Resonate: The Student-Created Clothing Brand You Need to Know About
April 3, 2026 · ALESSANDRA HARTWIG
His black, tattered sketchbook, ripping at the seams, is full of pages and pages of clothing designs, sketched with vibrant colored pencils. Plastered at the top of one page, it says, “Resonate. Made for ppl who love to express themselves.” You’ve seen these hoodies around school, and now it’s time to learn the story behind them. Senior Amir Bonner is the creative force behind this booming business, turning his love for art and streetwear into the profitable, growing clothing brand that is Resonate.
The Roots.
Bonner’s been surrounded by art his whole life. His creativity was shaped by family members who work in photography, music, and body art. “My friends, family, cousins, they love fashion too, so it was really easy for me to get into it and just fall in love with it,” he said.
In eighth grade, Bonner designed a varsity jacket. “That was the first piece I ever made on my own, and I really fell in love with it. I really wanted to create more,” he said. “I remember showing it to my friends and my cousins, and they all loved it.”
He spent countless hours sketching designs in his notebook, and started wondering what it would be like to bring those ideas to life. So, Bonner began researching how to create his own clothing brand. He knew he already had the artistic capabilities and the vision, but he now needed to navigate the business side.
After watching YouTube videos and reading books about starting a small business, Bonner soon realized he had to take the leap. Late at night, his notebook open, pages filled with half-finished designs, Bonner scribbled down what would become the business plan—the consumer energy, the target market, and the brand’s founding values. He found a manufacturing company based in China that specialized in the exact kind of streetwear, hoodies, and shirt-based clothing he wanted to produce. “So I hit them up, told them I had a design, measurements, and everything, and I just wanted to see if they could do it. Then, they replied back saying yeah they can,” he said.
But for Bonner, Resonate isn’t just about manufacturing clothes—it starts with the art.
The Artistic Process.
In the corner of his bedroom lies a stack of retro fashion magazines. While seemingly untouched on the outside, under every cover lie tattered pages filled with cutouts, each representing a spark of inspiration for a photo shoot or clothing design. “I like cutting up magazines and finding stuff in books or art I see and making a mood board of it. I just get inspired by all these colorful flowers and all these types of art, so that’s really what it is: I love just art itself,” Bonner said.
When thinking about the vibe he wanted his brand to emulate, Bonner often drew inspiration from brands he already knew and loved—such as Bape, Supreme, and even lesser-known brands like Yami Miyazaki. “[I like to] see their process, and how they try to solve challenges that I’m going through right now,” he said.
Bonner’s process starts with inspiration from some other form of media, brands he already knows and loves, or an experience in his life. Next, he creates a mood board—usually, these are made up of magazine clippings glued into his sketchbook, surrounded by penciled accents. But not all these ideas turn into tangible products. “It’s not something like, ‘Oh, I got a design, put it down, and it’s the one.’ It’s something I come back to and critique and change,” he said.
Once a design has made it past the artistic design phase, Bonner spends hours using a mockup clothing template on Photoshop to get a sense of what the product will look like. His Photoshop skills have significantly improved thanks to taking Digital Photography I his junior year with Dawn Tower Irvine. After he has this visual down, he talks with his manufacturers, who sometimes have limitations that force Bonner to modify his designs. When he finally has figured out the perfect design, Bonner sends in his creation and soon has his next piece of clothing.
Next, he has to market them.
“To be honest, I didn’t even sell them first shirts. I just spent a whole bunch of money, but I really got them out to my friends and people who really loved them, and they wore them around,” Bonner said. “People would see them, and they would compliment them and be like, ‘Oh, where did you get them from?’”
Resonate started as an esoteric brand, hoodies known only through word of mouth, seen on community members wearing free shirts, bought straight from Bonner’s pocket. From the beginning, Bonner has gone out of his way to show his dedication to making the brand community-focused.
“It was a long road because of funding and doing everything myself. So when times got hard, I had to put my money towards other stuff,” Bonner said.
In a time of both exponential brand growth and other personal struggles, Bonner sought to incorporate his emotions from that period into his art. “Most of the time I’d just find myself up at midnight just thinking, and surrounded by darkness, and I ain’t trying to sound all emo and edgy and stuff, but this is just stuff I see. I see visually stuff that inspires me to add to my creation.”
This set the brand’s initial tone.
The Seen Death Collection.
While Bonner took aspects of his personal life into his creative process, his brand was also deeply influenced by the media around him. “I be getting ideas from [hip hop and R&B] on what type of mood I want to give this certain piece, or sometimes music just helps me think and lock-in. It plays a big role in how I create and design clothes,” he said. He added that characters from Manga shows such as Ichigo from Bleach have also inspired him. “I also love horror movies, so all that horror stuff really does play a part in the dark tone I give my brand.”
This vision for a “dark tone” culminated in his first drop of Resonate hoodies. Black and purple hoodies with an eerie, veiny eyeball gazing at anyone who walks by, and the brand name, Resonate, plastered across the front like lightning striking.
“The hoodies, I had called them ‘Seen Death’ because of the eyes. It just looked like it was in pain, like if you really look at the eye that’s on the hoodie, it’s just a lot of emotions going on,” he said.
“I made some more hoodies and gave them around to people I had class with, and they loved them, so I made new hoodies and actually sold them. I made a website, I marketed them, I sent some out to [social media] creators and they made videos to market them. Some people on my website started to buy them, and I had to start packaging, counting inventory, and everything, because I’m just getting rid of hoodies left and right,” Bonner said.
“I remember seeing his first clothes when he was just starting posting about that stuff, and I always thought it was super cool,” senior Casey St. Clair said. “Every couple of days I would see more people wearing the hoodies at school and it would get to a point where you’d walk around and so many people would be wearing his stuff. It was really cool to see how many people were supporting him and that he was making an impact.”
Amid all the excitement around his designs, Bonner values the personal satisfaction of seeing his ideas come to life. “I felt so much happiness and comfort too. It was just a good way, I felt, to express myself and show what I love to other people. And, for them to find comfort in something I love,” he added.
While many students wear these hoodies around campus, they’ll most likely never be sold again. One characteristic of the brand that draws people in is the fleeting nature of each design. “Most of my pieces are limited, like first come, first serve. I don’t really plan on redoing designs. One day I plan on maybe re-releasing some of them again, you know, just as like a little throwback. But so far, I like just doing something and then starting something new.”
“It would get to a point where you’d walk around and so many people would be wearing his stuff. It was really cool to see how many people were supporting him and that he was making an impact.”
Senior Casey St. Clair
One of the first ads made by a social media creator who supported the brand.
Growth and Community.
Bonner quickly learned the resilience needed to be an entrepreneur. “You really have to take a loss and then know how to redirect yourself the next time you approach it. I don’t think you can really learn everything from a video or books about business, you really got to go all-in and see how it goes and just do better next time,” he said.
One lesson learned from the Seen Death Collection was that it’s better to market a product and then release it, rather than wait to post about it until after it’s launched. “Everybody will just be hyped for it and waiting for it and it will probably help you sell out quicker instead of people coming across it after it has already been released.”
“I planned on starting off small so I could just build up a community, because I obviously didn’t want to start off so big and not have that many people to sell to, so just like, kind of baby steps until I start growing some more, getting some more experience, and learning how to do more stuff with my brand,” Bonner explained.
The brand community is one of the most important aspects of Resonate and distinguishes it from other streetwear brands. This camaraderie is seen in classmates wearing shirts he paid for himself in the early stages. And it’s also seen in how he chooses to showcase the products. The models include his cousins, his close friends, students who told him they want to pursue careers in modeling, and other students at M-A who have really supported the brand and expressed their appreciation for it.
“I choose them because they play a big role in the brand. It’s like the community I want to get behind it, the whole motif and everything as a brand,” Bonner said.
To Bonner, the support from the community he’s built has been one of the things that’s helped him not only grow the brand but also grow himself as a person. By having these people model, it shows the brand’s emphasis on community and its personable, heartfelt nature
“[I have] people who hit me up offering, ‘Oh can I model for you?’ I let them model for me because it’s all the love from the community that I just love about it,” Bonner said.
One supporter who’s had a notable impact on the brand has been Bonner’s cousin, Navaeh McNair. “I remember she had seen some designs that were unreleased, and she really felt emotional because she knows I make clothes targeting people like her,” he said. “She really deep down inside, really do love and care for it.”
Another significant supporter has been his mother. “She really keeps it real with me, which I like because then it really gives me something to try to improve on. Also, she loves seeing me do this because she knows it’s just what I’m really passionate about,” he said.
Yet, his community extends beyond his blood.
“Everyone that has modeled for him, everyone that has done anything for him, it’s been his friends, and it’s a community more than anything. It’s very grassroots the way that he promotes it, makes the clothes, and just how the brand is run. It gives off the energy that it’s less about money and more about the clothing and making cool stuff,” St. Clair said.
That sense of community is especially evident on campus, where students and teachers alike have supported Bonner’s work. Art teacher Mitzi Ulloa, for example, has encouraged him to host a fashion show at the annual art show and supported him throughout the design process.
Courtesy Amir Bonner.
The Valentines Collection.
Bonner’s most recent launch, the Valentines Collection, incorporated many of the lessons he had learned from the Seen Death Collection. He reformatted his website to be cleaner and more interactive. He prompted viewers to subscribe for notifications for new drops. He also advertised the line before the drop—one of his biggest regrets from the past collection. Despite the photoshoot being incredibly spontaneous—Bonner and St. Clair had been filming a friend’s music video and decided to do it right then and there—the difference in photographic quality compared to past photoshoots is notable.
“Everyone is kind of inherently a creative person, but what separates a creative person with a vivid imagination and someone that’s a creative—actually producing—is their ability to visually articulate something, and take an idea and actually make it reality. So Amir, yeah, he’s really good at doing that,” St. Clair said.
The Future.
Bonner will be attending California State University, East Bay to major in business and marketing, and looks forward to continuing evolving the brand and having it grow with him. “I see a lot more clothes and new creations coming, with a lot of colorful ideas and darker tones too, because I love doing the mix of both,” he said.
Eventually, he wants to elevate the brand by starting to make his own cut-and-sewn pieces, along with identifying signature pieces. “I do actually plan on having some signature pieces that I plan on re-releasing and just, you know, stuff for people to just keep on buying,” Bonner said.
Resonate is only growing from here: more launches, more shifts in tone, more artistic innovation. However, through whatever is in store for the brand’s future, it’s clear two things will be preserved: the brand will always be deeply rooted in the community that supported it from its inception, and it will always be “Resonate. Made for ppl who love to express themselves.”
