After spending much of his free time creating purpose behind his clothing brand Eternal Peace, OH senior Valentino Thompson is well on his way to achieving his entrepreneurial goals.
“The slogan is ‘Styles for Serenity,’ as in fashion for peace or finding peace through our fashion,” explained Thompson. “Everyone has their own style, and I want everyone to be able to wear our brand.”
Despite coming across roadblocks such as time and money as a busy high school student, Thompson only works harder to create quality products for his brand.
“The first collection I’m trying to drop is called ‘Find your peace’ and it’s a collection of five items, each with a unique style intended for different personalities,” said Thompson.
Thompson’s creation of his brand’s loving and accepting message began in combination with his creation of Eternal Peace’s logo.
“About a year ago, I was just fidgeting and I made this shape with my hands, and it kind of looked like a heart. That shape is the same one on the skeleton hands in the logo,” said Thompson. “Those hands were my whole vision for Eternal Peace.”
Since the creation of his logo, Thompson began to experiment with different means of production.
“When I started, I was putting the logo onto clothes with an embroidery machine, but then I realized that was just going to take too much time,” said Thompson.
Despite having to scrap his original plan, Thompson still hoped to create all of the clothing on his own. However, getting more equipment presented another issue.
“I had to go the manufacturing route because of the [equipment] cost,” explained Thompson.
Thompson has also been working to perfect the designs of his first collection, which will be dropping soon. Despite the release, his dedication is not going away anytime soon.
“I did ‘Chapter one: Find your peace’ and chapter two is going to be summer clothes, and I want it to tell a story,” said Thompson. “The chapters are more meaningful[ , especially with the whole ‘Finding your peace through our clothes’ message.”
By creating Eternal Peace, Thompson has developed experiences with websites and marketing that will help him with entrepreneurship in the future.
“Since I see a future in this, whatever I put out now is going to stick with me for the rest of my life,” said Thompson. “I’m going to college for Digital Marketing and/or Entrepreneurship, and I might join a business fraternity so I can meet people and work on my networking.”
Dedication and hard work has resulted in success for Thompson so far, but it is not easy. He dedicates himself to his work even when everything gets hard.
“It is definitely a lifestyle if you want to be doing so much, you seriously only have so many hours in a day,” said Thompson. “It’s about discipline: even if sometimes you don’t want to do it, you have to keep trying.”
My name is Jessica VanVooren, and this is my second year on the 42Fifty publication staff. I am a senior in high school. I am a part of the OH National Honors Society (NHS), the National Art Honors Society (NAHS), and the Quill & Scroll (Journalism) Honors Society.
Obsessed, such a cool spotlight on a deserving student
Such a good article!! You did a great job drawing attention to an amazing entrepreneur!!
[…] team alongside his involvement in the Science National Honor Society, and Programming Club, and runs his own business. Next year, he plans to attend the University of Illinois […]