HCII Alum Blends Fashion, Storytelling in Design Work

On a vacation to Australia in 2018, Ian Clark knew it was time for a change. He was working in real estate but had more creative ambitions — and anxieties about embracing them. Around the same time, Nipsey Hussle released his "No Pressure" mixtape, and for Clark, the music's message plus being on the beaches of Australia made him realize that he could build the life he wanted. He just needed to leap.     

"I'd always wanted to come out with a clothing line, but I was scared because I thought there wasn't enough money or people wouldn't like it," Clark said. "And once I heard 'No Pressure,' I knew. I thought, 'Let's just go for it.'"

Clark returned to his Los Angeles home after his trip and founded House of Orange, a design firm focused on fashion and creative storytelling. Clark kept his real estate gig and cultivated House of Orange on the side. But all along, he knew the brand was his passion.

"I started working, and I realized that real estate was cool, but I didn't love it," he said. "So I was like, let me have something on the side that I can build and be passionate about. That was House of Orange. I created this brand and I think of it being like a marketing agency. It's this house that I can come into and each room will have different creative mediums — one room might be clothing, but another may be art or sculpting."

Clark eventually left his career in real estate and earned his master's degree in human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science in 2023. Even though his capstone project wasn't in fashion or marketing, his cybersecurity work for Cisco had definite applications to House of Orange. Working with and around other designers tackling different challenges, for example, taught him that in the design process, finding the right solution takes time.

"I used to think that Steve Jobs and those types of people would just walk into a room and a design automatically happened, like they had a magic wand," Clark said. "But when you learn the design process, it's never like that. It's mostly iteration. You're going to fail a ton, but that's good because you learn the wrong way to go and you pivot. I think once you have that mentality, you can do anything."

Clark returned to Los Angeles after graduation. A year later, as he was nurturing House of Orange with the design skills he honed at CMU, his business hit the international stage when Indiana Pacers point guard Tyrese Haliburton wore a House of Orange sweatshirt during a press junket in the Pacers-Knicks Eastern Conference semifinals and photos of it went viral. The black "Don't Choke" hoodie featured a picture of Pacers legend Reggie Miller making a choking gesture at Spike Lee, a courtside fixture at New York Knicks games.

Clark said it would have been easy to try to replicate this moment and create more viral pieces of clothing. But he looked to one of his inspirations, Virgil Abloh, the creator of Off-White and artistic director for Louis Vuitton's menswear collection, and decided to build a lasting fashion brand. He knew he had to stay true to his creative decision-making and not chase trends. The only item available with the Don't Choke design is still the hoodie, which is sold out.

"I'm definitely excited this all happened with the hoodie, but it doesn't change how I've designed," Clark said. "I designed from my opinion, and people like it or they don't. I think that's the purest way to design anything because it's from a place seated in yourself."

Clark's fashion brand focuses on streetwear, and he gravitated toward this style because of his love for basketball and his family.

"Basketball and streetwear fashion are connected, and that's always been a part of me," he said. "I also have older brothers and my mom was very fashionable, so I saw how they dressed and it had a big impact on me. I've always been into clothing."

For Clark, though, House of Orange goes beyond fashion. It's a full-service creative and marketing agency where he can explore and integrate what he's learned about design into any product. He plans to continue to build the brand even as he moves to New York City to take a design position with J.P. Morgan Chase.

Clark has released several collections through House of Orange, including this summer's Back Out West line. It's inspired by Clark's return to LA from Pittsburgh and the experience of being back home. But he said he hopes to one day create a collection that incorporates elements of Pittsburgh.

"I never really wore beanies and gloves back in LA, but that's a staple for me now," he said. "I'll wear a pea coat or a nice jacket, which wasn't part of my wardrobe until I went to Pittsburgh. So that's gonna happen for sure down the line."