According to her, her grandfather led a transient life as a hobo and also owned a Ferris wheel that he would set up in various locations around San Antonio. Sadly, her parents, who are no longer alive, were both artists, but her mother also engaged in prostitution while her father struggled with drug addiction. Due to their difficult circumstances, the family relied on food stamps and often found themselves homeless, resorting to eating from dumpsters.
Ms. Brown fondly recalls the first dress that she sewed, at the tender age of 4, with her grandmother’s assistance. The dress was made from chartreuse fabric adorned with large orange polka dots. She reminisces, “We sat at the sewing machine, and it magically came to life.”
In addition to her grandmother, her mother also made and sold clothes. Her mother opened a shop in San Antonio called Banana Funk N’ Junk. Ms. Brown often accompanied her mother to the ropa usadas in Nuevo Laredo and Brownsville, Texas, where used clothes were sold in large bales. “You would cut open the bales and purchase the clothes by weight,” Ms. Brown explained. “As a family, we would select the clothes and bring them home for my mom to deconstruct. She would add flannel sleeves to slips and create unique pieces.”
As Ms. Brown grew older, she started making her own clothes. One day, when she was in her 20s, studying natural medicine at Hippocrates Wellness in West Palm Beach, Fla., a woman approached her at a mall, intrigued by her outfit. As it turned out, the woman owned a store nearby and ended up purchasing all the clothes Ms. Brown had brought with her.
Left with just a pair of board shorts, a T-shirt featuring cumulus clouds, and her trusty Vans, Ms. Brown washed and sun-dried her outfit every day. Eventually, she reached out to Mr. Gray, whom she had met at a reggae concert in 1987 and married in 2011. They both agreed that it wasn’t the right time to start a business selling her clothes. (Mr. Gray had previously managed a retirement home before co-founding Magnolia Pearl with Ms. Brown.)
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