Howard University is a school filled with outstanding talent and hardworking entrepreneurs. Javari Miller, affectionately known as Vari Cousteau, is a Fashion Design major from Northeast Washington, D.C. Cousteau is a newly acclaimed fashion designer whose work will be shown on the “Scraps” runway show at Textile Museum this upcoming October.
Cousteau began designing clothes in high school, but didn’t really take it serious until coming to Howard in August of 2015. “I’d describe my work as seeing both sides of the world and being able to articulate through clothing,” he says.
He is currently learning that having patience is the one and true talent, saying “Once you start to find the balance between that and your tenacious will to be great, that’s when you start making progress.” As far as the actual clothing goes, he has been learning a lot about pattern making and translating concepts into clothing.
Cousteau claims his absolute favorite part of what he does is that it’s actually what he is passionate about. He believes fashion design is what he was destined to do. Outside of clothing, he likes to explore places, go out of his element and simply find his way around. He occasionally plays basketball, reads and listens to music.
Javari exclaims that his dream collaboration would be with either Res Kawakubo, Virgil Abloh, or Raf Simons, saying “they all appeal to me for different reasons but they all have similarities as well.”
As his work is slowly beginning to get the recognition it deserves, Javari sees his future as bright as they come. When asked what would be the results of us Googling his name in 10 years, he says should everything go as planned, we’d see a picture of him “in a tank top with 50k hanging out of my pocket, with chicken in one hand and $4,000 french brandy in the other.”
