So I was mainly focused on sports and living life in high school. I’m 6'1", so I balanced playing football with basketball, and while I didn’t do everything exactly by the rules, I wanted to get good grades and graduate on time. Football was definitely always going to be part of my life.
When I was leaving high school, my friend and I actually had plans to make video clips of us playing football to send off to different teams, but we didn’t end up doing that and I eventually picked up a job house cleaning at a hospital.
By December of 2020, TikTok was blowing up because of the pandemic, and on my “For You” page I saw a bunch of people sewing flannel shirts. I knew how to sew, so I thought I could try it. I gave it a couple of shots, including taking a black shirt and a blue tie dye shirt, splitting them and sewing the halves together to create a new shirt. Everyone’s reaction was: “Holy cr*p, Wyatt, you’re pretty good at that!” In ninth grade, I’d taken a home economics class where our teacher had taught us how to sew using a machine, so I had learned the basics.
I then took a pair of boot cut jeans and turned them into skinny jeans by hand. I thought if I could do that, I could probably do a lot of damage with a sewing machine! Around that time my mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I was going through my old clothes and I figured that instead of getting her to spend $500 on new outfits, I could ask her to spend $100 on a sewing machine so I could make all my old clothes fit again.
I taught myself how to use the machine in a couple of days and went to a local thrift store and picked up the cheapest flannels I could buy. That first machine broke after about two months, probably from overuse, and I had to think about whether I wanted to continue sewing or not. I did, so I saved up and bought myself a new machine and began to think of a name for my clothing brand.
I remembered that when I first gave people my clothes, I could see they had a spark in their eyes. After seeing that spark a few times, I settled on the name Spark Apparel. I think I’ve made about 180 garments and I’m already selling them through my Instagram page. It’s still very small, but now I get the clothes to make my pieces from a wholesaler as well as locally, and I’m in the process of registering the business. Soon, I’m moving into an office space, but currently I run Sparked Apparel out of the basement space I live in.
I started with a small cutting board and a sewing machine, but now I have a main machine and I have extended my storage, bought a much larger cutting board, a label printer and serging machine that overlocks the stitch and trims the fabric. My plan for the next few years is to sign a lease and open a store front locally. And, it would be awesome to see some big Canadian names, like Justin Bieber, wearing my clothes.
I’m also going to apply to a fashion design school for a course that I can take online so I can still live in La Ronge and build my business, and this summer I will be selling my clothes at a music festival. I think if I did have the opportunity to play football again I would take it, but I would not stop the journey I am on right now.
Ever since I graduated high school I had this idea that I have to be busy, so that’s what I’m trying to focus on. I had some problems at the beginning of 2021 and it really helped switch my mind up. I realized that I have to take my own journey in life, we all take our own steps and God just does what he wants.
Right at the beginning it was really just my family, my mom and my stepdad who were supportive of me sewing and making clothes. People are super supportive these days, but even now there are still a few friends that think I won’t be able to do it. I just ignore them and laugh.
Wyatt Miller is the founder of Sparked Apparel. You can find out more and follow him on Instagram @sparked_apparel.
All views expressed in this article are the author’s own.
As told to Jenny Haward.
