Designer Behind the Brand
Building a sustainable brand that is conscious of the body, sexes and the beauty of culture.
"I believe that poverty is not the lack of material, but the lack of imagination to create."
Naika Colas
is a Queens, New York-based fashion designer. She is of Haitian descent and holds the love for her parents’ home in high regard when designing. Her Caribbean roots have helped her to remain colorful and sustainable as she sticks to Haitian ideals of sustaining the community and developing economies, globally. With her love for natural fibers, wax prints, bold colors, and earth tones she manages to create pieces for consumers that coincide with her brand’s goal of environmentally friendly practices. There is a strong need for innovation, sustainability, and ethics within the fashion industry and she works to design clothing that will bring awareness of sustainability to developing communities via marketing the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle framework, circular economy, and use of trendy yet natural fabrics made from wood chips and/or recycled plastic bottles.
Each year she travels to Haiti facilitating fashion management and design thinking workshops during TechStars, Port-au-Prince Start-Up Week. She has been a guest speaker for a few design courses at the Fashion Institute of Technology, the New York School of Design and Pratt Institute. She has worked with the New York Public Library and facilitated a lecture for their “Art Recycled” workshop alongside designer Ruth Marshall. She is an active mentor working with a Fashion Design student from Drexel University via a Philadelphia based non-profit organization; The I Am Project and a Business Management Student via Impact Hub Haiti. Her mentorship work has been featured on NBC 10 Philadelphia alongside the I Am Project.
Naika has been featured in several published works including a Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Dissertation; Black fashion designers matter.
”A qualitative study exploring the experiences of Black female fashion design entrepreneurs”, submitted by Iowa State University alumni, Sami Kennedy Benson.
So why the name Jacques Louis?
The clothing line is named after her deceased father Jacques Louis Colas. The loss of her father and watching her immigrant single mother struggle while growing up, became the driving force behind her love for the arts and community.
While studying Design Management (MPS) at Pratt Institute and working full-time with New York City's Bureau of Recycling and Sustainability, Naika Colas launched Jacques Louis, a socially conscious clothing brand aiming to build the confidence of communities affected by social and economic injustices in the U.S. and developing countries. She obtained her B.S in Biological Sciences, with a minor in chemistry from Fairleigh Dickinson University which has aided her in focusing on the Triple Bottom Line by Design + Culture business framework. She is a 2018 graduate of Pratt Institute's Design Management Master's Program. While at Pratt Institute she was awarded two grants for projects designed to uplift women of color in Haiti and Tanzania. (see articles above and below).
In September of 2018, Jacques Louis made it to the 2nd round of Tommy Hilfiger’s Social Innovation Challenge. During the process of the Social Innovation Challenge, she acted as a mentor for fourteen Impact Hub member’s and Fashion Designers based in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Her hope is to change the mindset of developing communities and their focus on sustainable living practices by designing creative pieces and projects that will unify low-to-high income communities to work together on building a better world.
Pratt Institute’s Catalyst Magazine - Naika Colas + Tommy Hilfiger Social Innovation Challenge
“Design Thriving seeks to leverage opportunities and resources in Developing Communities across the globe in order to create thriving communities.”
“Bridging Opportunities”
This project was funded by Pratt Institute’s Graduate Student Engagement Fund.