Beyonce just gifted a grant to this Philly fashion designer who up-cycles applied and classic outfits

Kimberly McGlonn is a down-to-earth entrepreneur with a lofty mission. She wants to help other ladies preserve the environment and appear fantastic whilst accomplishing so by donning her a person-of-a-sort, up-cycled, sustainably produced garments.

© MONICA HERNDON/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS
Kimberly McGlonn, CEO & Founder of Grant Blvd, reveals off the fabric of a shirt in her shop at 3605 Lancaster Avenue in West Philadelphia. She and her group ‘remix’ vintage clothing and virgin materials to generate one-of-a-kind items.

McGlonn and her imaginative all-woman team of designers benefit from classic or applied garments, as perfectly as virgin material, to build classy tops, bottoms, dresses, skirts, outerwear, and accessories at her retail company, Grant Blvd. The business, studio, and retail store in the 3600 block of Lancaster Avenue in West Philadelphia are named for the Milwaukee road where the operator grew up in the ‘90s.

© MONICA HERNDON/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS
Kimberly McGlonn, CEO & Founder of Grant BLVD, demonstrates off a jean jacket in her shop at 3605 Lancaster Avenue in West Philadelphia. Explained as a “sustainable, ethical brand,” the enterprise resources reclaimed fabrics, manufactures its merchandise in Philadelphia, and supports social and environmental justice triggers.

Grant Blvd is not her only contacting. For 18 yrs, she has been an English trainer at Reduce Moreland Higher University — a vocation that informs her layout sensibility.

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“I really like storytelling,” McGlonn reported previous thirty day period on a snow-flurried afternoon at Grant Blvd. “I enjoy texture and I enjoy color as means of telling stories. I really like motion [of fabric] as a way of telling stories.”

In the course of a lively, two-hour conversation, McGlonn included subjects such as international exploitation of garment staff, environmental justice, and “teaching via style.” McGlonn paused every single so typically to wave to neighbors and some others passing by, or gazing into the shop, from the chilly avenue.

Final 7 days, she discovered that she experienced been awarded a BeyGood grant. That’s Bey as in Beyonce, whose BeyGood philanthropic corporation teamed up very last 12 months with the NAACP to make grants of up to $10,000 to Black-owned little-business homeowners to assistance offer with the economic impact of the pandemic.

“In a time that is so demanding, the affirmation of this kind of an influential individual and her crew retains us dedicated to the work forward,” stated McGlonn, who declined to say how considerably her grant was for.

At Grant Blvd’s ethereal workspace, a black-and-white photograph she took of her spouse and children homestead commands a spot of honor. It was on Grant Boulevard, on Milwaukee’s North Aspect, that McGlonn acquired about the worries facing Black men and women, other people today of shade, and individuals marginalized by poverty. It is also in which she discovered the value of performing for justice.

And the West Philly business enterprise named for that property is exactly where, masked and at a social distance, McGlonn and members of her crew brainstorm about what most effective to make of their ever-modifying stocks of elements. Afterwards, they individually reboot and remix their principles into special clothing objects gals can wear to make a statement as effectively as a big difference.

Graphic T-shirts and other things screen-printed with pithy slogans these as “mad sustainable” and “end hard cash bail” reflect two of the many results in championed by Grant Blvd, which also supports progressive corporations this kind of as Project Home.

McGlonn’s inspirations, perception of goal, and what appears to be unstoppable strength have a lot of resources, such as her mother’s volunteer operate with incarcerated folks, the Ph.D. in curriculum progress McGlonn earned at Louisiana Condition College, and even the experience she had at a silent yoga retreat in the Berkshires.

But “13th,” the prizewinning 2016 Netflix documentary by director Ava DuVernay about the racist pretext and practices that institutionalized mass incarceration in The usa, was essential, explained McGlonn.

“The film changed my altitude [for] looking at the landscape. It elevated my knowing,” she reported. “The movie created me believe about what the actual main problems are and how to inquire concerns like, how do we generate and make new alternatives that are tied to the foreseeable future and the fate of the earth?

“Hence this energy,” she claimed, gesturing at the deftly arranged displays of clothing at Grant Blvd.

McGlonn, who is also a member of the Jenkintown Borough Council and mom of a 12-year-previous daughter named Hana, launched Grant Blvd on the net in 2018. She opened the bricks-and-mortar Lancaster Avenue spot — in what had been a previous garage — soon ahead of the pandemic erupted. But she and her group have hardly dropped a sew.

“Vada explained, ‘We’re heading to make this materialize,’” McGlonn claimed, crediting Grant Blvd’s director of layout and manufacturing, Nevada “Vada” Gray.

“We have sewing machines at dwelling and at the studio, so we can do the job from residence,” stated Grey, who has been creating and building formal and specific celebration put on for 20 years. She credits the conference of brain, spirit, and sensibility she and McGlonn share as a essential aspect of their thriving collaboration.

“Streetwear was new for me when I came on board, so I like to make the every day have that very little touch or element of wonderful,” Grey stated. “It could be a cuff, or stitching, or an extra pocket.”

Drexel College scholar Emma Dietz, who is the design and style and production lead assistant at Grant Blvd, reported: “The operate culture is just remarkable. We all know each individual other genuinely well and are energized about exchanging thoughts.”

Dietz also noted that Grant Blvd is poised to capture a developing industry in items created by the “maker and up-cycler culture” that has taken root between modest organizations in Philadelphia and in other places.

Loyal shoppers this kind of as Lauren Walker, of Wynnefield, and Shay Strawser, of North Philadelphia, claimed staying in the keep provides a perception of group for gals dedicated to vogue, as well as to sustainability, equity, and other causes.

“If I’m there as a purchaser or there hanging out and other consumers come in, Kimberly tends to make all people truly feel like they are at house,” stated Strawser, a Temple University college student. “She provides this kind of a heat environment and high-quality tunes and seriously dope pieces” of imaginative clothing. Her beloved: a remixed men’s plaid shirt wearable as a dress, which drew quite a few compliments for the duration of her current pay a visit to to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

“Kim is a Black girl who is potent in her identification, tremendous-educated, and wonderful,” reported Walker, who life in Wynnefield and supports recycling and sustainability attempts. 1 of her favourite Grant Blvd parts is “a minimal pin stripe crop top” repurposed from a men’s shirt.

“For anything like a homegrown, Philly-based business enterprise owned by a woman of coloration,” added Walker, “the time is now.”

McGlonn undoubtedly believes so: She’s seeking angel traders to aid increase Grant Blvd. And when the pandemic has disrupted almost everything, so did the Excellent Despair — a time, she pointed out, when some firms not only survived, but thrived.

“That’s what I’m betting on,” she reported.

“I’m betting on us. On all of us.”