About Me
Born in the south side of Chicago but raised in small Greenville, MS. The desire to pursue fashion as a career happened after a classmate asked him to sketch her prom dress. Her inspiration was a form fitting knee length black dress worn by Dorothy Dandridge. She requested updates to the look. She wanted a cut-out at the stomach but still wanted the classic silhouette. He took her inspiration and request and immediately sketched her dream dress. When he provided her the sketch she took it to a seamstress to be made. When the garment was complete his classmate showed him the finished product and this sparked the desire within Jonathan to pursue fashion as a career.
Jonathan attended Delta State university in the fall of 2000 for a semester. Where he majored in computer science and minored in fashion merchandising. The computer sciences courses didn’t catch his attention but the fashion merchandising courses further piqued his interest in fashion design. There he learned the different market classifications within the fashion industry. There were limited fashion classes at Delta state. So the desire to learn more pushed him to move to Chicago, IL in 2001 to attend Columbia College. This was short lived due to Columbia College tuition fee being quite expensive. However, he didn’t allow this to deter him from pursuing his dream career.
After dropping enrollment at Columbia College, he attended Olive Harvey where he got his general education requirements. He later transferred to Governors State University where he obtained his bachelors in communications. Shortly after graduation he got a job at the Social Security Administration. But he never lost sight of pursuing a fashion design career.
He purchased his first sewing machine and began teaching himself how to sew and purchased books to learn basic sewing techniques and how to read store bought patterns. He ended up choosing a pattern that was difficult for a beginner sewer and at this point he realized he would have to sign up for sewing lessons.
He enrolled in sewing classes at Hancock fabric in 2007. There he learned the basics of operating a sewing machine and how to read basic sewing patterns. The first project was a simple pair of pajama pants. Completing this project further fueled the fire within to learn more. After a couple sessions, he soon enrolled in sewing classes at EWS Academy. He re learned how to properly control the fabric as it sewn on the machine and virtual hand sewing techniques. He eventually found another class where his sewing skills were truly fine tuned. He enrolled in classes at Tchad sewing. There he got a more in-depth understanding of how to read store bought patterns and basic sewing machine usage. He also learned how to draft patterns and learned more hand sewing techniques.
After learning as much of the basics at Tchad sewing. He found himself having to make a decision to enroll in Illinois Institute of art Chicago to major in fashion design in 2015. There he excelled in the courses. This further increased his appetite to continue down the path of pursuing fashion as a career. He eventually had to make the difficult decision to put his pursuit of education on hold since work and school schedules began to conflict with each other. However he continued to keep designing in the forefront of his mind. Jonathan Is Currently Working To Expand His Brand And Follow In The Footsteps Of The Many Great Designers That Have Come Before Him.
“Fu$k the rules! Just wear Jonathan Thedford!”