(Photo: Antoine Manning/Courtesy of Antoine Manning)
DeKalb, IL — Artist and fashion designer Antoine Manning knows that life is too short to be working towards someone else's goals and not himself after experiencing the loss of his father six years ago.
That’s why he’s chasing his dreams through his streetwear clothing brand Homage Year.
“From there, I just started painting and I started poetry and I started different art forms, and then I got into clothing,” he said.
The 22-year-old describes his clothing brand, which was created in 2015, as streetwear and high fashion at an affordable price. His creations also have an implicit sociopolitical message attached to them.
“With my clothing brand, I'm pushing towards merging streetwear and high fashion, and also keeping things affordable because I know when I was in school, I couldn’t afford certain pieces because I was a kid,” said Manning, who is based in Georgia and New York.
Manning’s items range from a “Such Love” Skully hat to a “Year Zeus” chain to “Year socks.”
His latest piece is an Homage Egg Bag handbag that didn’t take long to create. It is a two-tone vegan leather bag available in peach or avocado. After announcing his latest creation on Twitter, he didn’t expect to receive over 13,000 likes on his Tweet.
“I was overwhelmed because it was a mix of it being my birthday already on that same day,” he said. “When I first posted it, I was like ‘Okay, this isn't doing anything,’ and then it started getting some numbers and I'm like ‘Wow okay, maybe this will be it.’”
Manning wanted to create a bag that was a different shape but could still fit essential items and serve multiple purposes with adjustable, detachable straps. Bringing the bag to life and communicating his ideas to the manufacturer was the trickiest aspect of creating the bag.
“Thankfully, everything came out very pretty smooth and perfect,” he said.
Manning is inspired by clothing brands such as Comme des Garçons and Yeezy, and close friends and family.
He plans to continue working on his clothing brand along with individual art pieces and poetry so he can infuse them into his apparel.
“Right now, the brand is still very much attached to me like it’s my child and so my goal and where I’m going to bring it is to where Homage is its own entity brand that’s separate from me,” he said.
Being an artist and clothing designer at a young age requires patience in bringing his ideas to life and successfully selling his items, he said.
“At the end of the day, when someone has something that I've made or that created I want them to look into themselves and to self-reflect on how far they've come from where they were and to even just look into themselves and figure out what they could work on and how to improve themselves,” said Manning.