Aki Charland ’19, a member of Kidokoma, modeled for the club’s latest Fall-Winter Collection, which sold out in fifteen minutes.
When Kidokoma’s latest collection dropped on January 26, it sold out completely in the first fifteen minutes. The collection featured many pieces designed by students, from vibrant red t-shirts with the word “Kidokoma” displayed on the front to black hoodies with bright yellow letters that spelled out “KID.” The club, led by Ian Hurley ’19 and Sam Yoon ’19, is currently working on a 2.5 collection dropping this spring.
“We focus on having clothing that is still individual; we focus on making sure each shirt has a different color scheme, that no two shirts are alike, and that there’s a little bit of improvisation on each shirt that is a bit creative,” said Yoon.
Founded on campus last year, Kidokoma is a club whose members shop for thrifted clothing, which are re-designed and embroidered. The members then model the finished pieces, and host a pop-up store. With a core team of around five to seven students, Hurley and Yoon are in charge of facilitating and spearheading designs.
“[We] have people who are actually making the prints itself, we have people who are learning how to embroider, we have people who are learning marketing, advertising, modeling, and photography, and also the selling aspect of it. When you have a shop, [we also learn] how to manage the prices, budget the stock, manage the supply and demand and [find] where that balance is, and make sure we make a profit,” said Yoon.
The production process starts with blank clothes, often bought online in bulk. After that, members will come up with ideas for designs and pitch them to the group.
Minji Shin ’20, one of Kidokoma’s main designers, said, “We try to accomodate to each other, but not in a strict way. We give ourselves the freedom of creativity and see how it turns out; if we can fix or change the designs, we can fit [with] each other’s designs because we have three different designers. It’s not going to always go smoothly, but we’ve been [working] pretty smooth for this collection because we just respect each other’s creativity and what we come up with.”
The price range for the clothing varies from around 15 to 70 dollars. The club emphasizes originality and uniqueness with their more expensive pieces, as they are tailored to fit the buyers’ likes and interests.
“[For] the clothes that are more individually designed, we focus on each piece when they are more expensive. [Each piece has] its own individuality so it’s worth the price. We don’t want to sell expensive clothing that everyone else is going to have. If you’re going to buy a 70 dollar sweatshirt, you better believe that it’s going to be your own sweatshirt,” said Yoon.
According to Shin, Kidokoma is already planning their next collection and has some ideas prepared.
“If you follow us up on Instagram, we’re always posting clothes and stuff that will be for sale or that will be available in shops but the main plan is to have a shop by next midterm,” said Hurley.
