We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dricka Necole a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Dricka, appreciate you joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
By the time I was in 6th grade, I can remember coming to a clear conscious understanding and knowing that I would like to pursue a professional career that allowed me the freedom to express myself in ways I couldn’t before and that would additionally compel me to provide a meaningful service to others in honoring the same freedom of expression through the utilization of my artistic and creative ability.
Growing up, I was raised in a home where self-expression of certain feelings and emotions weren’t welcomed in the manner you would’ve hoped. If it was something positive, it was communicated and expressed openly, however negative feelings or emotions were not as openly communicated in a way that you would consider healthy. As a child, after the discovery of my artistic ability at the age of 3, I soon turned to art to fill that void of self expression. Almost as a calming mechanism for me. For instance, if I was upset about something I would draw to help relieve the pressure of feeling upset.
Drawing and creating things with my hands and really just being able to indulge in my world of imagination was sacred to me. Not long after discovering my artistic ability, I started to become a major critique of my clothes/shoes that my mom would have prepped for me in the morning during my days in head start. I begin looking for other ways to express myself artistically, so I believe that’s when my love for art transferred over to my passion for clothing and fashion. However, my freedom of expression was not only restricted vocally, but also physically. Having no space to express myself the way I wanted, especially in being able to dress myself how I wanted to dress, led me to indulge even more in my creative ability. I eventually began drawing fashion pieces. Making up wardrobe ideas in my head and drawing them out to imagine myself wearing whatever it was I drew.
Over time I begin generating the ideas of being a stylist to extend a helping hand to those who, like me, yearned to find ways to express themselves in manners that made them feel good. I then generated the idea of having my own fashion line to make clothes the way I wanted to make them and to make clothes that people could love and feel good in.
I care so much about this because I feel like as humans, amongst a broad of other things, all we have is our selves and to communicate ourselves to the world and those around us, we do so with our voices and our appearances for how we show up for the world and those around us. Clothes are our second layers of skin and that is why to me fashion is an extension of art. And as a fashion artist, I am also a giver who believes that my natural born ability to be artistically talented through the works of my hands and my visionary strength is Gods gift to me, in addition to my natural ability to be sensitive and empathetic as a giver is what compels me to pursue such a career and it is the very thing that I shall compel to the world.
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?
With the discovery of my love for fashion and my artistic abilities at such a young age, throughout my journey of growth in maturity and self awareness, I knew that if this was something I was surely passionate about and if I was going to make a career out of it, I had to make a plan for myself and I had to take that plan seriously. Every move I made, had intent behind it. From my jobs to my degree choice. 6th grade was when I confirmed it with myself on what it was I was going to do with my life. I was going to be an entrepreneur who had a styling business and their own fashion line.
From there on it was researching what to study to extend my knowledge and understanding on how to pursue such a career because I knew I wanted to stay in school. I loved school. It was my getaway from stressors I dealt with at home. I remember coming across New York Fashion Institute of Technology and having such a drive to go there. I remember printing all the information out and reading it over to my mom, but tuition was much too high so, I figured what if I stay in my hometown to attend FSU or FAMU to save money. I had a big sister that attended FSU, so I found the inspiration to attend there as well to follow in her footsteps. At the time, I didn’t see anything at FSU regarding anything relevant to what I wanted to do so with a little bit of discouragement, I figured I could at least just go to school for business which led me to turn my attention to FAMU, being that accordingly to my research, had the best business department. I was accepted and offered full ride, along with a scholarship for my testing scores. It wasn’t until I attended a College fair at TCC during a field trip in high school that I came across an older lady at a table that highlighted the “Retail Merchandising and Product Development” degree program at FSU. It was that moment I found hope in attending FSU. Excitedly I remember doing all the research on the program prerequisites and requirements and had them printed and ready. I did apply to FSU, but sadly never heard anything back so I went with a Plan B to attend FSU to complete the required prerequisites and joined the TCC to FSU program to stay on track of my inspiration of attending FSU.
Before taking off to college, I knew I was going to be my own financial support, so I researched jobs that could help me get my foot in the door of working in the retail industry. If I was going to be an entrepreneur, I knew I needed to have a certain skill set like how to sell products and how to deal with people. I got the opportunity to work at Jason’s Deli as my first job out of high school after not having any success getting a retail job as my first job. It was disappointing but I knew that I had to start somewhere and it was a good somewhere to start to develop those people skills at the least. It was long before in on the job when I discovered I wanted to work another job to improve my financial placement in life and hopes to sustain a career in retail. I was given the opportunity to work at Bath and Body works as my first retail job, which then led to me working at Express Factory Outlet, to Nic’s Toggery, J. McLaughlin, Dillard’s and now Jos. A. Banks Men Clothiers which after 8-9 months in I was promoted Store Manager.
All my time working full time and attending school full time, I was able to learn and apply what I learned at school to my work to expand my knowledge and elevate my retail business mindset. Working in retail also allowed me the extension of researching the wrongs in the industry through the businesses I was working with. This gave me the opportunity to generate ideas for my fashion line and my styling business by really getting to the nitty-gritty of what people needed and how I could find the “rights” to those “wrongs” of the retail industry.
All of this brainstorming has helped me and is still helping me develop my brand, “D. Necole”, an all sustainable luxury designer brand for both men and women of all shapes and sizes. It is a brand that is still underway I must say, but I believe it will be legendary and a revolution for the people of this world. My brand will be the brand that promotes inclusion and equality for all. It will be the brand that thrives on collaborative efforts and engagements on social, cultural and ethical issues in the world to let the people in the world know that they are heard and not alone. My brand will provide products that are ready to wear from sleepwear to formal wear. D. Necole will also provide services such as tailoring, to provide an extensive experience for the clients.
As a fashion magazine collector as a child I also developed in 2019 my own fashion magazine, “Dricka Necole’s DEVISE”, that promotes the same vision and mission statement as my brand. My fashion magazine is also currently underway as we speak as I am finding new and better ways to elevate it to take it to the next step of potential. Despite my businesses being underway and still in development phase, I can say that they are my proudest moments. To know that I was the one God gave this dream and vision to. It’s what I remind myself of when self-doubt creeps in. I want my potential clientele to know that there’s someone that cares about them and their needs and I, Dricka Necole, have a desire to fulfill those needs through my love for fashion and ability to create. However, it isn’t my being as an Artist or a Creative that sets me apart. I believe that it is because I am a Artist/Creative that’s dedicated and has a drive and grit to take such big responsibility within my hands to create a movement of positive change in the industry that has played a major role in the contribution of inequality and unethical practices amongst individuals within our societies and communities.
As a thriving Entrepreneur, I am committed to making that my duty to all my followers, potential clients and fans.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
I liked when Jay-Z said, “The goal is not to be successful and famous. That’s not the goal. The goal is, if you have a specific God-given ability, is to live your life out through that.”
My ultimate goal in life is to be happy. I believe that a key to being happy is doing what I love and what I love to do is live my life out through my passion for the arts of fashion in a meaningful manner that’ll allow me to perform acts of service. As you can identify is a love language of mines. My creative journey has rewarded me the opportunity to perform several meaningful acts of service through fashion styling that not only allows me to utilize my creative ability, but my knowledge and understandings of my collegiate studies as well. Doing so is allowing and has allowed me to pursue my mission of my creative journey, which is to develop the mindset of Business Owner/ Entrepreneur. My creative journey has since elevated with the rewards of my dedicated career journey in the retail industry by honoring me the opportunity of a Store Manager position that is helping me apply my mindset as a Business Owner/Entrepreneur.
What I do makes me happy. And I will continue to do what makes me happy as a Fashion Entrepreneur in the near future.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect to being an artist/creative for me is to be able to help another with my ability to create. I help style many clients with my work for many occasions like Prom, Weddings, Gala’s, Interviews and so forth. To assist in them looking good and feeling good is so rewarding for me.
As I mentioned previously, I am a giver. I’ve grown to understand that I have natural instinct to give to and nurture others. And so I believe that my calling as an artist/creative is to be in service to others in a productive and balanced manner.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/DrickaNecole
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/ne.coleworld?r=nametag
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sedricka.morris
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/mwlite/in/sedricka-m-b57618bb