NORTH CHARLESTON, SC (WCSC) - A graduate from Hanahan High is about to become the youngest store owner at Northwoods Mall when his clothing store opens this weekend.
At 19, when most young people are either in college or working for someone else, Jordan Jackson is opening his own business. Birch & Pen is the newest clothing store in Northwoods Mall.
Jackson says his adventure into fashion, started after middle school in Baltimore, before he and his mom moved to the Lowcountry to be near family. In Baltimore, he had to wear uniforms everyday.
"So I wore uniforms for three years straight and I guess like after I stopped wearing uniforms I got like this spark for fashion, I guess that was my outlet." Jackson said.
Family and friends liked his sense of fashion and he started putting together outfits for them. Then he opened a store on Instagram called 21 ACE.
"At first I just posted pictures and used hashtags and I had a pretty big following at the time."
Jackson says some of those followers were big time YouTube stars, like Kellie Sweet, brandongottfans, and minibarbie 12 from the show The Rap Game. They wanted Jackson to style for them.
"I would send them products, you were sending products, and then they would put it on and take a picture and then tag my online store and tag me and tag my website, and then it would sell out."
Jackson was making money from his online business, but wanted the chance to mingle with people and started looking around for a spot to open a store.
You could say the opening of Birch & Pen here at Northwoods Mall is a little bit of divine intervention. See just two spaces down from Birch & Pen there's a new church opening up. It's called Increasing Faith. Jackson's mother is working with the first lady and pastor of this church to get it started here at the mall. She was here one day talking with the mall manager, mentioned that her son was also looking for a location for his store and the mall manager said, why doesn't he come here.
Jackson is hoping that when people shop in his store, they'll leave with more than a new outfit.
"The vibe of the store isn't really about the clothing. It's more about knowing that it's possible to follow your dreams."
The grand opening of Birch & Pen is tomorrow at 4pm. It’s located in the Dillard’s wing. If curious about the name, one day Jackson was on Pinterest and saw some Birch wood, and thought it was just this cool looking kind of wood. Then he started playing around with the phrase, Birch and something. He came up with name Birch & Pen, and thought it was the perfect fit.
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