It may be the end of the school year, but for recent Venice High graduate Antonio Finamore,  the beginning of his career as a clothing designer has just begun. The day of his graduation June 6th, Finamore hosted a pop up shop near Hamilton High School to promote his clothing line the “Project Protostar” collection.

Finamore had many items on display which consisted of T-shirts, jeans and jackets. The clothing is very casual and exciting at the same time.  The shirts are quite bright and they all consists of multiple unique drawings. One shirt included both purple stars and a raging fire. One unique jacket was colored both green and black and it was designed with two skulls on it as well as the clothing logo which says Project Protostar in big caps.

“My inspiration behind the line was being able to create something with my limited resources,” said Finamore. “I may not have money but being able to use old gormets such as T-shirts and reconstruct them into something new is something I found passion for. I sew all the clothes and I put them together. My brand represents the face before the storm. It means evolving as a designer. This phase shows me growing as a person and as a designer as well.”

Many people from Venice High visited  the pop up shop to support Finamore, especially the clothing line models who are students from Venice High.

“A lot of people our age are not creating their own clothing”, said junior Cailee Pupecki.  “The fact that he is taking older shirts and creating it into something new is really creative and it sets him apart from other designers so I think he’ll begin to succeed very soon.”

“I wanted to model for the line to support what Antonio is doing, which is super sick,”  said senior and clothing line model Shu Watanabe. “I wanted to help bring his ideas out to the world. Antonio screenprinted himself all the clothing, and his clothes should expand in the future, I see a lot of potential for the line.”

Finamore may have lacked resources in his project, but that did not stop him from pursuing his vision of creating original work. He plans to expand his line in the near future once he gets to college and is able to gain more insight about the world and techniques of designing.

“I sourced a great variety of  vintage shirts and I personally cut some of the shirts with my sewing machine,” said Finamore.  “In order to expand my line I plan to have more pop ups and better marketing and expanding more on social media. I start at Otis School of design in August. I’ll learn more creative techniques there, and more drawings there.”

To support Venice High alum Antonio Finamore, keep up with his updates on Instagram,  @projectpr.otostar and @finamoe since the pop up shops will vary.