I remember the day I fell in love with fashion.

I was in second or third grade and had to choose an afterschool activity to keep me busy on Tuesdays and Thursdays – when I didn’t have soccer practice after school.  Out of a list of 7 or so options, I came across Fashion Design.  I had no idea what it meant, but I was…intrigued. 

I knew I loved the word fashion.  I was blessed enough to grow up with a computer in my home, which resulted in me spending countless amounts of time creating LEWKS in My Scene.  I fell in love with the process of turning my favorite character into my dream girl – selecting her nail color, hair style, and the perfect outfit for the day.  There was even a game that allowed me to make multiple (and I mean MULTIPLE) outfit combinations, which I printed out and individually wrapped in plastic paper protectors before putting them in a binder for me to dream with (and using all my parent’s color ink in the process).  But, I didn’t know what that meant. 

I knew I liked to do these things: playing in clothes, styling, putting together full looks and ultimately, helping my dream girl be the best girl, in this barbie dream world.  I knew that these things made my heart flutter – this feeling that’s hard to describe, but I’ve felt it in my soul whenever I done anything related to fashion throughout my life. 

I ended up taking the fashion design class during the afterschool program and quickly fell in love.  I loved learning how to sketch, learning how to sew, and even better – learning how to create something from scratch.  Our final project was turning a pair of old jeans into a mini denim skirt.  We would remove the seams of the legs of the pants and fill them in with fabric pieces of our choice.  I, of course, chose to use girly shades of pink and purple to spice up my favorite pair of blue jeans (from Limited Too) that I recently grew out of.  We were even able to model our designs in a school-wide fashion show – and we received top training in etiquette and protocol to prepare us on how to walk, pose, and present ourselves in front of a crowd of our peers.  I secretly loved this period of my life because it was so girly, fun, and feminine.

Although this fashion design class only lasted a semester, I needed to fulfill my passion for creating beautiful things that me feel my best – and ultimately create my dream life in my head.  In no time I was asking my parents to print tracing silhouettes and buy me tracing paper from CVS.  Outside of school and soccer, fashion was all I thought about.  I had to wear a uniform to school, but dress down days were my favorite!  Nothing better than spending $1 on the last Friday of the month to show off my creativity – and honestly become a cooler kid. 

Sidebar: I was a skinny, dark-skinned girl, with kinky hair and a funny name in the American south.  I was teased day in and out for things I couldn’t control – but all that changed when I had a nice outfit on.  It was like people…respected me more, which I gave me confidence. Gives me confidence to this day – I can’t even lie.

By the time I was in fifth grade, I discovered Kimora Lee Simmons.  She was everything.  I loved the fact that she was able to run her own company, but had a fabulous lifestyle (husband, kids, global) to go with it.  I didn’t know exactly what I wanted my life to look like, but seeing her was the first time I saw a woman be a boss, but look pretty while doing it.  I remember sneaking to watch her show, Life in the Fab Lane, and fawning over Baby Phat spreads in magazines. 

Fast forward a few more years and I came across The City, the sequel of The Hills where Whitney Port moved to NYC to be a fashion girlie under Kelly Cutrone.  There was a pivotal episode where Whitney was able to get an appointment with the buyers at Bergdorf Goodman.  I remember that episode, rather the scene, like yesterday.  The buyers pulled up in a black car, everyone treated them like queens, they were able to touch the products, ask questions about the products, and make changes for the customer – and 45 minutes later they were gone.  I was like, “I want to be those women”.

So from high school on, I was heads down focused.  I started a t-shirt line my freshman year called J’adore Doll.  My sophomore year I went to South Africa and merged my interest with philanthropy by working with women in remote villages to create products based on their history.  In college I worked in the retail store for Abercrombie & Fitch, had a buying and merchandising internship at an Atlanta retailer, and even made it to New York to intern at a major department store.

I find the concept of work to be interesting.  I was blessed to have my parents always invest in me and pushed my sister and me to choose a career in our passions so we “would never work a day in our lives”.  I can honestly say it never made sense to me until I veered off of the path.  Every time I tried to veer off the fashion path, my body, my brain, my spirit was like, “no, thank you”.  This happened twice.  First, when I worked in politics.  Second, when I worked in VC. 

In March 2023, I decided that the best thing for me was to have a job that made my heart soar and made a last-minute decision to switch recruiting from VC to luxury goods.  I needed to be in an industry where I felt like the work was making a change.  To me, knowing that the decisions that I make can enhance the lives of women through the fashion industry, and using my expertise to position me in a way that enhances my confidence – is more than enough to make my heart soar. 

This past Monday I was able to watch a sermon from FCBC (my church in Harlem) entitled: Hold On, which focused on continuing to persevere. Some of my favorite notes include:

• God is preparing my steps for my arrival to the dream.

• God is not preparing the dream, he is preparing me.

• Sometimes, the delay is for your preparation.

• Perseverance + Patience = Preparation

My favorite: The process is excruciating, but the arrival will be breathtaking…

I can’t wait for God to take my breath away.