New Haven fashion designer Neville Wisdom logo.
NEW HAVEN >> Designing your own clothing can come naturally, when the trade is picked up due to necessity.
Neville Wisdom was raised in Windsor Castle, an area of Saint Mary, Jamaica.
Wisdom describes his family as having been “poor” when he was young but uses the word only for lack of a better term, because he says from his perspective, “I was fortunate to grow up in the way that I did, because all of what one would consider ‘bad,’ are actually the very things that have kept me so motivated,” Wisdom said.
Wisdom says all eight of his siblings were creative in their fields of interest.
“Even for the side of my family that was very academic, they were still very creative in their academics,” Wisdom said.
Wisdom’s eye for creative design and layout began early, seeing his mother changing the layout of the house that he grew up in, saying she did it very often almost once a month. “I was very interested in the visual of the house. I would always move around and change the layout of rooms with my mother,” he said.
Wisdom said he was 14 when he developed an interest in clothing design. Dressing became very important to how he looked as an individual.
“We had a limited cash flow and sometimes resources as a family growing up, but we did have an abundance of the outdoors, which gave us such an incredible appetite for the unknown,” he said.
Wisdom spent a lot of time with his mother and gives her credit for teaching him sewing techniques when he was first starting out.
See video of Neville Wisdom talking about learning sewing techniques from his mother.
A turning point in Wisdom’s life was when one of his sisters became ill and his mother went to stay with her a few hours away.
Wisdom was 16 at this point and took care of the house finances for himself and two of his brothers. He would receive money from his father, who lived in the United States, and used some of that money to invest in a bar/restaurant with a local politician.
After a falling out with his business partner and deciding to close the restaurant when he was 18, Wisdom left without a plan for his future.
It was then that another sister who lived in Kingston told him about a program near where she lived that was an introduction to fashion design. The six-month program focused on machine operation, garment construction and fashion design.
Wisdom looked into the program and asked the instructor if it was OK for him to sit in on the orientation. After the orientation, the woman invited him to get equipment and join the program. Wisdom recalled the woman telling him that she was impressed by his ambition. Wisdom gives credit to her for nurturing his ambition in the industry.
That program was the first time Wisdom recalls enjoying going to school. He said he was never medically diagnosed but it is now clear to him that he struggled with dyslexia and still does to this day, seeing numbers upside down at times and still has trouble reading.
After finishing the program, Wisdom worked with Kingston designer Neville Walker. Wisdom laughs at how similar their names were and describing how he wasn’t sure how to brand himself when his mentor had the same initials. He decided to take the name Neville’s Fashion for his first attempt at running the design company he started before moving to the U.S.
A few months before coming to the U.S., Wisdom’s shop was broken into and all his equipment was stolen.
Not knowing what to do, he would go back and forth to Neville Walker’s place, who, as a friend, would let him use equipment and supplies at no cost.
Wisdom came to the U.S. in 1999 to stay with his father in New Jersey.
Once he arrived, Wisdom was on the fence about pursuing fashion. He was overwhelmed by costs and his lack of equipment, remembering how demoralizing it was being robbed before leaving Jamaica.
Once settled, Wisdom started working construction with his father but that didn’t last long due to a disconnect he had communicating with him and soon moved to New York City hoping to get a job in “The fashion capital of the world,” he said.
Wisdom found no opportunity in NYC. He said his lack of opportunity was mostly due to not knowing where to look.
After running into a few dead ends in the city, Wisdom said he came to Connecticut to visit a sister who worked for Yale-New Haven Hospital, and she convinced him to stay.
Wisdom went back to school and became a surgical technician, studying at the Eli Whitney Tech Adult Ed program in Hamden. He bought a couple of sewing machines and started making fleece jackets for women he worked with. He said he would make them for people as a hobby and found himself missing the trade.
Wisdom said he has had a push-pull relationship with fashion, living and breathing the business on and off for more than 15 years, moving all of his supplies and equipment back and forth from his basement to rented studios, to his living room and storefronts. He said he has been serious and dedicated to developing his business for eight years now in New Haven and feels that his creative drive and vision has never been stronger.
Wisdom said that although most of his storefront displays are mainly based around women’s fashion and clothing, he does make men’s clothing but mostly for himself. He said his designs for men contained feminine qualities that were never very popular until more recently.
Wisdom noted he has always been attracted to many aspects of design for women. He said women are very appealing to him creatively, finding inspiration from his mother, lack of restrictions for women in design and that having a lot of sisters had a big influence on him, as he helped many of them dress when they were young.
In 2014, Wisdom designed the dress for Mayor Toni N. Harp’s inaugural gala.
Wisdom said moving forward he wants to “Find the balance between what I want to do and the things that I don’t necessarily want to do that are symbiotic with what I want.” He sees that for him, the sky is the limit. Lauren Sprague, the brand director for Neville Wisdom LLC, said she has been working closely with Wisdom for four years and watched the business grow dramatically.
Wisdom hopes to find energized individuals that share his passion, who are excited to work really hard to achieve something solid, saying the growth of his business has been very challenging at times. He said he hopes to reach more people and get people to understand how important it is to support local businesses, especially those that are doing something so unique as making clothes in their neighborhood.
“Right now, we are working on the fall/winter collection and simultaneously planning the Fall/Winter Runway show. This runway show is our fifth annual show that takes place in the middle of Orange Street in front of our downtown location. The street is shut down on Friday, Sept. 2, from 6-8 p.m. for the show and it includes a ton of other local businesses out on the street — there is music, food and drink vendors and always a surprise element,” she said.
Wisdom has two storefronts in New Haven, one at 63 Orange St. downtown, which offers sewing classes, and a design program at his workshop at 903 Whalley Ave. in Westville. He also offers consultations for custom designed clothing, tailoring and alterations, all of which you can find information for on the website nevillewisdom.com.
“I really don’t have any more fear left in me, in regards to fear of failure,” Wisdom said.