Mural Master: McIlwaine '04

Philadelphia is home to more than 3,000 colorful murals that attract thousands of visitors each year. And, Neumann University is connected to several of these paintings-- ones created by Alloyius McIlwaine ’04. This creative alumnus has put Neumann on the art world map and he is not stopping anytime soon.

Sitting at the helm of his company, Cultures Clothing, McIlwaine has not only painted murals in Philly, Miami, and Paris, France, but he also developed his own clothing line.
McIlwaine graduated with a business degree but was hard at work crafting his future in art while he was a Neumann student. Looking to make extra money while in school, he started designing hand-painted T-shirts.

“I was approached about making T-shirts for a sports team and I was looking for ways to make money while I was on campus,” McIlwaine recalled.

While attending high school at Friends Select in Philadelphia, McIlwaine started getting into street art including graffiti and pop art. He considers himself a self-taught artist.  Drawing has always been his go-to activity as a child.  

“When my mom wanted to calm me down she would have me draw something,” he said.

McIlwaine did his first mural in 2012. In addition to the 16 murals he painted in Philadelphia, he has murals in Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Miami, and three in Paris, France.

“I still can’t believe I’m getting paid to paint on walls,” he laughing said.

Along with designing and painting murals, McIlwaine is also an accomplished photographer and clothing designer.     

“They all work hand in hand. The mural money goes to fund the clothing,” McIlwaine said.

The clothing line got a jump start with a gift from McIlwaine’s mother. On his graduation day from Neumann University, his mother purchased a domain name and hosting for a website. He decided it was time to take his clothing line to the next level.

“It was a long learning process. It’s hard getting your feet wet in the business world. Professor Wong helped me with my business plan, but when you get out there in the field actually doing it, it’s a whole different animal,” he explained.

McIlwaine runs his business from an office in West Philadelphia. Cultures Clothing, was founded in 2000. The line is representative of high fashion, urban wear, and everything in-between for men, women, and children. The company wants to show that all nationalities, cultures, or social groups have something interesting or beautiful about them. In order to do that, Cultures Clothing highlights aspects of society as well as the different nationalities around the world.

The intent of Cultures Clothing is to convey the beautiful and interesting aspects of different cultures in order to help people learn more about each other. The tags on the clothing, when flipped over, give a fact about another culture.

“If I think a design on a piece of clothing is geared more toward one demographic, I’ll try to do the complete opposite thing on the tag so people can learn a new fact about another culture.” McIlwaine said.

McIlwaine recalls that he was lucky enough to have gone to a school where it was instilled in him at an early age to appreciate and learn about different cultures. He saw many similarities between the Quaker philosophies he learned in high school and the Franciscan principals that he witnessed at Neumann University. Those ideals are incorporated into all of his projects.

“We are more alike than we are different,” he says. “One of my goals is to build a cultural fact database. I also want to build schools and to do things that will build each other up.”

For more information about Alloyius McIlwaine visit his websites: www.culturesclothing.com and www.alloyiusmcilwaineart.com.