From Less to Luxury; a Fashionable Journey With Marquelle Turner-Gilchrist

Marquelle is a native of Johnsonville, North Carolina, a small rural town about an hour from the state’s capital. Currently, Marquelle lives in Qatar, the world’s wealthiest country per capita GDP, and is the Men’s RTW Buyer as a part of a team opening 4 department stores across 3 countries in the Middle East. Marquelle attended Fayetteville State University, where he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing. After graduating, he worked for his alma mater helping to facilitate underserved communities matriculation from high school to post secondary education before realizing his passions were deeply rooted in fashion and luxury. In the fall of 2013, he enrolled in a dual-degree global luxury management graduate program split between NC State University (Raleigh, NC) and SKEMA Business School (Sophia Antipolis, France), where he studied the luxury industry from a global perspective and was able to travel through Europe’s major fashion markets for research. Upon graduation, he accepted an Assistant Buyer role with HUGO BOSS Americas, which supported over 100 points-of-sale for the United States, Canada, and Mexico before being recruited to his current post. Marquelle is passionate about living a life of liberation and 3 –cheese (at a minimum) mac-n-cheese.

WHAT HAS GROWING UP LIKE FOR YOU?

Marquelle: I’m from a very small rural town in North Carolina called Johnsonville. To provide a little bit of perspective, there were absolutely no stop lights. It’s super small. My last name is Turner-Gilchrist and I grew up on Gilchrist Road. My grandfather was a preacher at the local church. I grew up in a single parent home with just me, my mother and my sister and I actually grew up in the house that my mother grew up in. I was pretty poor and I was a product of  government assistance- food stamps, WIC, all of those things. Public programs were my saving graces. I don’t say that to sound negative or anything. It was great for me growing up in a small town because what it lead me to do in the future was found there. Growing up, it was extremely difficult for me because childhood is tough and I remember at a super early age having this love for fashion and creativity and although at the time it seemed like a headache, it became a blessing for me. It allowed me to blossom into my creativity. There was one time I remember in particular where I had these overalls and I would wear them three times a week and I would challenge myself to find a different way to wear them- whether it be out, crisscrossed, tucked in,  or whatever I had to do. There were many challenges to it, it allowed me to develop my creativity and to be a big dreamer. My mom didn’t even graduate from high school so often times I would read her mail for her and help her understand all these things. It really forced me to grow up early.

WHEN YOU WERE A KID, WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOUR GREW UP?

Marquelle: My first love, which is still a first love to me before I even knew what love was, was to be a singer. I was set on being the next Usher and it was set in my head. Do you remember the  Usher song “Yeah?” In that video, he wore a white Atlanta hat to the side and I wore a white Atlanta hat to my prom. People knew me for singing in the hallways at school/ I changed to fashion obviously later on but that was my first love.