We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lalayena Peralta. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lalayena below.

Lalayena, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

The name of my clothing brand is Over Thinkers Club, and it’s actually quite funny how it came about. I had just finished a photoshoot with my longtime friend and amazing photographer Chris Chen, and after the shoot we went to grab a bite to eat. Mind you this was back in 2016/2017, and we always have had deep conversations, him and I. Well while we were grabbing. our food, we start venting about life, and how complex it is for us all as a whole. How we all have our own personal struggles we face, but also how we over think, every single thing we do. And during this conversation he says “we should start a club and mind as well call it Over Thinkers Club”. I literally remember stopping him mid convo, and telling him, “damn, that would be such a dope name for a streetwear brand”. Fast forward to 2023, I STILL held onto that vision, that dream, and launched my own streetwear brand and named it Over Thinkers Club.

And now here we are, 3 collections released, and now currently working on the 4th and 5th collection.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My journey started very early on. I want to say when I was 8 years old. I always knew I wanted to do something fashion based. At a very early age I was always drawing, creating my own clothes, trying to wear items in other ways that made them more versatile. I can remember just always being a creative in any way shape or form. Those creative passions then led me to getting recognized in high school and winning the “best dressed” award, still keeping that creative flow alive and only grew stronger from there. I then took my passion to college at Cal State Los Angeles where I ended up graduating with my bachelors in Fashion Design and Merchandising.

Throughout my college years (I want to say as early as my freshman year), I actually began freelancing as a stylist for various clothing brands. It started for primarily women’s wear, when one day I was reached out to by a mens wear clothing brand. A streetwear mens line to be exact, asking to style for them, and I hadn’t worked with mens clothing ever, but menswear had always intrigued me more than women’s wear for some odd reason. I agreed to the gig, showed up on set, my creative mindset instantly started flowing with ease. It was like I knew exactly at that moment that, that style was where my calling belonged to. I love styling as a whole, but at that moment I just knew, I felt, that menswear was where I was really passionate about. Streetwear to be exact. From that shoot I styled at, I slowly began picking up more gigs for streetwear brands. My freelancing side job ended up helping me to land a job on Fairfax with a menswear line and I continued to work both my stylist job and on Fairfax for some time.

During those years of freelancing, working on Fairfax, and still going to college, I attempted to launch my first clothing brand. It was a chic women’s wear line, This was also before I had styled for menswear at the time, so I thought that was the direction I had wanted to go. Purchased all the items for it, had the shoots for it, but something in me didn’t feel right nor confident, so I never launched it, I didn’t allow that to stop me though. I knew I was meant to be in the fashion industry and have my own line so a year later (when I heavily got into fitness and was a competitive bodybuilder), I attempted to launch my own fitness wear line by starting out with hats, Same scenario happened where I made all the product, created the marketing for it, and again, still didn’t launch it because it just didn’t feel right.

I am big on energies, intuition, and I knew my passion for fashion was there, but couldn’t quite pinpoint what exactly was missing to get me there to feel like “this is right where I belong”. I ended up taking a huge, like HUGE break from anything fashion related to see where my mind, creativity, led me. After having my daughter back in 2o22, I felt even more lost, until one day while she was sleeping, I decided to just pick up my IPad pen and just started sketching. My daughter was and is still my biggest reminder to hold onto that inner child that I have, that we all should still have, and that’s what pushed me to just create something, anything to feel creative again, because for a second I had felt like I lost myself. So, late that night I started sketching again(like old times), and drawing clothing, and I started drawing menswear, streetwear. It was at that moment I had that initial feeling like before, “this is where my calling is”, and I decided to launch my own streetwear brand the following year 2023 Over Thinkers Club. I have sold out of items for the last 3 collections I have released, and I couldn’t be more grateful.

I am now currently working on collection 04 for my brand and I finally feel like this is where my passion belongs to. It took some time to get here (2 failed brands and a lost identity), but it was all worth it. Sometimes you have to fall (fall hard) in order to have a greater comeback, There is no rush, if you’re passionate about something, don’t lose sight of it.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Oh it has been one hell of a road. 2 failed brands and then completely feeling like I was lost. I didn’t know who I was or where I belonged for a long time, especially after having a baby. I felt more confused and hopeless than ever. It’s not that I felt like giving up, I DID at one point give up. I mentally hit a low where I thought, “maybe fashion isn’t for me or my calling”. But thankfully for my daughter, she was a solid reminder that I still had that inner child creative in me still there, needing to express herself. I feel like sometimes we just need to step away from the bigger picture to really see what we’re missing. And what I thought was “missing” all along was there in front of me. Fashion is my calling, my home, my passion, and to not lose sight of that.

When you know you have a calling for something, your passion is there, your motives are present, nothing will stop you, even if you do step away momentarily.

So shoutout to my daughter for that beautiful reminder.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

I am most proud of the marketing of the brand. A ton of thought process goes into the marketing, the branding, the video and photo concepts, I feel like a lot of my creativity goes into the marketing (aside from the designs) when capturing the life of the brand. The persona of the brand. I love creative directing for the brand. I get so in detail, down to choosing the right song and even down to a specific part of a song to really captivate whatever mood and tone I am trying to set for each collections marketing videos. It truly excites me!

Prior to shooting any media for brand, I will literally sit somewhere and put my playlist on shuffle, until I come across a song where I can visualize concepts for each collection. I am such a visual person, I really like to make sure I can envision a story that the brand is trying to tell through video and photos, so I truly take the marketing to heart. And I feel like that alone is what draws in our customers is how detailed we treat our campaigns for each collection, I really like to ensure every photo, video concept we shoot tells a story and shows that its more than just a clothing brand, but it’s a lifestyle brand, a cultured brand.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://overthinkersclub.shop/
• Instagram: @overthinkersclubclothing and @pandafitchick

Image Credits

Nick Powers
Jane Powers
Skye Akari
Scarpace