job. More than a little I heard, “You are not commercial enough or this is not sellable.” No, after No, I would get back up, and face the world again holding fast to my vision of success. It remained to be the driving force behind my determination. I could see myself working the dream job, and having the dream life. Little did I know that my vision of the dream job went beyond Read-To-Wear. It wasn’t until I visited the designer’s ateliers of Paris, France that I knew it is ok to fail at being basic because my true design aesthetic was couture. From that point on, I was never discouraged by my lack of practicality when it came to designing tee shirts and jeans. Everything that I create is unapologetically unique, rare, and slightly Avant-Garde. Sometimes it takes you leaving a geographical location to understand that your gift is bigger than what your current atmosphere can help birth. I built Ashley Alves Collection on the sole basis of exclusivity and regal opulence.
I find that comfortability is the sole reason for stunted learning. I myself am a victim of the habit all too often. I will research new techniques and get stuck there, doing the same thing until I break the pattern. Designers have to be their own worst critics to force continual growth and maintain a standard of excellence. If you work in a corporation, comfortability is even more of an obstacle, because top management likes patterns. Patterns are comfortable. Patterns are quantifiable. Anything new is full of risk, thus executives will always delay new ways of doing things. When I was working in the corporate fashion industry, I would often ask my supervisor if I could take a training course in whatever new cutting-edge concept the industry was currently gushing about. Every single one of my requests were met with a “NO” for budget reasoning, but considering our department would spend hundreds on happy hours and employee’s birthday parties it was clear the “NO” was for two reasons. One, they didn’t want you coming back implementing these new-age theories with an uncalculated risk that may result in potential margin loss. Two, the manager doesn’t want you getting any smarter. It threatens their status and may potentially lead to additional requirements being expected of them. People like comfortability, and just as long as there is comfortability there will never be growth or in this case educational advancement. Metaphorically speaking, life is comfortable as a hamster on a wheel, and not as an eagle exploring new horizons. The first step in overcoming any obstacle is identifying the source of it. Remedy it by leaping around it. Because taking risks in search of knowledge will always be rewarded, and once you have it, it can never be taken away.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
My name is Ashley, and I am the Designer, Founder, and CEO of Ashley Alves Collection. Ashley Alves Collection is a sustainable brand created on the belief that nature, art, and fashion can come together to help restore the balance between our planet and humanity’s impact on it. My goal as a designer is to produce items that infuse opulence and glamour into the sustainability initiative.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
One lesson I have had to unlearn was saying “Yes” to everything. Being a child of Generation X parents, I was always told to do what was asked of me with a humble spirit. But, whoever said humble meant doormat! I said “Yes” to everyone and everything, and all I ever found in doing so was continual exhaustion of mind power. It wasn’t until I was able to acknowledge that I was constantly volunteering myself to be taken advantage of, that I was able to begin some real soul searching on life trajectory. Saying “Yes” to everyone and everything had me completely depleted physically and emotionally. Honestly, I couldn’t even create basic stability for myself. Years and years of “Yes!”, “Sure!”, “No problem!” cultivated an approval-seeking mentality. I gave so much away that I was left with nothing. I never even stopped to think that I was working to achieve other people’s goals more than I am my own until I was alone and at rock bottom.
So here I was just turning thirty, thinking about three major questions. Where did the time go? What do I have to show for the years I have lived? Am I happy with where I am at? Writing the response out on a sheet of paper made me realize that my accomplishments were few and far between if they were even unquantifiable at all. Also, emerging from those responses was a clear pattern of reasoning for my life failures. I said “Yes” to everyone but myself. At thirty, I was in between jobs, homes, and even states. I was all over the place attempting to be everywhere for everyone and everything. I had zero clarity on what my dreams required of me. My mind was too busy being full of requirements that others had for me, which took me off the path of destiny work more than once. Learning how to say “No” didn’t remedy all my shortcomings, but it undoubtedly helped me make time for improving myself. Once I got used to gracefully bowing out of unnecessary demands on my time, I started to regain my life back.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
A creative career is living by prayer. I truly believe non-creatives don’t understand that an illustrious career in the creative sector is born through inconceivable pain and incredible sacrifice. Passion and pain are one in “destiny work”. For creatives of all disciplines, it has always been a struggle to obtain notoriety in conjunction with being paid fairly for our work and service. This job requires just as many work hours, if not more than the average nine-to-five, in addition to being incredibly labor-intensive. It is a non-stop commitment. More times than often you are working sixteen to eighteen-hour days for fifteen minutes of gratification from watching your manifestations grace a catwalk. Truly ornate creations require time, technique, and passion, so it is very frustrating when people disregard the discipline. I am a luxury, not a necessity. Expecting a creative to produce without having bread to eat is sheer lunacy. As a people of the 21st century, we truly need to get rid of the preconceived notion that creatives deserve to live the starving artist lifestyle. It is incredible that artists, designers, and makers working for 18th-century monarchs received more in wages than what we see as an equivalent in the modern-day workforce. As creatives, our artful contributions to this world are the fruit that awakens you to higher consciousness. Esteem the maker and make the investment … without a discount code.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ashleyalvescollection.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashleyalvescollectionatelier/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AshleyAlvesCollectionAtelier
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyalves/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/A_A_Collection
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5kfClMkyfFXfJ8SE_JTXzA?view_as=subscriber
Image Credits
Photography by Redon Dublin Malanda