The Chicago-Based Label Forging an Otherworldly Vision for Womenswear

"My hands are very verbal," says Adreain Guillory, the founder of Ajovang.

The Chicago-based womenswear label specializes in pieces that possess a whimsical and otherworldly flavor, which have led them to appear on the cover of Essence and celebrities like Sheryl Lee Ralph. Yet Guillory admits that his design career initially "came out of nowhere" (and has been "so fun ever since" he started).

The Michigan-born artist remembers making art as early as first grade — and being very good at it, which led him to enroll in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) with the intention of studying painting and drawing. But an introductory class to sewing made him change his course and inspired him to declare a new major: fashion design. Making clothes still feels connected to his love of art, pecifically drawing, he says, as they're pretty much "walking sketches."

"Being able to manipulate fabric, just the way I do a pencil on paper, is so special to me," he confesses. "When I made the switch to fashion, it just immediately confirmed my happiness and how things came to me more naturally."

Guillory says he planned to "work under someone, work at a brand or company" when he graduated in the winter of 2019. "I feel like there's an unlimited amount of things you can learn, and I just wanted to learn them all." The pandemic threw those plans for a loop. Having gained experience in visual merchandising at brands like Urban Outfitters and Topshop while at school, he joined H&M's team in Chicago and continued designing for fun. But he remembers feeling like everyone he knew was leaving fashion, "so I figured I had to try to make space for myself."

"Designing felt like it was the only thing that gave me peace around that time," he says. "I didn't know what the future held."

That fall of 2020, he got together with friends to photograph some pieces he designed. Those images gained attention online. "My first customers mostly came from Instagram," he says. "I've always used my page as a kind of mood board or a design book. I've enjoyed seeing people's response to the things that I produce because they might feel more confident in it than I do, or they might have some insight into what I'm making that I don't have."

The online response to these images, which uniquely centered Black women as the ethereal beings in his sartorial vision, made Guillory realize he did have the seeds to start a brand. The designer got to work and conceptualized further, tightening what his ethos and aesthetic would be, creating a website and soliciting stockists.

Ajovang officially launched with a Spring 2021 collection titled "Everything Starts With A Wish." Crafted with a restrained, largely neutral color palette, the looks have something magical and modern about them. Bell sleeves add a regal flair to tunics styled over skirts that seem to take notes on volume from a princess's own ball gown. Corsets atop bubble-hemmed minis feel contemporary. The gathered yoke dress (which has become a customer favorite) has a distinct silhouette of stacked ovoids.

To Guillory, this inaugural collection was an "accumulation of nostalgia, but also the romanticism that I always loved" in fairy tale films like the 1997 "Cinderella" with Brandy and "The Slipper and the Rose," a 1976 musical. "I was really inspired by these two films and the idea of starting something new and also chasing after your dreams," he adds.

The growing acclaim helped Guillory land a spot in the Black in Fashion Council showroom during New York Fashion Week in September 2022, where he introduced his label (with prices ranging from $197 for an apron skirt to $277 for a taffeta jacket) to more press, buyers and stylists. Just less than a year later, he left his visual merchandising post at H&M in August 2023 to have more time and fully commit to Ajovang.

When creating a collection, Guillory says he remains "immersed in the sketching phase," along with concept building and mood board building because they're "the meat, potatoes and everything you need for the meal to be good." His pieces incorporate a mix of draping, as if a call to imagery of goddesses, incorporated with coquettish ruffles and soft pastel hues.

Even though hosting a runway show is no easy feat for an emerging label, Ajovang is coming off a mid-May show in Michigan and is preparing for Chicago Fashion Week in October. Internally, however, Ajovang is crossing a turning point; Guillory wants to change gears — lately, he admits he has found himself in "a very stifled place when it comes to design."

"I've felt like I'm leaning more to the business side – like, is this just going to sell? – and my voice had diminished. That's not where I wanted this to go."

He aims to infuse an artistic, hyper-specialized flair into Ajovang pieces ahead, versus what's made to satisfy the commerce-driven eye. (Finding this balance, and struggling along the way, is foreign to no creative entrepreneur.) What will this look like? Something akin to "Sailor Moon" meets "Cinderella," he hints, with fairytale-meets-anime-steeped gowns cut and sewn to live in our closets happily ever after.

"I'm going to be pushing a lot of silhouettes and techniques from before," he says, in addition to using more custom fabric weavings and crystal embroidery. He plans to continue "bridging the gap between accessories, like bridging the crystal shoes and the clothing" in addition to implementing more couture techniques. After all, Guillory wants "to produce pieces that are so special that people want to cherish them for a lifetime," akin to greats like Zac Posen and Schiaparelli's Daniel Roseberry, who he lists as some of his major inspirations.

The forthcoming collection will hit the runway in Chicago this October after the big four cities (New York, London, Milan and then Paris) run their circuit. Guillory plans to pare back the total number of looks to pay more attention to storytelling and fabrication. "This moment feels right," he says.

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