00:00Harlem probably has the most influence on fashion. If you look back to the
00:05Renaissance era, there's so many things globally that it has influenced from the
00:12suit, to the way women wore furs back in the day, to the confidence that you can
00:19see in all those photos from 20s and the 30s in Harlem. You know I think that when
00:27you look at kind of what you see on the runways right now, you'll see a lot of
00:32Harlem influence there as well. Brandis Daniel is the CEO and founder of
00:39Harlem's Fashion Row. She is a mom, she's a wife, she's a southern belle, I'm from
00:45Memphis, Tennessee, and she's a woman of faith.
00:52So the birth of Harlem's Fashion Row came about, I was actually at a fashion show
00:57in Brooklyn and I had an idea and it was, you should do a fashion show in Harlem.
01:04And at the time, me and my friends were throwing house parties and brunches and so
01:12we were already kind of on the scene and so this fashion show just felt like
01:16something that I had to do. Sometimes you have these ideas and you know you have
01:22them one day, you don't have it the next. This was an idea that I literally could not
01:26stop thinking about. So I knew that I had to do it and as I was planning the very
01:32first event, I started getting basically these downloads in terms of like what this
01:37would become. So a lot of what you see that we do today, 18 years later, actually
01:42got the download for it and wrote it in a journal that I still have back in 2007.
01:47And so after we did the first show, I started looking for more designers of color to be a
01:53part of our next show and that's when I realized there were not enough designers of
01:58color that were out there and that were sold in major department stores. And that,
02:04you know, I kind of feel like you have this moment sometimes where this passion meets a
02:09problem and that's really where purpose comes in and that's what happened for me.
02:15I had this passion to do this fashion show and this problem came in when I
02:19couldn't find designers of color. Um, and that was really the intersection for the purpose
02:23that God had for me. There are so many incredibly talented designers. Um, but we have the privilege
02:33of highlighting some of these designers. Like we get to, we do a fashion show every September.
02:39That is like the biggest event that we do all year long. It's our fashion show and style
02:44awards where we show the collections of three designers. And then we honor four to five
02:49people in fashion. Like last year, we honored Naomi Campbell and we honor Shioma Nandi, the, um,
02:55editor in chief of Harper's Bazaar. And we honored Shiona Torini. And so we get to show these designers
03:02while all of these fashion heavy hitters are right there in the room. And then we do get to do
03:08collaborations. Like we have a collaboration that's out right now, um, at the Gap. I'm actually wearing
03:14one of the pieces from that collaboration. Um, this was designed by Bruce Glenn. And so we get to
03:19curate designers who get to partner with retailers like Gap. We have a collaboration in Nordstrom
03:25actually right now as well. We've collaborated with LeBron James and Nike and Joey Chu and Timberland
03:31and Banana Republic. But we get to bring those designers onto those collaborations so that the
03:36the entire world can really see the incredible work that, um, that they do. And so those are two ways.
03:43And then in addition to that, we have events that really offer designers opportunity to connect with
03:48each other. It offers them opportunities to meet industry insiders, like our designer retreat.
03:53We actually have a sustainability summit that's coming up real soon as well. Um, so we have lots of
03:59things throughout the year to really promote, connect, um, and engage with designers of color.
04:06So as a woman who's, you know, been featured on Project One Way, been a part of Gucci's Changemakers,
04:13and so many other things, you know, fashion is gatekept. People be gatekeeping in fashion is
04:18absolutely true. But I think one of the things that I've done is like really approach fashion one
04:24relationship at a time. Like if you can approach it with one relationship at a time and really nurture
04:30that one relationship, that one relationship will lead to three. And then you nurture those three
04:35relationships, those three relationships will turn to six. And I've really valued relationship over
04:42everything else. And so I believe in really taking the slow road when it comes to breaking into any
04:47industry and valuing the relationships that are right in front of you. Oftentimes we like overlook what's
04:53in front of us because we're looking for the next thing. We really value the relationships that are
04:58right in front of you. And then those will open more doors. I'm so excited about where we're going.
05:05Where we're going is we're going to provide even more access to designers of color.
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