To break the daily monotony that comes with working a regular nine-to-five job, two teenaged friends are using themselves as an example of how youth can break the societal mold.
Last month, Semiahmoo Secondary students and best friends Morgan Kelly and Hayden Rivas, both 16, started an online clothing line. The duo said they spent multiple evenings working early into the morning to establish their brand, which they fittingly called Nocturnal Class.
“We find that people get super trapped in a nine-to-five. We find that people think it’s their only option. Go get a good job and sit at a desk. If that’s what you love, that’s OK,” Kelly told Peace Arch News this week.
“We want people, especially youth, to not feel pushed to have to do something like that. There are so many jobs and unconventional jobs that you don’t think about.”
Kelly and Rivas both define themselves as nocturnal. They sometimes find themselves on school nights discussing their business until 2 a.m. over video chat.
They agreed that finding time to do the business has been a challenge while balancing their other responsibilities.
“Especially since we’re going to school and we have all these extra-curricular activities. We don’t want to get trapped in that,” Rivas said. “We want to go against what’s normal and show that we can do what we want to do.”
Both teens agreed that they see themselves as setting an example for other youth.
“We just thought it’s so sad that people got into that mentality of dreading the work week and hating what they do on a day-to-day basis. We said instead of complaining about it publicly, lets just work to change it as a society,” Kelly said.
The designs featured at nocturnalclass.com have been created by Kelly’s brother Quentin Kelly, 24. The clothing is all printed locally.
The company did its first “release” on Oct. 17.
“We’re trying to do a release every three weeks to average it out. Our first release, we did one T-shirt. It was just a sample to see what people thought, get the name out there,” Kelly said.
The most recent release, completed last week, featured two styles of T-shirts and two styles of hoodies. The duo is planning another release for early December, which will feature crew necks, T-shirts, long-sleeved shirts, a hat and a hoodie.
“We want to do different collections and different vibes for each collection,” Kelly said.