originally and their line includes a couple of tees with “hometown flavor,” their goal is not simply to “rep their city.” “I almost don’t care about where I’m from,” Lagamba says. “We’re just getting designs out there and enjoying it.” Stauber says they want to make a career out of Cong Clothing. “We’re just going to keep plugging away,” he says. Prophetically, Lagamba’s family works in the design market, so it wasn’t hard for the partnership to get contact information for clothing producers. But it was up to the two of them to make the calls and establish relationships to make their dream a reality. To check out some of this up-and-coming brand, visit Congclothing.com.
to form LÉGONDAIRE, and to face racism head on with tanks and tees that call it like they see it. The team includes Nene Ikpechukwu, a senior studying economics and psychology, and Pepita Mhando, a senior studying biology and African American studies. Légondaire designs include everything from prints of people’s Twitter handles to “Legends never die. R.I.P. JoePa” tees. Some designs are somewhat offensive, but depict real stereotyping language. One tank displays two boxes: one says “African” and the other says “Pet Lion.” The “African” box is check-marked, and the “Pet Lion” Some students would rather avoid the box is crossed out. fact that prejudice still exists, even on Penn “ ‘Leave your mark. Be LéState’s campus. But Sika Marlene Abbey, a gondaire.’ That’s our tagline,” senior studying political science, French Ikpechukwu says. “We want to and African American studies, has teamed print designs that are optimistic up with two other socially conscious friends or funny, but mostly ones that create commentary on stereotypes.” Cong Clothing The girls are open about the many times they have heard uneducated and inconceivable comments directed at them because of their ethnic backgrounds, and how they want the Légondaire brand to make a social-conscious statement. “I’m an international student from Nigeria,” says Ikpechukwu, who has an uncle who went to PSU. “We all have family in Africa. Our hometowns are there.” Abbey is from the Republic of Togo, and Mhando is from Tanzania. The Légondaire trio’s ultimate goal is giving back not only to the Penn State community, but to their communities in Africa as well. They teamed up with the Scholastic Trust for Academically Resourceful Students Foundation (STARS), which was started by fellow Penn Staters. Légondaire donates 10 percent of its profits to the fund, sponsoring African children so they can go to school all the way through high school.
Marielle Balz
“Education is a real way to combat poverty,” Abbey says. “You can be an ordinary person and do something good.” The idea for the brand came to Abbey during finals week of Fall 2011, she says. Ikpechukwu is the artist who always doodles figures in her notebooks and likes to stand out from the crowd. “I like to find out what’s in and wear what’s out,” Ikpechukwu says as she laughs. Mhando says she loves fashion and is good at distinguishing right and wrong, and so Abbey chose them both to work on the line. “They make it complete,” she says. As seniors, the trio say they believe they’ve done all they can for their education through Penn State, so now they have asked themselves, “What else can we do?” Besides their line of tops, a jewelry line is the next step for the Légondaire team. “We want people to wear and ‘own’ the line,” Abbey says, “not the shirts to wear the people.”
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