By: Chantal Brown

Students carry backpacks, DoorDash drivers carry food and anyone can carry a mood.

The streetwear clothing brand, Carry A Mood, crafted by a self-taught artist Cleveland native Tahlayah Morrow, emphasizes and communicates the importance of mental health, self-expression and self-reflection. 

Morrow, a fifth-year in psychology and fashion and retail studies, said she creates art and concentrates on mental health. However, the traditional visual artist and graphic design route did not catch her eye as much as fashion. 

Morrow said she officially combined her passion for fashion and interest in mental health into Carry a Mood in June 2021.  Although it gets interpreted in multiple ways, Morrow said the name of the brand has to do with how people perceive their emotions. 

“Essentially we carry our mood, like that’s on our person 24/7,” Morrow said. “It’s constantly changing just like the way we change our clothes.

Morrow said streetwear is the most customizable form of fashion that allows freedom and variety, which is why she chose this method to incorporate into her brand. 

“You can make business attire streetwear, it just depends on how you put it together,” Morrow said. 

To navigate the social entrepreneurship space, Morrow joined a cohort of students who are a part of the Keith B. Key Buckeye Social Entrepreneurship Program. According to the program’s website, SEA Change Cohort partners with local nonprofit SEA Change which guides businesses through a 14-week development curriculum.

“With us, Tahlayah has just been going through the curriculum building out a sustainable financial model doing some more customer validation, customer, resources, and research,” Mallory Masarik, senior program director at SEA Change, said.

Morrow said she not only wanted to learn how to create an avenue for diversity in fashion but she also wanted to include a level of comfortability in the clothes she wore. 

“Growing up in Cleveland, I was a kid who hit puberty faster than the rest of my peers,” Morrow said. “Just based on my genetics for the rest of my family. I was going to be a bit thicker. I was gonna have bigger thighs and things like that, and I was always sexualized as a kid. So, I wore baggy clothes on purpose because you cannot see if you can't see something. You can't make the pre-judgment on it.” 

Eager to create a diverse array of clothing, Morrow said she was bursting with ideas for her young business which led her to enter the Urban Launch School, a program hosted by the Urban Business Development Center, in March 2022.

The U CBUS Founder, LoLo Mychael, said the center helps bring culturally competent resources to Black and brown businesses that are in the ideation stage or other earlier stages in development. Mychael said Morrow was a part of the inaugural cohort of the 12-week-long program. 

Mychael said she has seen growth in Morrow after watching her encounter common challenges new entrepreneurs face. 

“Something that I see oftentimes is that it can be very difficult to slow down and build a strong foundation, something that is sustainable,” Mychael said. 

In an era where entrepreneurs and creatives seek instant gratification, Mychael said Morrow had issues with organizing her ideas. 

“The thing with Tahlayah was she was not necessarily in a hurry, but the process really allows you to slow down and think ‘This is what I do. This is what I am good at. How can I make that into an actual business model?’” Mychael said. 

Mychael said Morrow and many others are interested in the social enterprise space because they are interested in solving the world’s problems. For Morrow, the most important issue is raising mental health awareness.

Morrow said clothes are just one part of the experience offered by Carry A Mood. Soon, Carry a Mood will offer creative workshops with group-based discussions about self-confidence and mental health.

“I offer this subpart, this community in the sense where we are actively putting in that work for that conversation centered around mental health and actively trying to change the imagery around mental health and try to make it normal,” Morrow said.

On top of maintaining her own mental health with a fair work-life balance, Morrow said one of the most challenging things she experiences as a new business owner is talking about her brand. 

“You don’t want to sound like a broken record, but you still have to inform people of what it is,” Morrow said. “The nervousness behind it and being confident every time I go talk about it. But another part of my business is transparency. I’m not perfect, I have my days.” 

Despite this, Mychael said Morrow has transitioned into being an example for others who are in the early stages of being a business.

“Her as an individual, the confidence that I see in her now, it's like she's a walking light, and I would like to think of her being a part of the program, like I know I’ve seen it myself, it unleashed the confidence in her to be able to believe in what she's doing and to be vocal in a way that's helpful for others,” Mychael said.