Ask and ye shall receive.
It worked for Jounte Armantrading, Tampa-based founder of The Sonder Atelier. Her hand-painted, secondhand-sourced clothing brand had been gaining a steady following locally and internationally, and Jounte, as she prefers to be called, was ready to take her art to the next level.
“I posted a TikTok after I had my first few markets that went really well, and I was like, ‘I want to do a fashion show, that’s it. I don’t know how it’s gonna happen, but it’s gonna happen,’” Jounte explained.
“I was like, this is how I want it – I want it to look like this, I want a bunch of artists, I want it to look super fun, and it started going viral. I saw one comment, it was from Liz [Dimmit] and she was like, ‘You should do it at FloridaRAMA. I’m the CEO here.’”
Jounte thought the comment was a joke, an attempt to “troll” her, but it wasn’t. “It was so shocking, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, I asked, and I received.’”
The Sonder Atelier x FloridaRAMA fashion show will be held Saturday (July 11) from 8-10 p.m. at FloridaRAMA. Tickets are available here.
Jounte, a painter, got her start in the fashion industry in 2025 – simply because there wasn’t enough room in her apartment to continue being a traditional artist.
“I was going to school for architecture, and I had a 300-square-foot apartment that I shared with my partner, and I used to do these giant paintings,” she said. “I had no more space – they couldn’t fit under my bed, and they were also really expensive, so I started turning to my clothing.”
Her classmates took notice of her hand-painted frocks and started commissioning Jounte for pieces inspired by their favorite architectural designers. She initially bought new pieces of clothing to serve as her canvas, but after watching a documentary about the deleterious impacts of the fashion industry, Jounte pivoted her methods and began to source secondhand garments from thrift stores across the country.
“We have enough clothing on this earth to dress the next six generations. I found that by using secondhand clothing, I was kind of helping with the problem of over-consumption in the fashion world.”
Thrifting also gives her clothing more of a bespoke feel and infuses each piece with a unique story.
“I love dating pieces and finding out historically like where they came from,” explained Jounte. “I buy everything, and then I come home, I wash everything, I dye them if I need to. I sew them, I fix them, because sometimes it’s a slip – I paint a lot of slips – and they have holes and I need to repair them. And then I start the painting process, and I paint everything by hand. I don’t really go in with a sketch, I just start painting.”
Her unique approach to sustainability coupled with her unique “femme-fantasy” aesthetic (think mermaids, unicorns, fairies) has propelled her brand’s rapid growth. She now designs fulltime as The Sonder Atelier and has customers as far as the U.K. and Norway. Her work is featured at local markets and in boutique shops in across the U.S.
“FloridaRAMA is an event space and an amazing platform for partnerships with artists in the community,” explained Jessica Baird, business development manager at FloridaRAMA. “It’s two parts, immersive museum and eclectic event space, that really opens up a sort of portal for creativity with local artists.”
Since its founding five years ago, FloridaRAMA has hosted over 85 artists and makers, rotating exhibits every two months to keep the creative juices flowing.
In addition to art exhibits and its permanent, interactive art museum experience, FloridaRAMA also hosts a wide-range of events, like artist talks, scavenger hunts, hands-on art workshops, and as of this month, fashion shows. The event space is open for nearly anything.
“If it’s about art and creativity, we’re all for it,” Baird elaborated.
“That’s what gets us really excited … working with artists like Jaunte, who once you meet her and talk to her, you just understand that she’s the most creative, beautiful soul, inside and out. She is just an amazing person, and when we find someone who we believe in, we want to put all of our efforts into supporting that talent.”
