Meet Ashley Love

We recently connected with Ashley Love and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ashley, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
I got my resilience from my family, as well as from reading about historic women in history who were very resilient and overcame their obstacles to be the greatest people. I remember my mother going through very traumatic experiences, and overcoming them like it was nothing. That showed me that whatever life threw my way, in the end, I was going to be okay, and lately I’ve been having obstacles, but I’ve been resilient.

I love reading about people in history, especially black history and fashion history. Two people in history who showed resilience and became the greatest were Coco Chanel and Tina Turner. Coco Chanel’s mother died when she was a little girl, her dad put her and her sisters in an orphanage and disappeared. She was dirt poor, and yet she became the greatest fashion designer in the history of fashion. Tina Turner grew up in a rural town in Tennessee, became a sensation with Ike Turner, but when she left him, she only had 36 cents to her name. She had to get government benefits and work several jobs until her comeback at 43!

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I am the freelance fashion designer/owner of Ashley D Love, a fashion service business. Start-up and established companies seek me to create collections for their brands. I specialize in activewear, swimwear, and tech packs, I can design in other fashion categories as well.

Although I’ve been in business since 2010, I have been taking breaks because I was working as well. Life has been happening, which caused me to shift my focus back to my freelance business. Lately, I’ve been promoting myself on LinkedIn, as well as creating content to put on TikTok and YouTube. I’m now verified and in the top 5% of quality contributors in fashion illustration. I’m also contacting activewear and swimwear companies to design for them as well. I made action & consistency as a part of my new year’s resolution, and this is something I’m going to keep up.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
When I started, there were a lot of things I had to work on. My strongest area was fashion illustration. I’m very artistic, so that part came to me easily. The other two skills that are most impactful in my journey are being introduced to knit fabric, and learning how to create tech packs. There were many things I had to perfect while in graduate school, and working on a swimwear project is what brought me to my career of creating activewear and swimwear.

Advice for folks who are early in their journey
– Learn everything you can while in school, especially math. It will help you with patternmaking
– Practice, practice, practice. Practicing what you are doing is the key to getting better in this field
– If there are any certifications to make your skills better, take them. Fashion is constantly changing and you want to learn the latest technology
– Learn about the different types of fabrics. Whether you are going to be sourcing fabric or not, you want to know the different types of fabric so you will know if it is going to work when a certain garment is created
– Please do your research. In this field, you are always researching fashion trends, fabrics, colors, inspiration, etc. You will need to know where you found the information, and you do not want to be sued for copyright issues.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
One particular challenge I’m currently facing is self-confidence. Believe it or not, as talented as I am, and as skillful as I am, I still have issues with self-confidence, especially with doubting myself. Although I’m very skilled, there are times when I compare myself to others. This is not healthy. Three things have helped me in this matter: prayer, therapy, and positive affirmations. I’ve gotten to the point where I listen to positive affirmations when going to sleep.

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