Meet the 14-yr-previous style designer from North Potomac

Wearing a person of her have layouts, Chloe Ayissi-Etoh is surrounded by clothing she produced in her at-home studio. Image by Michael Ventura

A year in the past, Chloe Ayissi-Etoh didn’t know how to sew. But this spring, in a school auditorium packed with far more than 900 individuals, the teen soaked in thunderous applause as a bona fide trend designer.

In a purple gown she’d completed perfecting just minutes earlier, Chloe adopted styles who’d walked the stage at Walter Johnson Higher School in Bethesda in 9 seems to be from her very first assortment, under her brand name chlolanà—a mix of her initially title and center title, Alana.

For Chloe, an eighth grader at the time, the vogue show was a significant accomplishment. What created it even far more spectacular was that she’d experienced just 4 weeks to style, sew and in shape the dresses, pants, shirts and corsets she’d sketched for various overall body forms. The present was held in the course of a retreat for the Minority Students Program, a group led by Montgomery County Public Schools students which is functioning to near the achievement gap.

“I didn’t have time to even sleep—I got among two and 4 hrs a night,” suggests Chloe, 14, who life in North Potomac and attended Robert Frost Middle Faculty in Rockville. “It was incredibly busy, but if I’m set on one thing, I’m likely to do it no matter of what any individual claims and no make any difference how insane it sounds.”

The manner present was so perfectly acquired that it gained an encore effectiveness two months later on as aspect of Robert Frost’s 50th anniversary celebration. Robert Frost science trainer Sunila Varghese, who co-sponsors the school’s chapter of the Minority Scholars System and has known Chloe for two many years, notes that the teen managed two assistants and two makeup artists through the display, and also choreographed walks for the versions, all fellow classmates.

“You could hear a gasp when the [audience] listened to she was 14. My heart was just total,” Varghese says. “She’s a very vivid and talented lady, and whatsoever she does, she’s a rock star at it.”

Chloe functions on her designs in a basement storage area that she is converting into her sewing studio. Image by Michael Ventura

Chloe, a mounting ninth grader at Wootton High University in Rockville, describes her aesthetic as mostly monochrome with a pop of color—“a combination of streetwear and stylish.” She attracts inspiration from trend brand names which include London designer Home of CB, recognised for its figure-hugging pieces.

Chloe turned interested in style in June 2021 right after getting into thrift-retailer buying and seeing TikTok movies about upcycling outfits. She soon commenced getting stitching lessons from an aunt. Plenty of several hours on YouTube followed as she soaked up sewing and style terminology.

When faculty started that tumble, Chloe suggests, she no for a longer time wanted to dress in sweats and hoodies to class. She promptly became identified for her individual styles, even earning a “Best Dressed” award from fellow eighth graders in a university student survey. “For some cause, I just became a fashionista,” she suggests. “I would go into my closet, glimpse at some dresses, set together an outfit, and it would change out awesome.”

Just because she’s no more time donning sweats and hoodies in the hallways does not imply Chloe under no circumstances attire down. But even then, she suggests, she puts a spin on her search. “Honestly, it is dependent on my mood,” she states. “If I sense further that day, I’ll make a definitely added outfit for that day at school—maybe spice issues up with some superior-waisted flare pants and [a] turtleneck with an underneath-bust corset.”

Describing the process of deconstructing a garment as “beautiful,” Chloe previously this calendar year took out a zipper and ripped up the seams of a pair of stretchy pink shorts she bought for $2 at a thrift retailer. She then  added interfacing and made an below-bust corset she often wears to university above a white costume shirt. “My mother doesn’t like that I have this kind of a big obsession with corsets,” she admits.

Her mom, Katrina, 45, states she endures constant style information from Chloe, her only daughter amid four children. “She does request if she can fashion and gown me, but I explain to her, ‘No, get out of my closet. I’m fantastic,’ ” Katrina suggests. “But possibly this summertime I’ll question her to make me a shirt.”

Chloe strategies to develop into a designer with her possess line of middle- to higher-finish prepared-to-use garments. She claims she finds inspiration everywhere and recollects after devising a color-blocked streetwear glimpse from a ladder propped from a wall in French course. She is converting a basement storage room at her house into a stitching studio with mild pink partitions, white tables, heaps of inexperienced crops, and a indicator bearing her manufacturer name.

Katrina, meanwhile, is striving to reconcile that the daughter she has observed hop from 1 hobby to the next—though Chloe however enjoys to bake and cook—now looks fully commited to a future in trend. “The Lord need to do the job in mysterious methods,” she suggests. “Never did I see this one particular coming. … She enjoys what she does, and you cannot acquire that.”