Ikey Ajavon
Ikey Ajavon
Founder, Believe Divergent
Brooklyn, NY
Tell us about your brand, Believe Divergent, and how you came to found the company.
After the George Floyd incident this summer, I got a boost to start being more active in the community, specifically by creating educational content. My Master's dissertation was based on subtle racism and high fashion advertising. I use a lot of the information I got from that to create YouTube videos and other videos to help educate people, or at least share some of the knowledge that I had- but I felt like making something tangible would be potentially better in the long run.
I've always had an interest in fashion and figured t-shirts would be a great way to share messages that help start conversations. I could also use some of the money from the profits to donate to Black-led nonprofits. The idea was to make something tangible that people can purchase, that will also have messages that will help remind them of what's going on and keep the conversation going.
Describe a typical day on the job.
It's a side job (I still have a full-time job). It’s a lot of nights and weekends of maintaining a website, producing content for social media, managing orders, packaging, fulfilling orders, things like that. I’m trying my best to share helpful information so that people who do follow us on Instagram, Facebook and other platforms can get as much information from Believe Divergent as possible.
How do you stand out in your field?
I like to think of it as a really personal touch. I think one thing that's often lost in business is there's a big disconnect between who the founder is and the people actually buying the product. That’s why I like to be as much a part of the conversation as possible. I make weekly videos addressing our followers and our customers - everything I put out is from a personal perspective. It sounds like it's coming from a person because it is. I think having that extra personal touch can really bridge the gap between what feels like the world has become like there's just so much distance between us and who we buy from. I like the idea of a “we're in this together, I'm here to work with you, and you're here to work with me” kind of situation.
WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON RIGHT NOW?
We dropped new designs a couple weeks ago. As for the future, the idea is to expand beyond t-shirts to become a full-fledged clothing line. We only launched a couple of months ago so that would be farther down the line. It’s definitely something I would enjoy doing- designing clothing and using the influence of marginalized groups like fuel to design.
WHAT'S YOUR STYLE/PERSPECTIVE/TASTE? DO YOU HAVE A PROJECT THAT REPRESENTS THIS?
My brand features a lot of black and white right now to put the focus on the words and messaging associated with the clothing. As far as my own personal style, it’s more about looks that are a bit more eye-catching like bold statement pieces that will potentially make someone’s head turn.
We all have multiple skills or work in various industries, which one do you wish you could focus on more?
I would love to hone in on the skill of video making and video editing. I get to do some stuff for my YouTube channel now but I would really love to expand even to something like producing music videos. I think that's a really awesome and unique skill to be able to take someone's idea, especially through music, and craft this film around it for people to enjoy.
WHAT IS FRUSTRATING YOU RIGHT NOW?
The lack of empathy from certain people in regards to some of the issues I think a lot of people are facing in this country, things that are very apparent that a lot of people either don't care about or don't choose to look into. It's frustrating to see how much that divides us in general.
What is inspiring you right now??
The amount of people that have come out in support of these important topics that, for example, I cover for Believe Divergent. Basically supporting and trying to champion any and all marginalized groups, whether that's Black or LGBTQ, or women...it's really exciting to see so many people are still excited and willing to put their self interest aside to help the greater good.
LET'S BRING OUT THE TIME MACHINE. WHAT DO YOU WISH YOU COULD HAVE TOLD YOURSELF, WHEN, AND WHY?
If I could go back to college, say when I was 20, I would tell myself to get more involved with social justice causes earlier. I had a really solid childhood and I was just kind of coasting. I think learning about these issues earlier would have given me a different perspective on life. I'm happy where I am now, but I think it'd be really interesting if I could go back and be like, ‘hey, look at this stuff now’, to start making an impact on your community or the people around you at an earlier age.
IF YOU COULD TALK TO AN EXPERT TO GAIN MORE INSIGHT ON SOMETHING, WHAT WOULD IT BE ABOUT?
I would love to talk to any and all fashion experts about how they got to where they are, how they built up their inspirations and created their clothing lines. I think it's really inspiring to see. I've been watching more and more documentaries on these topics. It's really interesting to hear how they explain where they come up with their ideas, and how they use different influences to create different lines and all the meaning behind it, so it'd be really awesome to sit down with some experts and hear how they go through that process.
DESCRIBE YOUR IDEAL JOB/CLIENT/COLLABORATION.
Shooting for the moon, I’d like to collaborate with Kerby Jean-Raymond of the brand Pyer Moss. He is one of my biggest inspirations, just for some of the things he’s done with his brand and the way that he connects it. It was really bold and early to the gate for using the Black experience through fashion to help explain and shed light on the issues that are being shown. I think the way he does things (especially with his shoes), but also the different outfits and collections he's created, it would be an amazing and really cool collaboration. His bold style and some of the aspects of his work resonate really well with me on a personal level.
Tell us about your dissertation.
I was in England for my Masters between 2018 and 2019 at Manchester Metropolitan University. The Gucci blackface sweater scandal happened around the time to start choosing topics for my dissertation. I was talking to my supervisor and asked how something this bad could get through all the way to the runway without running into some issues along the way. The idea kind of sparked from there. The purpose was to investigate if this was something so overt and blatantly portrayed as something that can be perceived as racist, how much subtle racism skips by that nobody really sees, though they're affected by it implicitly.
We were prompted to focus on specific brands, so I focused on Gucci because of the sweater. It was really cool to dive into the history of fashion, the history of racism in this country and the media and their influence (as far as implicit bias, and basically priming us our whole lives to think about certain people in different ways). I also did a deep dive into the actual ads that the current creative director did for all those years, Alessandro Michele.
One of the main parts of my dissertation was examining and investigating each image from all the campaigns in the five or six years Michele has been creative director to see how many people of color are there, how many token people are in those situations, how many people are there from different races and ethnicities, etc. The results were as I expected but actually a lot more shocking than I thought, in terms of the lack of diversity and inclusion included in these images. When I talk to people about it, they're always like, “well, maybe it's just the way that it is”, but with advertising, you get to craft the image from scratch so they're just choosing not to put people in the style. It’s as if you went out to the street and took a picture and there were only White people. It's like they chose to make this campaign with only White people over and over and over again. It was really eye-opening to see the kind of things that people don't recognize unless they're actually looking for them, that was one of the coolest insights.
How does your dissertation affect what you're doing today?
It’s well connected. Last year, when I was writing my dissertation, I think I was like most people writing dissertations thinking it sucks to be doing so much writing. But after being locked inside for quarantine this year, and having all this time to think about the issues in this country, being able to look back on that and see the implications of how much the subtle things that people don't notice unless they're looking for them affect us every day, is one of the reasons why Believe Divergent is what it is today. One of the main core purposes of it is to get people to think differently to look at the bigger picture. When you take a step back and look at things objectively and critically, you can start to see all the little things that are working together in a way that is not good. For example, “Believe Divergent” is synonymous with “Think Different”. It’s a play on words to get you to look outside and look at the details. I think enough people kind of skate through life, and there's so much there that we can address.
Who is a creative that has helped you elevate your work?
My friends and my sisters have always been really supportive. I haven't been able to collaborate in the way I was hoping to thus far, but at the same time, juggling jobs is difficult. I would love to work more with people and different creatives. I have a lot of ideas for what I could do in that sense. But so so far, it's been basically myself and my friends, which has been beyond amazing. There have also been a few TikTok influencers who’ve seen some of the things I've made, and they purchased them on their own and promoted them in that way. The support has been wildly more than I thought it would have been. It’s been great.
HOW DO YOU STAY CREATIVE?
I stay creative listening to a lot of the music that inspires me or gets my mind gears going. I’m basically always taking note of things that I see that could inspire me in making designs for shirts. I’m always looking around and making sure that when I see something that's really cool (like on Instagram), that I file it away so I can go back and look at it later. I literally listen to music 24/7. My taste is kind of all over the place. I like to listen to rap and hip hop and R&B. I played the cello for eight years. I love classical music, rock, indie and pop 40.
This member profile was originally published in November 2020.