The idea for Aethera, a luxury streetwear and jewelry brand, started in a sauna somewhere in New York City.
Lane Hitt, a Ford model from Plano, talked to his friend and fellow model John VanBeber for months about how he wanted to build something of his own. VanBeber, who grew up in Arlington and spent his college years at TCU feeling like fashion had no room for him, was ready to listen.
Two years later, the brand they conceptualized that day, Aethera, became one of 10 selected for ATX Fashion Week’s pop-up market. The three-day event ran May 7-9 at Barton Creek Square mall in Austin.
“We’re just two kids from Texas trying to make it,” Hitt said.
The path from North Texas to New York to that pop-up booth in Austin was neither straight nor simple.
Hitt’s entry into fashion came by accident. At 14, his mother posted a football yearbook photo on Facebook. A photographer reached out and a shoot in Dallas followed. From there, an agency in Dallas connected him to an agency in New York. By 17, he finished high school early and signed with Ford Models in New York.
While at Texas Christian University, VanBeber said creative pathways in fashion felt effectively closed off to him. His sister, who studied fashion merchandising at the same school, told him he would likely be the only male in the program.
“There was minimal to zero creative opportunities for myself, and I think males in general, that grow up in a Southern climate,” VanBeber said. “It wasn’t till I moved to New York and began immersing myself in that fashion scene that I realized I had some creative itch that I was attempting to scratch.”
When VanBeber returned to Fort Worth after a summer in New York in 2016 — wearing the then in-style skinny jeans and longer T-shirts he’d picked up — he felt judgment from his peers.
“For the next two years, I would just catch heat and kind of have a big target on my back and get ridiculed for having a sense of fashion,” VanBeber said.
The experience solidified his goal to move to New York after graduation.
Aethera co-founders John VanBeber, left, and Lane Hitt wear the brand’s Aethera Hoodie. The New York-based label launched its debut collection in 2024. (Courtesy | Aethera)
Hitt described a similar feeling. He was drawn to costume design in a high school theater class but never enrolled. The class had no male students, and the social cost felt too high, he said.
“You definitely feel deterred from that,” he said. “I hope it’s better now.”
Both men eventually landed in New York’s modeling world, where they met through a mutual friend and discovered they had grown up roughly 30 minutes apart.
The brand idea that emerged from that sauna conversation took months to take shape. They considered underwear, T-shirts, swimwear and finally landed on jewelry after visiting shops such as David Yurman and Cartier for inspiration.
Aethera launched in 2024 with a 19-piece sterling silver jewelry collection. The line features lab-grown diamonds and precious gemstones. VanBeber said the collection’s distinguishing feature was its logo: the Aethera Star, a seven-point starburst he designed and refined over multiple iterations.
The seven points were intentional. They correspond to the seven letters in Aethera, and VanBeber said the asymmetry was deliberate — he wanted to avoid the logo reading as a compass.
“The starburst is just a beacon of inspiration and empowerment,” he said. “It represents freedom and a way out of the 9 to 5.”
The brand has since grown to roughly 30 products, including apparel. Approaching its two-year anniversary on May 22, Aethera has grossed just under $200,000 entirely through direct-to-consumer sales, word of mouth and pop-ups, VanBeber said.
Hitt and VanBeber said they carry the psychological weight of what the modeling industry can do to the people inside it. Creative directors zooming in on bodies on set. Constant rejection. Years of idle time. Both said they hope Aethera can one day direct a portion of proceeds toward men’s mental health organizations.
“It’s hard to go years and years trying to chase that high of being on set and just constantly hearing no,” Hitt said. “It has done a lot of bad things to friends of mine.”
Hitt said he applied to ATX Fashion Week after the selection period technically closed. He isn’t exactly sure how they got selected, but both are grateful for the opportunity to expand their reach outside of New York.
“We’re getting more traction here because we are this cool New York brand, and no one’s seen us yet,” Hitt said. “Starting to sell outside of New York, I think, is really what we needed.”
The brand is also eyeing a longer-term Texas presence. VanBeber floated the idea of university-adjacent designs by using their signature “wife pleaser” tank tops with school-colored embroidery that are a nod to Texas campuses.
For now, both founders said the work is harder than they anticipated and they have no plans to stop.
“If we knew it was going to be this hard, there are times where we probably wouldn’t have done it,” Hitt said. “But until you try, you’re never going to know.”
For Hitt and VanBeber, North Texas was a place where creative risk felt harder to take — where the social cost of standing out ran high enough to steer them away from what they actually wanted to do.
Hitt said he hoped that has since changed.
“There’s so many talented artists in Texas,” he said. “If we lived in a world where they weren’t scared to go out and open galleries and start throwing brands — even if you fail, do it again.”
Nicole Williams Quezada is a reporting fellow for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at nicole.williams@fortworthreport.org.
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