Today, the world is drowning in influencers, collaborations between celebrities and labels, merchandising and people aspiring to be fashion designers but who are not willing to put in the work that it requires. We can all see when someone launches a collection but doesn’t care about it, right? The lack of personality that the collection can reflect? Yeah you know what I mean. It happens too often.

Because of this incalculable number of brands offered, how can a real designer emerge from all of that, manage his vision and succeed? We can all imagine how hard it is to launch your own brand now and that cancel-culture is a real thing. If you plan to put your work out in the world, you have to be very careful and to know what you’re doing.

I believe that this is the case for Jarold Ceus, the 20 years old fashion designer, photographer and overall businessman born and raised in the Parisian suburbs, who created his own streetwear brand OneWay when he was 17. I know it’s a bit cliché but let’s not forget the wise words of Drake ‘Started from the bottom now we here’. When interviewing Jarold, that’s the main thing that could really grab your attention. He started using photoshop before he was 15 to create logos and graphic charts for YouTubers, pretending to be an adult (there’s already a problem there, was it because he feared to face issues if someone knew he was underage or because we often tend to not consider the works of young people as real work?).

After that, he co-founded an online store of jewelry and glasses at 16 (the store’s Instagram account has now over 10 000 followers and is among the leaders in the sector, as he noted and decided at 17 to create his own clothing brand, which was his ‘one and only goal’.

Besides starting to work at a fairly young age (yes, I’m stressing that a lot but that’s still pretty impressive!), Jarold is a hardworking man that doesn’t give up when a problem comes his way. “Since childhood I knew that I didn’t want to work for someone other than me, I didn’t see myself being anything else than a business owner,” – in his own words. Since he became particularly interested in fashion at 15, he knew that he had to work hard to make his only goal into something real. In this sense, he started learning anything he could: the process behind the creation of a clothing brand, how to translate an idea into a sketch, how to structure a collection, which materials to use, which business partners to bring into the process, how to manage cash, establish a marketing strategy, sell effectively…. ‘If I had to list the things that I had to learn during my two years of learning before launching my brand, I would never finish that list’.

It’s good to put in the work to create what you envision, but what is his artistic vision in all of that? ‘The essence of my brand? I would just say to portray my vision of things. I only see OneWay as an extension of my own persona. Through my designs, I convey my personality, my opinions, my way of seeing what is essential in our society. I don’t make clothes for people to like, I make clothes that I like.’

But what inspires him? It’s not other people’s work, nor other’s personalities. Jarold is inspired by what surrounds him, what he can observe in nature, the human behavior, how our world works. But he can also get inspired by his friends and family, and any idea for him is welcomed. However, the city of Paris is his main scope of inspiration. ‘This city inspires me. I grew up there and I know it very well. I have the impression that an artistic atmosphere emerges from it, its inhabitants are so creative. Even more than in Paris, it is its suburbs which are full of the most creative, original minds. I have been in New York and I have a lot of friends there, but I do not feel what I feel in Paris. New York inspires me nothing, although it is a city full of talents.’

Thanks to Millennials and Gen-Z, we see that our world can evolve for the best and that talent can be found anywhere, whether it be in a big city or in its suburbs. When you see that small young designers manage to launch their brands and immediately think about the sustainability of their work and how can everyone help each other in their work, how small communities emerge from all that, when big luxury brands managed by old white men are escaping the controls of their level of sustainability and workforce’s wellbeing, it can be annoying. The fashion industry as a whole is the second most polluting industry in the world after oil. ‘Knowing that I inevitably participate in this pollution worries me’, says Jarold.

But the man who got his brand approved by the labels Fair Wear, Global Recycled Standard, PETA, Global Organic Textile Standard (and clothes made from 100% vegan materials and manufactured at 80% from organic natural or recycled synthetic fibers) doesn’t stop at that point. He is currently trying to switch to an entirely European production, which is not the case at the moment.

Above that, fashion isn’t his only area of interest. He had to start photography to make his brands pictures because of a lack of money to pay for a professional photographer, but fell in love with this form of art and is now shooting friends and developing his vision through pictures. ‘By seeing a photo, I can tell you if the photographer likes diversity, colors, if it’s a cheerful person or on the contrary, a rather reserved person. I literally fell in love with this art form, perhaps much more quickly and clearly than with fashion’.

In the end, it may be time to give recognition to all the young people working from where they are on their art and their visions of life, and to support them. We are the generation that has the most power upon the decisions that are made nowadays, we’ve seen that we are capable to cancel literally anyone that we wanted to cancel (I’ll let you decide on if cancel-culture is a good thing or not) but it is clear that we can make ourselves heard. So why not use this power to uplift each other than burying people’s heads in the sand? ‘I am lucky to have a small community of people who follow me for my work and who share what I produce by encouraging me on a daily basis. It does me a lot of good, because if I do what I do, it’s not for money or fame above all, it’s because I want to inspire as many young people as possible’.

Words collected on the 19th, May 2020.