Allyson Ly, a junior marketing major at Missouri State University, can do it all — she’s a photographer, designer, and artist with ideas to spare. Earlier this year she incorporated her many talents into one brand called Everything Jaded. Right now she is focused on photography and shoe customizations.

“It's kind of just an experiment to kind of see what I would like it to transform into,” Ly said. 

The lockdowns in the early part of the pandemic left Ly with spare time and loads of inspiration. For Ly, this was the perfect opportunity to tap into her artistic side. She did just that. It was at this point that she realized no one in Springfield customized shoes, so she stepped up to fill the market need.

“Just recently, though, is when we started racking up more orders, and now it's on a consistent basis,” Ly said. “Back then it was kind of just for fun.”

Ly being the self-motivated person she is, taught herself to customize shoes by watching YouTube tutorials. But she’s always been artistically inclined in more than one way. 

“I've always been good at drawing, I would say,” Ly said. “Then I kind of had to kind of abandon my creative side when it came to drawing, painting, and all that because I became musically talented. So I had to focus on that stuff. I still doodle here and there, and I'm really good at looking at something and just drawing it on the shoe.”

She takes orders for customized Nike Air Force 1s through the brand’s Instagram account, @everything_jaded.

While learning how to customize on YouTube, Ly realized that there were almost no women in the industry. 

“We need to have more women out in that field. It's not just a male-dominated job or career,” Ly said. “Women need to use their artistic ability if they have it. I think it is extremely important not only women but also women of color to get into that, to show that we are able to do such things as well.”

Ly encourages other women to put their talents to use in whatever ways they can.  

“The first thing that I would do if you did want to know start your own brand is go headfirst,” Ly said. “Do your research, watch YouTube videos, see how other people did it, and then attempt it too.”

Ly has taken her advice and is diving headfirst into her brand by planning to quit her day job.

“I'd rather be broke and love what I do than be financially stable and work for someone else that has nothing to do with what I want to do.”

But Ly also recognizes that starting your own business is not for everyone.

“If you have the mindset that you don't really want to start your own brand, you want to work for someone and climb that chain, if you like the challenge, I say go for that too. We need more women as CEOs and even more women in higher positions of other companies.”