Fashion

It’s that time again! Each year many of us make resolutions and goals to start the new year with the idea of creating a happy, prosperous, healthy lifestyle that will take us throughout the rest of the year. Well, a Carolinian creative and motivational speaker is getting all of us geared up to commit to our weight and health goals with the clothing brand, “Comfort Can’t Progress”. Stephen Carpenter is the founder of “Comfort Can’t Progress LLC”, a motivational clothing line whose sole purpose is to help each of us escape our Comfort Zones at any costs.

Stephen understands all too well the importance of exercise and keeping up with your health goals for this year. Years ago, Stephen received a serious take-it-or-leave-it statement from his doctor:
“My slogan came about when I was given an ultimatum from my Doctor. He looked me right in the eyes and told me either loose weight or die. After that life changing meeting I started to take my health and dreams seriously. I no longer entertain the idea of “just comfortable”. When I want to remain mediocre, I challenge myself; by reciting Comfort Can’t Progress and knowing I cannot change the world remaining Comfortable.”

The Comfort Can’t Progress Brand is not just a fashion brand, but Stephen and his team are expanding with speaking engagements and life skills classes that can help individuals with their weight-loss journies.Stephen took these harsh, but life-changing words from his doctor and set out to change his life, his lifestyle, and the lives of others. After losing the necessary weight, Stephen realized he could help others do the same. Stephen created the “Comfort Can’t Progress” brand to motivate and inspire, he states, “you will never progress if you are comfortable and willing to stay the same. So do yourself a favor, when you start feeling comfortable, do something that scares you. Step out of your Comfort Zone, shock yourself and the world.”

These words are the perfect words to start a new year, so Start your new year off right and SHOP HERE for motivational fitness gear, also make sure you like them on Facebook

Syllabus Magazine, the Carolina’s source for Music, Culture and Fashion

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Birch & Pen

Meet Jordan Jackson, the 19-yr-old who recently made history as the youngest shop owner in Northwoods Mall, in North Charleston, S.C. Jordan has been making waves since the grand opening of Birch & Pen last week, and he allowed us to stop through and check out what this out-of-the-box, young, hip, boutique has to offer. You can head over to Birch & Pen, located at Northwoods Mall in the Dillards wing, North Charleston, South Carolina.

Syllabus Magazine, the Carolina’s source for Music, Culture and Fashion

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LBJ 16

Lebron’s sneakers were released on last week, and in less than 5 MINUTES, were it sold out thanks to the women of Harlem Fashion Row. created Lebron’s newest sneaker edition, the “LBJ 16” sneaker for NIke. This is the first time in history women of color have designed any of Lebron’s sneakers.

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SOLD OUT in less than 5 minutes!!!!!!!!! Whoa!!!!!!!!!! Y’all are amazing!!!!!! Thank you soooooo much for your support!

A post shared by HFR (@harlemsfashionrow) on

In a creative campaign to celebrate the launch of the new Lebrons, Nike promoted it as the “STRONGEST” campaign. Lebron took this time to celebrate the strongest women and most powerful in his life, including his wife Savannah, daughter Zhuri, hismom Gloria, Serena Williams, Lena Laithe, and other popular female celebrities. At the Harlem Fashion Row awards, Lebron took this time to praise the power of black women.

Lebron and Nike seem to be having an exceptional year. Keep up the great work, can continue to trailblaze for the culture.

Syllabus Magazine, the Carolina’s source for Music, Culture and Fashion

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Photography Phenom, Tyler Mitchell

Anna Wintour, Editor and Chief of Vogue Magazine since 1988, just did something unprecedented. She’s allowed Beyonce, total and complete control over the cover shoot for the upcoming September issue (Kanye is probably sick right now). Of course, in pure Beyonce fashion, she did some truly epic and amazing. Beyonce chose a 23-year-old black photographer by the name of Tyler Mitchell to shoot her cover. What makes this even more amazing is that Tyler will be the first black photographer to shoot a Vogue cover in the magazine’s 126 year history.

Since 1988, Anna Wintour has had complete control over Vogue America’s covers, including outfits worn by models and the final selection of pictures. For September, Beyonce has contractually gained complete control over every aspect of the cover. According to a source for the Huffington Post, the added:

“The reason a 23-year-old black photographer is photographing Beyoncé for the cover of Vogue is because Beyoncé used her power and influence to get him that assignment.” ~a source to HuffPost

Tyler Mitchell may be young, but he has already taken the fashion industry by storm. He has already shot campaigns for Marc Jacobs and Givenchy. In December’s issue of the New York Post, Tyler Mitchell discussed his passion for photography, he stated:

“I depict black people and people of color in a really real and pure way, there is an honest gaze to my photos.”

Beyonce was last on the cover of Vogue in 2015 and had no creative control; her appearance still made headline because she didn’t grant the publication a sit-down interview. In the 2018 September issue, she still will not grant Vogue a sit-down interview; we will only be able to bask in the history-making photography shot by Tyler Mitchell – and we’re cool with that.

Syllabus Magazine, the Carolina’s source for Music, Culture and Fashion

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Yesterday I walked into the Southern Discomfort: Tearing At the Seams forum with lots of hesitancy. The reason why was because the last Southern Discomfort discussion left me with a lot of concern. Guess that’s why they call it ‘Southern Discomfort’ – shrugs. The concern was coming from a place of listening to young, black creatives airing out their issues with white-owned bars, restaurants, and venues in downtown Charleston who were literally not returning phone calls when a hip-hop artist would call inquiring about booking their establishments for a gig. The bigger concern was if we know this is happening, why are we still supporting these establishments, why are we trying to force them to accept us, why should we spend our money with them? I left feeling like at some point the panel was begging for their acceptance, and it was disappointing.

However, last nights discussion hosted by Monachopsis Magazine and the creators of Southern Discomfort was refreshing. The panel was led by a group of power players in Charleston’s fashion scene, and I believe that the discussion lit a fire for everyone in the room. The panel included the creator of Charleston Fashion Week – Ayoka Lucas, Venita Aspen of the Aspen Agency , Jessie Parks – owner of Grease Kelly Vintage and Vice Chair of We Are Family, style blogger Ireana Nathan of Xoxo, I. Joelle, Sabrina Hyman of Ill Vibe The Tribe, fashion blogger Nikki of LookFabuless.com, and a host of others.

The conversation was birthed from an the Instagram account of @CharlestonShopCurator, Andrea Serrano and her Afro, 70’s inspired post ( I will not post the picture here simply because we already know what it is). In her post, which she took down and reposted, many people both black and white were attempting to explain to her why her post was no culturally appropriate, and could be deemed offensive. After reposting, probably after she received some courage and encouragement from her peers, she explained how she’s mixed, and how she never intended to offend anyone. She continued with, “I can respect other people’s opinions, but I think my opinion is equally as important.”Ayoka Lucas gave us the background of the exchanges on Instagram with this Serrano and others; Lucas even explained that Serrano requested a forum – unfortunately, she was not in attendance to discuss her position.

Luckily, we didn’t spend much time discussing Serrano, there were other gems and jewels that were dropped as we listened to the panel. We continued with Ayoka Lucas and her story of how she started Charleston Fashion Week. This is a dope story because many people in attendance didn’t know she was the curator of this event. Lucas gave us details that she hadn’t discussed prior to this forum as to the reasons why she decided to leave Charleston Magazine, and leave the thing that she calls her ‘baby’ – CFW. Her story is one we’ve all heard before – the employee with the dope, unique ideas that manifest. Then somewhere, somehow, and for some strange reason, instead of the company promoting the employee or partnering with the dope employee – they simply and slyly figure out ways to stifle them. Hopefully, Lucas will be able to put this story in a book because it is a fascinating testament of someone who took nothing and built something amazing, with the help of other Creatives.

We don’t want to continuously see our culture being celebrated, but not actual people of color being celebrated; because like someone said yesterday- WE ARE THE CULTURE!

Ayoka’s story inspired a plethora of questions and comments from the audience. Creatives in attendance were inspired by all of the bloggers on the panel including Venita Aspen, who was able to take her experience in Charleston and with Charleston Fashion Week, and turn it into a viable business.

One great aspect of this discussion was that there were many people there who didn’t realize that Charleston’s creative communities and Charleston’s fashion communities of color are bubbling! We write, we promote, we design, we sing, we blog, we curate, we own, we build, and we are here! We want to tell stories, we want to see our community shine. However, we also want to see people of color shine. We don’t want to continuously see our culture being celebrated, but not actual people of color being celebrate; because like someone said yesterday- WE ARE THE CULTURE! We want to see more shops owned by people of color; we want to see more people of color as gate-keepers to Charleston’s fashion and creative community. What I would love to see most is for young business owners, bloggers, and creatives to not feel like they need to cosign of the white community in order to make things happen.

Again, this was an great discussion and an awesome forum. The hope now is that we can continue having these types of gatherings, bringing people within the creative communities together, and breaking the glass boots that are continuously on our necks! Excited to see creatives building bridges and kicking down doors in Charleston, SC.

Syllabus Magazine, the Carolina’s source for Music, Culture and Fashion

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