Daily Orange Sports Staff

Daily Orange Sports Staff

Authors: Maddie Kramer, Maya Bo

Daily Orange Sports Staff

Alaysia Styles created her personal clothing brand MyOWN in November 2020.

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During the first six months of high school, Alaysia Styles and her family were homeless. The family lives on a $400 e-benefit transfer budget, and Styles questioned why her family did not have what the white students in her community had. Her mother, La Russell, used these opportunities to remind Stiles and her siblings, “If they work hard for it, they can show anything they want in their lives, and everything is for a reason. Good and bad." 

So in November 2020, Styles created her "MyOWN" clothing brand to support single-parent families. This idea came about when she ended her career at the University of California, Berkeley, when the pandemic and the nationwide "black life is also fate" protests inspired Styles to come up with a way to help her community . Her mother said that the growth experience of Styles played a role in the creation of the brand. 

"This is where MyOWN comes from," Russell said. "Know your purpose. As far as she is concerned, her struggle established her purpose." 

Styles is now the overlord of the Syracuse women's basketball team, with colorful hair, tattoos, and toughness that is hard to ignore. She helped the Orange team to a 6-4 record, including a victory over the 18th ranked Ohio State University. But off the court, people found that Styles continued to incorporate new ideas for her clothing brand.

When Styles founded her clothing brand, she had to find a way to differentiate her company from other companies. She grew up with Russell, her brother Bryson, and her brother Rimani in San Diego, and they always feel that the sense of the world of Styles is more important than the surrounding environment. 

"The life I live doesn't seem to be different, because it's all I know," Styles said.

Maya Guzman | Director of Digital Design

After playing for three years in California, Styles moved to Maryland, where her clothing brand took off. In the first three months of working with Terrapins, Styles took full advantage of her online courses and started creating MyOWN content when she had time. From creating prototypes to figuring out which type of clothing material works best, or which font is best for her clothes, Styles used time to turn her ideas into reality. Former Maryland teammate Zoe Young said that Styles likes to show off the brand's prototype to other Terrapins. 

"I remember she mentioned it in her conversation in the locker room," Yang said. "When she showed us her design, we immediately became excited because the idea and product are so great."

Then in March 2021, the MyOWN website was officially launched. Styles bought a Cricut machine to print her clothes, cut the heat transfer vinyl by hand and printed phrases on her clothes. She has produced five different shirts and two sweatshirts, and she plans to launch two more round neck shirts and a hoodie.

  Such clothing items include phrases that represent her personal values, such as "in my own world" or "I define myself", which illustrates the perseverance and power Styles uses to expand their horizons and ways of thinking.  

"I spend most of my time in my own space and world, so I think this will be a cool hoodie design," Styles said.

  The brand's website includes a "message" section located in the "how to enter" tab that allows visitors to send Styles messages about their stories and any financial help they may need-a struggle that Styles is very familiar with. She takes any income generated by her company and recycles it back to the single-parent family.

"I want to make the world a better place. I really want to make people feel better," Styles said.

  After earning a master's degree, Styles plans to learn how to sew clothes and move to Los Angeles. She also aspires to be a filmmaker, creating documentaries and Hollywood movies about self-expression and personal stories, while still pursuing MyOWN.

"I know there is another side to ordeal," Styles said. "I want to see the other side of the mountain, I promise I will."

Published at 10:55 PM, December 8, 2021

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