Two to three times a month, senior Keylonnie Boatwright and her mother pack a truck with clothing for sale, tent, table, cash register and advertising flyers and drive off to a pop-up shop somewhere in the southern United States.
“For the longest time, I was confused about what to do,” Boatwright said. “My mom said, you love fashion. Why don’t you start a boutique?”
Together they started Per Jhane (or “According to Jhane,” Boatwright’s middle name), an online clothing business. During its next phase, it will focus on gothic and romantic style clothing.
“Like Victorian era pieces, peasant blouses, blouses with mutton sleeves, which are huge dramatic sleeves like in the Edwardian and Victorian era,” Boatwright said.
They started it in late 2019, right before COVID-19 hit. Sales started slow but gradually increased and now the two are searching for a brick-and-mortar location for their business.
In a related sideline, Boatright also is a clothing stylist.
“It’s not really a business,” she said. “If someone needs to be styled for a photography session or revamping their closet or have a special occasion where they don’t know where to shop from, they come to me.”
Boatright, in turn, has a “huge database” of clothing stores which she searches. “I can usually go through it and find something that matches their style,” she said.
English, you can do practically anything
Boatwright grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. Her mother is a nurse and her father a truck driver. Her youth was filled with sports, including volleyball, swimming, cheerleading, gymnastics, martial arts and archery.
Her strategy for choosing a university was simple.
“I looked at all the HBCUs in North Carolina and Virginia and compared all their English departments,” she said. “North Carolina Central University (NCCU) had the best English department of the area I was looking to live in.”
Why English?
“My mom said you should get a degree you can use in multiple jobs,” Boatwright said. “I like reading and writing. English, you can do practically anything; law, publishing, film and so forth.”
It was a turnaround from her elementary school years, when Boatright “hated” reading and writing and would fail her reading tests. When she was ten or 11, her mother took her to a bookstore and told her to pick a book of her choice, but she had to finish it in two weeks. She did so.
“I said, this is amazing,” Boatwright said. “That’s when my love of reading and writing began.”
During her college years, she has also traveled to film festivals – “I enjoy looking at movies and reading scripts” – and literature conferences.
“I like multicultural literature conferences,” Boatwright said. “Gothic literature, Asian American literature, historic literature, classic literature, literature and science, literature and technology and literature and math.”
Ultimately, Boatwright would like to be a screenwriter or work in book publishing. After graduation, she plans to take a year off to do something in the film or writing field before applying for a master’s degree in creative writing, with an emphasis in screenwriting.