Zachery believes we all describe ourselves as horses, hence his logo.
Have you ever wondered the identity of the person behind Northeast Elegance, the clothing line known for its white outlined horse logo? Clay Zachery ’19 founded this “low cost clothing line” in the beginning of the year, selling what he called, “kind of preppy, yet very casual items with preppy colors tones.” “The cost of the lowest item is $15 and the highest is $28,” Zachery explained.
Zachery felt the urge to start this project when he faced the well-known trouble of finding a nice piece of clothing in a store, yet being disappointed by the number on the price tag. He said, “You see that it’s $60 for some socks and you’re like ‘Wow,’ which is why I started doing Northeast Elegance and it just got rolling.” Zachary’s line received a good amount of attention from the beginning, pushing him to pursue his newfound interest. “It felt like a great sense of accomplishment,” he added. Zachery has even begun research into how to professionally run social media accounts, furthering his interest in the line. Unfortunately, with his increasingly difficult and busy Choate schedule, Zachary has found it harder to be fully engaged in this project. However, he said that his “goal is to just keep it moving, never settle.”
Northeast Elegance’s legendary name and logo make up one of the pivotal reasons that it has already made its mark on our campus. “I got the idea for the logo from the football team, actually, because we all describe ourselves as some horses,” said Zachery, continuing, “we don’t stop until we reach our goal.” He explained that he then thought, “we’re in the Northeast, and when I went back to horses for the elegance part, I thought that horses are beautiful, but ‘Northeast Beautiful’ didn’t sound good.” He continued, “I then looked up synonyms for beautiful and saw elegance. It just rolled off my tongue and I know that that was the name right there. It was then very easy to find a logo on a website.
Zachery’s brand has grown relatively quickly, receiving good reviews and continuous purchases. Nevertheless, Zachery admitted, “It’s less about the money side of it and more about doing something and putting your mind to it. Also, just seeing people wearing your stuff is great.” However, Zachery shared that he had an initial plan to donate the money he made to charity. He explained, “At first, I needed to get it off the ground to get more production, but the original idea was to eventually be able to donate to “RAINN” and other charities for women who have been sexually assaulted or harassed. Unfortunately, I can’t really do that right now because of the production rates. If I did it, I would want to go all out and give them a lot of money.”
Northeast Elegance sets an example of the limitless opportunities that we have as students and young adults. Zachery’s fashion line not only channeled his creative side and pushed him to experiment in an activity that he had never done, but will also benefit charities outside of our Choate bubble.
