By Hannah Samlall
When it arrives to chasing your dreams, there is no time like the existing. Kelsy Dominick of DiDomenico Design and style in Haymarket was operating a federal government task soon after graduating from Virginia Tech in 2013 with a double important in Worldwide Experiments and Manner Merchandising and Style and design when she started off earning dresses as a pastime. Speedy ahead to today, and acquiring just celebrated its seventh 12 months anniversary, DiDomenico Design and style is the chief in tailor made dress couture in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan location. Kelsy’s story is one particular with a prosperous cultural track record that need to encourage us all to abide by our desires.
Kelsy was just 9 many years aged when she acquired how to sew. “My mom taught me to sew and my father taught me about artwork,” she reported. “I was attracted to nearly anything artistic and just about anything outfits-similar. Finally, that culminated in my drive to important in fashion style.” Shortly soon after graduating, she took a governing administration job but was left emotion unfulfilled.
“I recall sitting powering a desk and feeling undervalued,” Kelsy said. “It was a blessing in disguise because it pushed me to make a choice about what I desired to essentially do. I never wished to really feel that way once again. I wished to experience in management of my future and what I was doing.”
For the 1st yr of company, Kelsy juggled her federal government job with generating dresses for pals on the side. A person day a good friend sent her a link for a fashion exhibit in New York Metropolis. “I used and listened to back again at the past minute,” she said. “I imagined to myself, ok I obtained into this significant present. Now I have to truly make the outfits. I had just 3 months to design a complete collection and current it at New York Manner 7 days.”
After that, issues took off really immediately. “We bought invited to go to a vogue show in France,” Kelsy claimed. “It was heading to cost $40,000, so we started out a fundraiser known as 40k to France. We’ve now carried out exhibits in a number of different countries and have been the initially Us residents to do a fashion exhibit in Cuba after they lifted the embargo.”
Prior to mastering how to sew, she was no stranger to hardworking craftswomen. Kelsy, who grew up in Haymarket, is of African American and Italian descent and will come from a prolonged line of entrepreneurial gals. On her Italian side, her good aunt crafted robes on a stitching equipment from 1914 that sits in Kelsy’s studio these days. On her African American facet, her grandmother ran an upholstery enterprise to assistance her 11 young children. In addition to working the business enterprise, she manufactured clothes for all of her kids, as well.
The name of her small business, DiDomenico Layout, includes the original surname of her family before it was Americanized. “It indicates the Day of God,” she claimed. “It was one thing I preferred to incorporate. I felt it was a representation of the reward that God gave me.” The symbol for her organization, to no shock, also has spouse and children ties. “It was my grandmother’s signature. Everyone known as her Queen Eleanor,” Kelsy said. “In the final yrs of her everyday living, she lived with us. I experienced her in my photoshoots and I incorporated her into a ton of what we did.”
In addition to her enthusiasm for her heritage, Kelsy feels incredibly strongly about philanthropy. “I grew up going on mission trips. I experienced a purpose of performing one particular just about every other 12 months,” Kelsy reported. “In 2015, I commenced a journey to ‘Sew the World’ with my trusty sewing machine sidekick. Through this task, I frequented 20 international locations and styled picture shoots just about everywhere from the middle of Egyptian deserts to 60 toes under the floor of the ocean.”
In the decades since then the challenge has developed into so considerably far more. “My reasoning powering executing this is deeply rooted in my belief that ladies can triumph over insurmountable items,” Kelsy explained. “I have generally watched strong females in my everyday living regulate households, birth babies, and nonetheless hold powerful professions – still construct businesses.” Now, Kelsy travels all above the world educating women how to sew so that they can start off their own companies and gain their possess cash flow. “Women have so numerous unique roles that are so large, they must be specified each and every opportunity to make these circumstances much better,” she reported. “I want to be equipped to aid women arrive at their best stage of self by techniques they can genuinely use, whether or not it is below in the US or abroad.” To day, Kelsy has taught extra than 250 females all over the globe to sew.
Kelsy’s information for generating your dreams occur accurate? “It’s possibly ‘one day or working day just one,’” she reported. “When it arrives to chasing your desire, start off yesterday.“ She hopes to move this mentality on to her daughter, Cora, as well.
For additional data on DiDomenico Structure, visit didomenicodesign.com and observe the business on Instagram @didomenico_design and style.