Corn husk earrings and milk-topped cupcakes: Meet the vendors of Trojan Marketplace
Students and community members promoted their shops at McCarthy Quad on Tuesday afternoon.
By NATHAN ELIAS
McCarthy Quad was loud Tuesday afternoon.
In one corner, a vendor told customers to try their skin-friendly products, “unlike that fuckass Trader Joe’s soap.” A visitor audibly reacted while passing by a table of strawberry and banana pudding cupcakes. Dozens of students and community members packed the quad with tables, clothing racks, surfboards and TVs promoting products to sell during Trojan Marketplace.
The Trojan Marketplace, organized by a group of students in the entrepreneurship-focused registered student organization, Spark SC, featured a diverse collection of vendors that included fashion designers, bakers and artisans.
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Jaden Armond
JJ’s House of Sweets sells more than your fair share of sweets: tall cheesecakes, mini churro bites, and two cupcake flavors topped with cookie crumbs and a small packet of flavored milk. (Nathan Elias / Daily Trojan)
On Armond’s table at the Trojan Marketplace, you could find more than your fair share of sweets: tall cheesecakes, mini churro bites, and two cupcake flavors topped with cookie crumbs and a small packet of flavored milk.
Although Armond — now a sophomore majoring in law, history and culture — spent her childhood in New Orleans helping her mother and grandmother roll biscuits, she wasn’t sure she could pursue her passion further. Her mother had insisted that she study and become a lawyer, and she felt pressure to pursue a profitable industry to build generational wealth.
Armond spent roughly four years working in restaurants, and later took culinary classes while continuing her longstanding hobby of baking for friends and family, but said she was “scared” when starting her business, JJ’s House of Sweets, last summer. But when she launched her online orders, she got her first one within five minutes. After growing at a surprising pace, she now caters for club meetings and mixers, alongside her online orders.
“When you buy from JJ’s House of Sweets, it’s like buying something that your mom made for you, or your grandma,” Armond said. “I choose a lot of things from the culture that I grew up in … as well as parts of my identity because I want people to find themselves in my desserts.”
Dante Lucero
Dante Lucero’s story, and the stories of those who have crossed his path, led him to start his clothing brand, Lucidity — a name that means “clarity of thought.” (Nathan Elias / Daily Trojan)
Lucero, a freshman majoring in business administration, admitted he used to struggle with talking about mental health; when he was in his early teens, he said he didn’t understand why people couldn’t simply ignore their sadness. It wasn’t until a fellow student took his own life and Lucero’s sister began to struggle with her own mental health between late 2021 and early 2022 that he began a “period of growth” that continues to this day.
His story, and the stories of those who have crossed his path, led him to start his clothing brand, Lucidity — a name that means “clarity of thought.” All this brought him on a one-day trip to Las Vegas, Nev., where he secured a licensing deal with SmileyWorld — a clothing brand that has partnered with brands such as Karl Lagerfeld and Armani — at 17 years old.
In his yearlong journey with Lucidity, he said the business donated 200 beanies to a mental health-focused nonprofit, Active Minds. During that same time, he also found himself doing better at talking to his sister about her mental health journey.
“I didn’t really notice it … She told me, ‘Dante, you’re actually talking about my mental health,'” Lucero said. “No matter how this brand turns out — [and] we’re really getting it off the ground now — it’s honestly just a huge success for me.”
Bianca Luna and Kaiden Valdez-Rachlin
The founders of oudbom settled on a design that was sleek and elegant, taking inspiration from clothing brands to differentiate themselves from other soap companies. (Nathan Elias / Daily Trojan)
After trying “literally dozens” of different soaps, Luna — a third-year student at Orange Coast College majoring in marine science and technology — eventually found that the best soap to address her lifelong battle with eczema was her own brand.
“They smell good enough to eat — but don’t eat them,” Luna said.
Almost exactly a year ago, she joined her high school friend in starting a business to sell affordable luxury soaps. Their table at the marketplace featured colorful cubes of soap snuggled in brown sleeves with their brand’s name: oudbom.
Their display boasted eight unique scents — from “unscented” to “diet dr. oat,” because Luna said the soap they ordered from their manufacturer smelled exactly like Dr Pepper.
Luna and Valdez-Rachlin — the co-founder of oudbom as well as a junior majoring in business administration — spent their year testing a wide range of products and designs, aiming to perfect their approach before bringing their product to market. They settled on a design that was sleek and elegant, taking inspiration from clothing brands to differentiate themselves from other soap companies.
“It’s taken a lot of trial and error to get to the point where we know what we’re trying to communicate to everybody,” Luna said. “[Our brand is] a little weird for a soap company … It’s become a collaborative effort.”
Citlalli Pacheco
Rayos Del Sol sells a wide assortment of earrings, from enamel earrings featuring characters to handmade roses made from corn husks and traditional Oaxacan pots and pans. (Nathan Elias / Daily Trojan)
Pacheco has had a busy year.
Until November, she spent her time compiling lists for people to canvas for political candidates. Now that the election is over, she shifted her attention to her other career, Rayos Del Sol Mercado.
With Rayos Del Sol, a business she founded in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic, Pacheco sells a wide assortment of earrings, from enamel earrings featuring characters from “The Powerpuff Girls” and Marvel to handmade roses made from corn husks and traditional Oaxacan pots and pans.
The tools to make some of Pacheco’s more complex designs aren’t available where she lives in Los Angeles; instead, when she travels to Mexico once a year to visit family, she also takes the time to make all her designs in bulk to bring back to the United States.
As a lifelong L.A. native, Pacheco has vended at several popups in the local community, but she said she hopes to one day travel to sell her products across the U.S.
“I like what I have going on because it lets me save enough, and it gives me a way to express myself creatively,” Pacheco said, “but [it] also gives me the freedom and time to go travel, and that’s what I want to do the most.”
