From Failsafe to Full Send: How my degree turned into Plan B

By Maya Morales

The sun is just beginning to rise over the hills of Los Angeles as Kelly Hernandez gets ready to start her day. Hernandez enjoys sticking to her daily routine of going to the gym and getting in a workout to start her day off. From there, Hernandez goes back home, where she will spend the rest of her day either working on her clothing line or working on production teams for commercials. 

Her work usually consists of editing photos or videos for her clothing line’s social media page and designing new pieces for her collections. When Kelly isn’t working on her clothing line, she’s on the set of productions helping out and learning from stylists how to dress actors for television.  

From sunrise to sunset, Hernandez has been working non-stop to achieve her dreams in her post-graduate life. However, she did not always have this plan for her post-graduate career.

Hernandez graduated from California State University, Northridge back in 2015 with a Bachelor’s degree in Broadcast Journalism and a minor in Communications. During her college years, Hernandez realized that she did not want to pursue a career in Journalism. 

“When I was doing journalism, I was like, I like it, but I don't love it. I had a colleague who was my videographer…and he loved journalism. He breathed journalism. When we would go meet someone he was constantly playing the radio station to listen to the news, if he saw a car accident he would call it in. I was like ‘Wow.’ That’s his passion and it showed me that I didn’t love journalism,” said Hernandez. 

Instead, she found her passion in creating her own clothing line. She believed that it would be better for her to put her passion first and work towards making her clothing line a real shop for people to come and buy her clothes. 

While attending CSUN, Hernandez utilized the special access CSUN offers its students to different programs. 

“I would go to the library, and since we were CSUN students, we get online courses for free and I would take graphic design [classes] so I could design my own stuff on the computer,” said Hernandez. 

By the time Hernandez graduated, she was well-versed in graphic design and was able to make a connection with a manufacturing company to help her print out the designs on her clothes. 

Hernandez did try to break into the Broadcasting Journalism field when she graduated but had no luck with it. “One of the professors at CSUN works for Univision and he took us to his work one time and he introduced us to some people. Then I remember I talked to one of the HR ladies…she was like, ‘Call me when you graduate.’ My teacher vouched for me. I called her and she didn't answer and I kind of took that as a sign,” said Hernandez. 

As one door closes, another door opens. From then on Hernandez began putting all her time into learning how to launch her clothing line. She launched her first collection just months following her graduation. In September 2015, Pesos was live for people to start shopping from.

Hernandez settled on the name Pesos by drawing on the manifestation that her clothing line would help her bring in money. Pesos, in many countries, is the name of their currency and money is the object of most people's desires. With this in mind, Kelly believed that naming her line after a money currency would help her manifest a successful business. 

It wasn’t as easy as it may seem to launch her line. Hernandez invested all her savings into her line hoping that she would make it back immediately after launching, but unfortunately, she did not. “It grew a little frustrating, but I didn't ever give up. I love it. And I have faith in it. And I still have faith in it,” said Hernandez. 

Hernandez knew that the more she kept pushing and hustling, the more it would pay off in the future. She accepted early on that she was still growing and learning how to do business. Even if her clothes weren’t being sold out immediately, she would still promote her clothes wherever she would go. Doing this would help bring more attention to her line and allow her to sell her clothes while she was out in public. 

Even with a slow-to-grow launch, Hernandez still had to face another setback. The COVID-19 pandemic set Hernandez back from the goals she was hoping to achieve. 

“The pandemic definitely set me back because not a lot of people were buying clothes or anything. But, I definitely took that time to grow mentally for myself. I felt like I had a lot of space for me,” said Hernandez.

She took the time when everything was shut down to focus on growing herself mentally, preparing new designs, and planning new ideas she had for new collections. Once restrictions began lifting, Kelly was ready to show off what she had pushed herself so hard to do.

“I didn’t give up. I have faith in it and I still have faith in it. I’m still growing,” said Hernandez. 

From then on, Hernandez had more people showing interest in her clothing line. She was able to sell more by having her friends and herself wear the clothes she designed. People began approaching her asking about where she got what she was wearing so she would point out that she designed them.

After much hard work and time, Hernandez was able to achieve her goal of growing her clothing line, but she’s not done yet. Hernandez plans on continuing to work hard and has many other ideas for her line that she is excited to push out soon. 

Hernandez recognizes that life after college is hard for some graduates. It can be discouraging at times and maybe seem like school wasn’t worth it, but she wants to encourage people to keep pushing forward through it all. 

“Keep your head up. It’s definitely not as easy as you would think. Right after you're kind of confused about life, and you think you're gonna have jobs lined up but you don’t. You just gotta keep your head up and keep pushing. Believe in you.”