Meet Clyde Singleton | Student

We had the good fortune of connecting with Clyde Singleton and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Clyde, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
My thought process for my brand was to create a community that inspires others to acknowledge themselves by encouraging differences. I want my brand to get people thinking. Growing up my mind was only on playing basketball. After every school day I’d go looking for runs, but when I could no longer play basketball I began to change. I went from playing basketball everyday, to school and work. I felt lost and thought life was only about work. Lucky for me, I had many people open up to me and share their life stories. This made me realize everyone is different, and no matter what others may say or think, always be you. Thanks to them, they changed my mindset on life. I’m not the most social person, but I knew I wanted to spread my message in hopes of helping anyone out that feels lost in life. Lucky for me again, my step-mom introduced me to designing clothes. I thought this would be a perfect way to share my message. 

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
What sets me apart from others is my desire to improve.  My step-mom taught me the basics, but I have no formal experience with designing. Everything I know is from criticism or trial and error. Every piece of clothing starts off as a blank, the rest is done at home in my little work space.This is only the beginning of my fashion career and I hope to keep improving my work. I’m excited to see what I will learn next and how I will be able to implement it into my designs. Some lessons I learned was to stay attentive, consistent, and forget normal. Being attentive is helping me reach my target audience, I always get my target audience’s opinion while making designs. Staying consistent has helped spread my message and kept me focused on my goals. Forgetting normal has helped me be open to ideas and gain an understanding for almost everything. My goal is to create a community that inspires others to acknowledge themselves by encouraging differences.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I like to sit by the lake, light house beach or the rocks, also I like to hoop. Mostly I’m a homebody, I prefer to chill and conversate. When I’m not home it’s usually to grab food. I like buffalo joes, phi phu linh, uptown pizza & BBQ, harolds chicken shack, village inn pizzeria, Sushi payce, the broiler, and many more.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Shoutout my step-mom for introducing me to the designing world. Shoutout to my models/critiques, they help me spread my brand and improve my work. Shoutout to my family, they are my biggest supporters. Shoutout to everyone I met at MATC, 2018-2019, they pushed me to want more. Lastly, big shoutout to tee shotz, without him I wouldn’t have a role model, photographer, or had the opportunity for this interview.

Website: beyoudifferent.com

Instagram: beyoudifferent

Facebook: Different

Image Credits
Tee shotz photography