Following a recent appearance in New York Fashion Week, Jordan Pietrafitta, the owner and founder of EARTHLY For The Planet, has grown her brand from a thesis into a company.

Pietrafitta grew up in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Penn State in 2020 with a bachelor’s in English and advertising and public relations. Pietrafitta is also a graduate of the Schreyer Honors College, where she was responsible for creating and writing a thesis.

Her topic? EARTHLY.

“Initially, it was just going to be about a diverse and inclusive brand,” Pietrafitta said. “I was really inspired by AerieREAL. I liked the idea of a brand being inclusive and having people of all sizes and abilities.”

While working as a teaching assistant for an environmental science course, Pietrafitta was inspired by the sustainability aspect of fashion. She proposed a sustainability aspect in the final submission of her thesis.

As a student, Pietrafitta worked for Valley Magazine, where she pursued photography and served as the director of public relations. In 2016, Pietrafitta started Jordan Alicia Photos. Her experiences helped Pietrafitta practice her photography, advertising, and marketing skills that would help her create and manage her brand down the road.

Pietrafitta was able to design the “bare bones” of her brand while writing her thesis and worked with the Small Business Development Center to lay out the logistics of her company. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, Pietrafitta was finally able to launch EARTHLY.

“It’s all me,” Pietrafitta said. From marketing to social media and to creating and designing the clothing, Pietrafitta does it all herself.

“EARTHLY is completely secondhand, so everything that I get is sustainable and most of it comes from customer donations,” Pietrafitta said. “I receive donations and I upcycle it and resell it.”

Pietrafitta’s favorite design pattern, patchwork, showcases EARTHLY’s secondhand and sustainable nature.

“The mismatched and patchwork stuff is the most fun for me because it combines so many different items of clothing all at once,” Pietrafitta said.

EARTHLY’s most recent collection made an appearance at Impact New York Fashion Week, a runway event that showcases sustainable designers. The collection was inspired by Steve Madden bedsheets Pietrafitta had since elementary school.

“The first outfit and the dress I wore came from the fitted sheet, which inspired the entire collection and the colors that I based it off of,” Pietrafitta said.

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Pietrafitta focuses on featuring diverse and inclusive clothing and models. On EARTHLY’s website, customers can select a custom option to create designs curated to their style and size.

“I try and offer the options to people who either don’t see something that they like in their size or their size isn’t available by providing a custom option for people to get what they want for the same price it would sell for normally,” Pietrafitta said.

Additionally, EARTHLY doesn’t sort its clothing by gender to further inclusivity.

Though she has many long-term goals, Pietrafitta wants to focus on getting EARTHLY in front of as many people as possible for the time being.

To learn more about EARTHLY, you can check out the brand’s Instagram or website.