Author Spotlight
Natasha Thomas
Senior Tatum Hood doesn’t know what people think when they see her walking through the halls with her two Hard Jewelry necklaces, all-black Cold Hart hoodie and Half-Evil black sweats. She’s not sure what opinions they form of her based on her black-on-one-side, white-on-the-other hair and sharp-winged eyeliner.
But most people that see her in the halls don’t know what the brands she wears mean to her.
Every Hard Jewelry product she receives has hand-spray painted packaging — unique to the piece she ordered. She’s met the Cold Hart hoodie designer, Nathan Copes, in person (she says he’s a pretty cool guy) — and his hoodie is merch from one of her favorite artists collectives, GothBoiClique. The black sweatpants are a collaboration between two of her favorite brands, Half-Evil and Ransom — she follows Johnny, the owner of Ransom, on Instagram and Tiktok. The relationship Tatum has developed with brands like these have influenced the philosophy behind Angel Sinners, her own clothing brand that she’s preparing to launch.
“Everything I’m wearing is brands that inspire me,” Tatum said. “I didn’t even plan that.”
Fashion is purposeful for Tatum — the pieces she wears are merch from her favorite artists or by brands she’s looked up to for years (and sometimes both.) Through wearing artist’s work and unique brands, Tatum has used style to show her identity — now she wants to create a similar thing with her own clothing line.
Tatum didn’t take a crash-course on clothing design — she’s been sewing cloth pieces onto thrifted jeans by hand and using her art-class painting experience to add designs to the clothes. But the important thing to her is what the clothes mean. The pieces are based off of artists that inspire her, and are all one-of-a-kind. She didn’t want it to be about mass-producing; she wanted each piece to be made with purpose.
That’s how her very first piece came about. Tatum saw that her pair of dark grey jeans were in desperate need of personalization. Inspired by Artist ZillaKami’s song “Aw Shit” and his trademark patch jeans, she painted the song title on the pants and hand-sewed patches into the fabric. The inspiration for the brand’s name came through these jeans too — she painted the words “Angel Sinners” on the fabric after listening to GothBoiClique’s “Last Fall” lyrics, “I’m a devil with some angel wings.”
Tatum stepped back at the jeans with “Angel Sinners” across the hips, and she knew she could make it a brand (and what the brand’s name could be.)
To her, Angel Sinners means the balance of “angel” and “devil” in each person — it was perfect — it was rooted in music, and unique, like all the brands she loved.
One of GothBoiClique’s artists, Lil Peep, has inspired the designs on many of Tatum’s pieces and also formed her mentality about wearing what “feels right”.
“He would dress however he wanted to, and he kind of reminded me of myself in a way,” Tatum said.
The Angel Sinner-turned grey jeans were soon followed by more pieces — while Tatum listened to GothBoiClique and City Morgue, she a painted a white snake and broken heart on the chest of a hoodie and lined the hood with long pointy studs to create the Angel Sinner hoodie. Tatum estimates that she spent five hours cycling through songs while adding metal crosses and chains to another pair of jeans for the clothing line.
Because the styles are inspired by her favorite artist’s, the pieces are distinctive and handmade like the brands that she’s stalked on Instagram for years and the stitches themselves are hand-done by her — Tatum feels they represent who she is.
“If I wore something I didn’t like it just makes me feel like I’m in the wrong skin,” Tatum said. “I’m more comfortable in this; I’m more me in this.”
Tatum says her everyday outfit used to be black leggings and Uggs, while swapping between a pink Patagonia and a Brekenridge sweatshirt. After years of cycling through clothes she didn’t love, she now feels like there isn’t an item in her closet that she wants to change.
“I hadn’t really found myself until like, literally this year.” Tatum said. “Even though I started dressing drastically more different and fitting less in, I feel so much more myself now than I ever have before.”
Tatum realizes that the brands, the artists and her taste are specific — but that’s because she knows who she is. And she’s not the girl that dresses like everyone else at high school.
“Me finding myself and getting over the hoops of caring about what other people think, or realizing that I look completely different from everyone else because I want to — I think that helped me make the brand,” Tatum said.
Check out the video:
Angel Sinners Co: A Clothing Brand With A Voice
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