Growing up, I never found a person or community to model myself after.


I showed myself to the world in pieces, but there was no place I could be my whole self.

I started making clothes in 2021. My first project was a pair of camp shorts I designed myself. They were awful. I have pictures, and you can’t see them.  

As I started building a collection of garments, I wore them out whenever I had the chance. People started asking me about my clothes. Those conversations produced some of the relationships I cherish most now. I met my friend Kamran this way, and after over a year of friendship I met his mother. We realized somehow she was my mother’s classmate in Tehran. We called my mother together. That was the first time they had spoken in almost 50 years.

Making clothes for myself felt different than shopping for them. I wasn’t trying to find something. It could be whatever I wanted it to be. I struggled for so long finding what was right for me among the pre-made, far beyond just clothes. To instead ask myself: if I could make it myself, what would I make?  changed everything. Making clothes first helped me understand who I wanted to be. And when I began to grasp who I wanted to be, they served as a method of communicating that to the world.

When people would ask me about my clothes, many would say something like: I’ve always wanted to sew. Many of the people I met I really enjoyed talking to. So at some point, I told one of them: I host a weekly sewing night at my house, you should come. I wanted to be their friend, and it seemed like meeting a stranger out somewhere and saying let’s be friends had a low follow through rate. They said yes, enthusiastically. That was great, except I didn’t host a weekly sewing night at my house. So I started one, and begged some of my close friends to come so it wasn’t just this stranger and I.

Sewing night became a consistent weekly event. People kept giving me sewing machines for others to use, I made cookies (almost) every week with tea, and over time regular attendees kept learning and started making real, functional garments from scratch. At some point, I realized: sewing night was the first time in my life I felt like my whole self.


I started making clothes for other people with consistency a year ago. I try to keep the stack of projects in process moving, but the stack of projects I would like to take on continues to grow. I am often overwhelmed by how little I know and how much I have to learn. But I am fortunate to be surrounded by people and community that is rooting for me and supporting me in so many ways.

I remind myself often that none of this is actually about the clothes. The clothes are just a vehicle. I believe most things are just a vehicle. First, to understand oneself. Then, to figure out how to show that to the world. And finally, to connect and build relationships with people



Thanks for listening-

Kayvon Kousha, 7/18/2025