Today we’d like to introduce you to Harley De Oliveira.
Hi Harley, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My name is Harley De Oliveira. I was born in Brasil in a small town in the state of Goias, it’s mostly a rural area with 3 big cities. If you compare it to the United States my state is considered to be like Texas. Growing up I had two dreams of what I would be when I grew up, which was to be a pilot and also a Fashion Designer, since an early age I would go to the news stand and buy the Japanese fashion magazines that would come with the video cassette tape of all the Japanese fashion shows. I would wait for everyone to sleep so that I could watch the shows as I wasn’t allowed to show that I had interest in fashion while growing up because I lived in a very strict religious family and that wasn’t allowed for a boy. There was an army base in my city and after high school at the age of 16 I was going to join their pilot school program. However, after some medical tests I found out I had a problem in my left eye inside my retina that opposed me becoming a pilot as I couldn’t see properly from that eye. That result rerouted my destiny, therefore I convinced my parents to allow me to go study abroad as an exchange student. That summer, still at the age of 16 I left Brasil. I moved to Boston and enrolled at Newton North High School where I studied for two years in high school. At the end of those two years I didn’t want to go back home and I wasn’t able to go to college due to financial problems and family support. I moved to Cambridge, got a job and went on living my life. At the age of 22 I decided to move to New York. I felt that Boston had become small for me and it was time to expand and make a change. Moving to New York helped me bring back my passion for Fashion and after dabbling in many random jobs I started working multiple jobs in the Fashion Industry and finally started creating my art again. At the age of 25 I came to the conclusion that I had to go back to school to get a proper education on Fashion. The ideas were all there, however many times I lacked the ability to transfer the ideas I had in mind to creating a garment. At the age of 26 I enrolled at the FAshion institute of Technology (FIT), where I was able to take classes like pattern making, draping, sewing, drawing and many others. This accomplishment really put an excitement back in my life. After that I worked for a small designer in the garment district where I was able to see how the development of a brand in New York is, especially since all the production was done in New York. There, I learned so much, from getting a button or getting buttonholes done to dealing with all the many showrooms my boss dealt with, to getting the product in the hands of the consumer. I also worked at a consignment shop in the East Village for about 7 years where I learned so much about the resale of luxury fashion and the many different designers/brands and their signature styles. Once Covid hit I lost all my jobs and since I had the experience with the resale business I decided to open up my own resale business and run it from my working/fashion studio. For the past 3-4 years I have been running this side business, creating my Fashion garments and joining fashion organizations to show my work in a Fashion Show setting, as well putting my garments at stores throughout New York to sell and throwing events to expose my Fashion work. I feel like my journey still has a long road to unveil and am excited to discover and live it.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There have been many victories up to this point as well as many obstacles/challenges I had to overcome so that I could get to where I am today. When moving to the USA my first big challenge was the language. Even though I studied english in Brazil for about 3 years at a private school when I moved to the USA, people would say hi to me and I would have no idea what they were saying, the pronunciation was extremely different from what I had learned. The culture was another obstacle to overcome and on top of those two big challenges I was just finding out about my sexuality, these were all very intricate challenges for the road ahead of me. I was brought up in a very conservative Baptist Family in Brazil and all of sudden I had to deconstruct everything I knew to relearn things to be able to survive and find out who I am. Besides these challenges, to top it off I was in a new land and living on my own. I would say that these have been the biggest challenges I had to deal with in a period of 7 to 9 years. Financially I have always struggled. I was on my own the moment I left home. Especially when I moved to New York was very tough, as in Boston I had already made a small circle of friends and had a sense of “community” and now I had to start all over again. I really thought when I moved to New York that things were going to be a lot different. I had this illusion of how life was going to be, living in the best places and going to all the glamorous parties but it was quite the opposite. I couldn’t find jobs and I ended up getting a job as an electrician assistant, if you ask me If I knew about electrical work the answer is none, I don’t even know how I got that job, now I know a little. I also found a place to live in queens. This did not bring me happiness and I did that job for a whole year, however I knew if I wanted to stay in New York I had to do anything to stay here, of course anything honest and still following my ethical morals. After that I did a few jobs in the restaurant business where one night after my boss had cheated me of my tips I made a decision to never do a job that isn’t related to my passion even if I had to struggle again to start over on creating another resume. My first job after that and now in my field was at a small clothing boutique at the limelight mall, it barely paid the rent and I had to live off “dollar pizza” for a while but it brought me so much happiness. I finally was doing something I loved and was located in manhattan.
When I decided to go back to school I worked for 7 days a week as I was paying school from my own pocket, had two jobs and a few random jobs I would pick up to fill up the monthly budget. I went to school at night classes right after one of my jobs which ended at 6 pm and classes started at 6:30 pm, some classes would go until 10is-11ish and I would stay in school after school to do the homework as I wouldn’t have any other time as my shifts on my other job was from 9am- 9pm, some days I would get home at 3 am, as if anyone has experience the subway system in NY after midnight, a simple commute from downtown to uptown could take 2 to 3 hours. This period of my life was very hectic and filled with obstacles, however it was the happiest time in my life as I was finally living my dreams. Now that I am able to create a whole Fashion Collection with the knowledge I acquired throughout the years, there are still many obstacles to overcome, the biggest one of them is to get my work and name out there, while the other obstacle that follows is having the budget to create freely. Life has been filled with ups and downs but now that I am an adult I wouldn’t want it to have gone any other way as all these obstacles have made me grow and who I am today. I am very proud of what I have accomplished so far and am looking forward to the future Harley.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My creations are rooted in the nexus of art and fashion – the artistry of fashion. The fabrics of my sustainable creations are interwoven with the power of artistic development. I hope to blur the distinctions between hard and soft, organic
and man-made, figurative and abstract, by incorporating in my designs unconventional materials that are reclaimed, repurposed, up-cycled and salvaged such as bottle caps, plastic table cloths, orange mesh plastic bags, recycled toys, and dead stock fabrics. My mantra is “reuse to revive the world”. I hope to be
a role model in the movement to reverse the fast fashion trend trekking material to the landfill and to establish a slower fashion foundation in our world. I draw inspiration from nature, its varying colors, shapes, patterns and textures to inform my work. Each piece of my unique, hand-crafted art is infused with both life energy and intimacy, be it raw silk as gossamer as a butterfly’s wings or denim, strong yet pliable. My models have walked the runway carrying fresh fruits, metaphorically symbolizing ever-changing organic life.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
My journey began in my early 20’s with my desire to embrace change in the fashion industry production cycle, altering the traditional process of studio to factory to showroom to store and ultimately to consumer. By eliminating the factory and creating one of a kind artistry, I would revise the trajectory
cycle and focus on sustainability. I had worked for a few “traditional” designers after attending the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) for two years, gaining experience in design, merchandising and window display; I then realized I must find my own path in the sustainable world. Lacking an infusion of financial support, I began sourcing materials in flea markets, finding unique, affordable items I could utilize. I combined the technical skills on garment construction I acquired at FIT with my creative vision and, in my early ‘30’s, I inaugurated my line and began experimenting with different media that would work for my design brand. I created corsets from bottle caps and avant-garde designs focusing on denim and expanding to boned creations in organically-themed shows with many visual surprises.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://harleydeoliveira.com
- Instagram: @ harley_deoiveira
