How I Started a Clothing Brand in College

Before ShopTheSilkiest became a clothing brand, it was a nickname.

Back when I was a sophomore in high school, me and my varsity basketball teammates started posting dance videos on TikTok. Somehow they started going viral around New York private schools and basketball circles. Overnight, people who had never spoken to me before suddenly knew who I was. They started calling me “Mo Silky.”

At first, it was just funny to me. A cool nickname.

But over time, “Silky” became something deeper.

When people think about silk, they think smooth, relaxed, confident, effortless. Somewhere along the way those associations fused with my identity. As I got older and started understanding myself more, I realized being “Silky” was really about authenticity. There is only one version of me on this Earth. If I spend my life trying to be someone else, I rob the world of what makes me unique.

That realization eventually became the foundation for ShopTheSilkiest.

I officially started the brand in October 2023 when I was 17 years old and a junior in high school. The first item I ever released was The Silkiest T-Shirt, which is still on the website today. Back then, the brand was basically just my merch. I thought it would be cool to create clothes around a nickname people already associated with me.

But the deeper meaning behind the brand came later.

As I learned more about fashion, I started realizing how powerful clothing really is. Fashion has always been bigger than fabric. Throughout history, art and fashion have shaped culture, represented movements, and told stories that people could not express any other way.

Every culture on Earth has its own visual identity. I am Senegalese, and traditional Senegalese clothing like bazins has always been beautiful to me. The colors, textures, tailoring, and craftsmanship communicate history and pride without saying a word.

That changed the way I viewed clothing entirely.

I realized clothes tell stories.

And I wanted to tell mine.

A huge reason I even had the confidence to start a business came from my family. My mom owns a business called Fa African Boutik, and growing up around it shaped me in ways I did not fully understand until later. Helping my family taught me discipline before I even knew what entrepreneurship really was.

I learned how to work when I did not feel motivated. I learned leadership, customer service, salesmanship, organization, marketing, and communication skills long before I ever started ShopTheSilkiest. I learned what it means to build something from the ground up.

Most importantly, I learned that everything worthwhile is hard.

My mom did not choose entrepreneurship because it was easy. She chose it because it was meaningful to her. I realized I was making the same choice.

When I launched my first drop, I was terrified.

People see clothing brands all the time now, especially online, so it is easy to underestimate how vulnerable it feels to release something you genuinely care about into the world. I had put so much thought and energy into the brand, but I had no idea how people would receive it. I was scared nobody would buy anything.

At the same time, I was balancing basketball, academics, and building the brand. Basketball taught me that you cannot cheat the grind. Real progress takes time. But because of that mindset, I constantly felt like I was not dedicating enough time to any one thing. If I focused on basketball, I worried I was neglecting the brand. If I focused on the brand, I worried about school or sports.

I felt stretched thin all the time.

Still, I kept building.

One thing I knew from the beginning was that quality mattered. I did not want to make disposable clothing. Fast fashion already trained people to accept low quality products that fall apart quickly and get thrown away. I wanted to create pieces that felt intentional and lasted.

That is why I chose heavyweight cotton instead of polyester.

Cotton is natural, durable, breathable, and biodegradable. I wanted clothes that people could wear repeatedly without them losing structure or comfort. I also wanted the clothes to reflect the values behind the brand. If I said ShopTheSilkiest stood for quality and authenticity, the garments themselves had to embody that.

The silk-lined hoodies came from personal experience too.

For people like me with afro type 4C hair, friction causes breakage. Most hoodies are not designed with that in mind at all. So I thought: hoodies are meant to be worn every day, so why not make them protective too? Why not integrate silk lining into the hood itself?

“The Silkiest” could not just exist in the name. It had to exist in the details.

Over time, I also started thinking more deeply about what kind of world I wanted the brand to represent.

A lot of modern streetwear feels driven entirely by money and instant gratification. I do not necessarily blame individuals for that because I think it reflects a larger cultural problem. People want everything immediately. Trends move so fast that originality gets lost. Real craftsmanship, storytelling, and authenticity take time, and many people are no longer willing to invest that time.

Fast fashion is just one symptom of that mindset.

I wanted ShopTheSilkiest to stand for something different.

That is where concepts like authenticity, community, and abundance became central to the brand philosophy.

When I talk about abundance, I am talking about rejecting self-limiting beliefs. I truly believe God placed everything we need on this Earth already. The world is beautiful, and human beings are beautiful creations too. When you learn to appreciate the greatness around you, you begin recognizing the greatness within yourself.

That perspective changed my life.

Believing that I truly could have the life I dreamed about changed the way I approached everything: basketball, school, business, relationships, and my future. I want other people to feel that too.

The same thing applies to community.

Growing up Senegalese taught me the importance of communal values. In a lot of Western culture, relationships become transactional very quickly. People start viewing each other through utility instead of humanity. I think hyper-individualism is one of the reasons people have become so disconnected from one another.

We forget that we are part of a larger human community.

Our differences should not divide us. They should make us more interesting, more powerful, and more connected.

I want ShopTheSilkiest to represent that mindset.

The first time the brand truly felt real to me was when I walked around campus and saw people wearing “thesilkiest” on their backs and on their pants. People I did not force. People who genuinely connected with something I created.

That feeling is impossible to describe.

Seeing someone repeatedly wear something that started as an idea in your head is surreal. It still makes me happy every single time.

Because at that point, it stops being merch.

It becomes culture.

And that is the biggest misconception people have about ShopTheSilkiest. While I am “Mo Silky,” the brand itself is bigger than me. It is not just merchandise attached to a personality. It is a manifestation of the values, experiences, and philosophy that shaped me.

I want “Silky” to become a movement.

I want people from every background to feel proud of themselves, confident in themselves, and comfortable being authentically who they are. I want people to understand their value beyond money, status, race, nationality, or social labels.

I especially want people who come from backgrounds like mine, Black kids, children of immigrants, kids from low-income communities, kids from the Bronx, Muslims, to know there is greatness inside them already.

The world does not always expect people like us to win.

But we can anyway.

And maybe that is what being “Silky” really means.