What’s Your Story: A Fashion Playground

LAFAYETTE PARISH — UL Lafayette student Kia Batiste created her own clothing brand named The Playground as a way to honor her late mother.

Batiste is a firm believer in protecting and encouraging people to hold onto their inner child, “The same way you feel as a kid, nothing should change as you get older, its the same thing you don’t have to lose being a kid and being happy and joyful it’s the same thing” Batiste says.

Batiste had no intention of starting a clothing brand as a child, but after playing with legos she discovered she could venture down a creative path.

“I was able to just build a house from random pieces, so I knew that I could make something out of nothing” Batiste explains.

Her clothing brand aims at tapping into the innocence that can be found in the early stages of childhood and is owed to her late mother, a former school teacher.

“Whenever she would do her lesson plans and grade papers, she would bring me to school with her and I would go to the playground and just play and make the world mine”.

Sadly, as Batiste was taking ownership of her world, at only 15 years old she lost her mother to cardiovascular complications which she believes was brought on by stress.

“My mom suffered from depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder, but I didn’t know she was suffering so much. My mom was always worried about taking care of other people’s problems instead of herself” Batiste says .

As she entered collage, Batiste became focused on honoring her mother by sharing the lessons she learned on the playground with others. Batiste says “You learn from your mistakes you know if you fall down, you know not to go up the slide or down the slide like that anymore and you live, you learn, and you grow from that.”

Although Batiste is still in the early stages of her life as an entrepreneur, she hopes to continue her mother’s legacy all while sharing her clothing designs.