From blackboard to Chalk
Oakhill learner’s clothing range is the talk of the town
In between preparing for her end-year exams, a Knysna learner has found the time to launch her own fashion line.
The 17-year-old Oakhill School student Hannah Verrier launched her clothing range "that is unlike any other found locally" in Leisure Isle on Saturday 19 October, showcasing neutral colours, comfortable materials, "tattered edges or faded colours" and ultimately all things vintage, appropiately named Chalk.
After she and her family wrote and crossed out about 20 names for her label on a blackboard, her mother Audrey came up with the name, saying, “I suppose because we had been writing with it for so long." "When she said it, I loved it and knew it was the right one,” Hannah said.
The youngster said she has loved fashion since shopping visits to the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town when she was about nine years old, how she was fascinated by the different fabrics even at that age, while trying on different items.
Verrier said when she started feeling like herself in the clothes she wore, she knew she had found her style: “I however noticed that there weren’t enough stores in our area that sold good-quality clothing for girls my age and I tried collaborating with a company from New Zealand and import their stuff but there wasn’t enough interest.”
She said her dad Michael then mentioned a Johannesburg designer he knew, who might be interested in doing a line with her. “Lynn Deckers has been such a light and a safety net ever since. She has opened my eyes to what the industry is all about and has included me in every step, from the patterns. Since the beginning she understood what I liked and has fully let me take the reins with the line,” Hannah said before the launch.
What sets Chalk apart from any other line in town, Hannah said, is that there is "nothing like it" in Knysna or Plettenberg Bay, and that they have now closed that gap. “It’s the details that sets my clothing apart,” she added proudly.
She regards completing the production as her biggest achievement: “It is so much harder than everyone thinks. You can go through a year’s worth of designing dresses and they arrive from the factory with all their buttons sewn on the wrong way – Lynn calls it 'the factory life!'.”
Her biggest challenge? Stressing about whether it will all work out, whether people will show up for the launch and whether it will be well received, Hannah said.
The determined fashionista said she wants to open an online store as soon as they have made enough profit.
On how she balances schoolwork and her passion, Hannah's answer was short and sweet: “There’s time for anything if you work hard enough – busy people get the most done.”