What would you do if a fashion icon slid into your direct messages asking questions about your community service?
This is what happened when Louis Vuitton’s men’s artistic director Virgil Abloh entered Aleta Clark’s life on Instagram. The cleaning services company owner looks back on that moment as the “best.”
“I was taking a break looking at my phone and see a DM from Virgil and I’m like: ‘This can’t be the Virgil? This is crazy!‘” Clark said. “I just bought my first piece of Louis Vuitton, and now this guy is in my DMs, trying to help me.”
Clark is the force behind the anti-violence grassroots organization Hugs No Slugs — a venture created in 2015 on the heels of her mother’s passing and the homicide of Tyshawn Lee, the 9-year-old who was killed in a gang revenge shooting. Over the years, she’s been helping feed her friends who live under the viaduct at 51st Street and Wentworth Avenue during the winter months. Her outreach led to the founding of her first safe house at 6427 S. Ashland Ave., where she gives out food and COVID-19 supplies on Mondays and Fridays every week — 200 free bags of supplies that include seven meals.
Clark, who goes by the name Englewood Barbie, is looking to take her outreach to the next level with the help of Abloh and the West Loop store Notre. Notre conducted a nationwide donation raffle where pairs of Abloh’s Off-White x Air Jordan 4 “Sail” sneakers were the prize. Participants joined in last weekend with a donation of $3, and each donation equated to one raffle ticket and one chance to win the $200 shoes. $187,151.79 was raised in the span of two days, according to Notre owner Michael Jaworowski. All the proceeds go to Clark’s Hugs No Slugs. (Winners were being notified Tuesday morning).
“This has been like our third or fourth donation raffle we’ve done,” Jaworowski said. “Notre opened in 2014, which means ‘ours’ in French. And when we started the business, we always wanted to tie back to the community and find ways to raise people up, whether it’s certain people or organizations in the city and around the country that we believe in.”
“I’m really out here hustling to feed other people’s families,” Clark said. “We all have a responsibility to do more, a responsibility to do something. I didn’t have a gang of people to make this happen. All I had was respect for my people, love for my community and because I was so consistent, because I was so genuine, doors opened eventually. It never happens when you want it to happen. But it’s going to happen as long as you stay true to who you are and stay true to your work and your goals. It’s going to happen.”
Abloh said he found Clark on Instagram through his network of friends and family. Her story and her grassroots work made him want to help.
“I think our city is about doers,” Abloh said. “This is action; this is grassroots and it’s efficient and I think she should be celebrated for persevering.”
Abloh said helping Clark is not a “one and done” event. He’s giving the community activist access to the same business administration team resources that helped him get from Chicago to the head of Louis Vuitton.
Clark said she plans on using the funds raised from the raffle to open up more safe houses around Chicago — 10 to be exact. She envisions the centers will help feed more homeless, provide mentoring for middle and high school students, and help families who lost their children to gun violence pay for funerals, among other things.
Latest Fashion
“I need to put one in Woodlawn, Roseland, on the West Side and every poverty stricken community in Chicago,” Clark said. “When Virgil reached out, I was like: ‘God, you be wild sometimes. I thank him every day. I’m crying every day and thanking him. I’ve never had this type of support.”
When asked why do a raffle of this kind at this moment, Abloh said something like this is vital.
“Chicagoans … we, all too well, know this exact problem and … what Chicago means in the news when it’s spread across the world,” he said. “2020 is the year of a heightened awakening to an existing problem on all fronts. And me, being a resident of Chicago, I’ve always felt the need to use my global voice locally. And Aleta to me is not only a role model, but in a modern sense, one of the stories that I wanted to highlight locally that are positive and not negative.”