We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Arielle Simmons. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Arielle below.
Arielle, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
Formonsa Designs started as a college class assignment for CAD in design. We were assigned to create and present a design brand. The name origin stemmed from a dorm room conversation with my friends. We were helping a friend brainstorm some ideas. He shared that he wanted to use Latin names for his characters. I found that idea unique and it inspired me to try it myself for my assignment. Formonsa is Latin for beautiful or handsome. It had a nice ring to it, however my professor thought it should reconsider the name for pronunciation reasons. I decided to stick with my decision. Eventually I was encouraged to start an etsy store by another professor after finding my love for fabric dyeing. I have extra fabric to create hand dyed silk scarves and jumped straight into entrepreneurship. This journey has its highs and lows. I was excited to start something of my own vision. My goal was to create something beautiful so that my clients feel beautiful. I wanted my brand to reflect the brand name and what it represents. Formonsa Designs was created for clients to be their own kind of beautiful and sustain high self esteem.
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 back background and context?
A Michigan artist/ creative with a a degree in Fashion Merchandising and Design: Design/Development. My start was when I opened my etsy store to sell hand dyed scarves and accessories. The goal was to start a fashion and dye house for women of all sizes. Recently, I moved to the artistic side and created painting with the flowers made from recycled fabric using the Japanese kanzashi method. Since embracing this side, I found a new love and different opportunities and met awesome people. I am beyond excited to have had my work displayed in galleries in Kalamazoo and hopefully other places. I still am holding on to my fashion dream, now I just have more to show the world.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
Embracing who you are instead of imitating someone else.
This is a tough thing I had to realize. For a long time I didn’t like who I was a person and would try to be a version that someone would like, think or do. Needless to say, this “version” that I created didn’t last long and it took a toll on my mental health. Until I was reminded one day how I was beautiful and fearfully made in Jesus so I don’t need to be anyone else or a version that someone would like. I won’t be everyone’s cup of tea and that’s fine. All I know is that in Jesus, to Him I am more than enough.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
Last year I made a decision to return to art for the purposes of better learning fashion design. I hoped that this decision would birth new ideas for my business. I took what I learned in making hair accessories and put them on canvas. The result created this new an unique designs to add to my portfolio. Painting with fabric became a new favorite past time.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: Ads_colorsanddesigns
- Facebook: Formonsa Designs
Image Credits
Joe Borrello