When art and fashion is in your blood, your perspective of the world is colorful and full of endless curiosity and inspiration. This harmonious blend was infiltrated in Lovely Atis’ life at a very early age. Growing up, she was fascinated by her grandmother’s abilities to turn fabric into clothing, and her father’s portraits of his homeland backdrop. “I remember spending many summers cutting up old clothes and using my grandmother’s old scraps to piece together outfits for my Barbie dolls. I would style their hair and makeup and put together little fashion shows. I would then later move on to drawing cartoon characters, portraits of my siblings, models and animals.”
Her love for art and fashion continued to grow as she grew older. Lovely would model in local fashion shows as a young girl. “My mother would deck me out to the point where I looked like a Christmas tree (LOL). But she must have known what she was doing because I won first place every time.” While she achieved relative success in modeling at a young age, Lovely was driven by anything that was fashion, art and creativity. Therefore, after high school, Lovely decided to attend fashion school.
Lovely attended the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (LIM) where she graduated with an associate degree in Fashion Merchandising in 2001. She enrolled in the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) where she graduated with her bachelor’s degree in Product Management with a concentration in Textiles in 2005. Lovely has worked in the fashion industry for many years for companies such as Mudd Jeans and Victoria’s Secret, to name a few. In 2010, she partnered up with Ciano Clerjuste and UCOF, operating as the Senior Creative Director.
While to some, fashion can be superficial and vain, Lovely sees it as an opportunity to lift one’s confidence and change one’s point of view. “Sometimes we need to see ourselves in a different light to realize that we are more than the limitations we put on ourselves.” She is working with future fashion and creative thinkers to encourage growth, innovation and opportunities.
