00:00When you were in those early stages of your life, creating your own pieces that you had bought,
00:05you know, secondhand, did you ever envision yourself building a brand one day or was this
00:11truly just something you did for fun to express yourself? Yes, no, I had no idea. I didn't think
00:15I would ever be working in fashion. Yeah. I literally just saw it as something that was fun.
00:19It was interesting to me. I was always curious. So doing this was just true self-expression,
00:25literally. And I loved it. So I guess when I look back now, I feel like it makes sense now.
00:33Yeah. In hindsight, it's like it was all there. Yeah, exactly. Before starting the brand,
00:38though, what were you doing professionally? I was working in marketing. And what kind of
00:42experiences or skills or tasks that you had to do in that industry do you think you've brought into
00:48building this brand today? I'm sure a lot. Yes. Considering you're always having to market it.
00:51Yeah, definitely communication. And I think that for me, it's so important to communicate with the
00:57customer, with the consumer. And that way is always changing. So how do we reach our consumers
01:02in a way that's relevant to today, but still staying true to ourselves? And I think with marketing,
01:09that's really, truly the power of it. And I think we've been able to do that really well with our brand
01:13and really being able to put people on our journey of our storytelling, how our crafts are made.
01:18So that was really, I guess that really helped me. Yeah, definitely. How would you then, if you are,
01:25you know, selling this brand to consumers, sharing the story about it, how do you go about describing
01:30really what makes you guys different today? Yeah, for us, I think we did a few key things
01:35that really made us stand out. And that was prioritizing quality and craftsmanship and not
01:40being able to really showcase that and building trust with our consumers. So putting them on that journey,
01:45showing them truly how the brand, how the products have been made and being transparent with them.
01:51And what was really important for me was also building trust with our artisans in Bukinna Faso,
01:56for example. When I first started, I wasn't able to have wholesale orders or make a lot of fabrics with
02:05our artisans. And that's because they really needed to trust us. And they really needed to
02:09understand that we value the work that they are doing and the rich tradition of what they are
02:16doing. And we were able to really showcase this online as well as building something new. At the
02:21time, I hadn't really seen these type of styles, whereas a corset top or this type of modern dress
02:29in traditional fabrics, hand-woven fabrics, hand-dyed fabrics, in the way that Kilenta was doing it.
02:35And that really set us apart and made people curious. How does your design process look today,
02:40from maybe first idea you have to a sketch to then the products coming to life? Can you walk me through
02:45what the steps are? Yeah, so now we've been able to build an amazing team where I will come up with the
02:51design concept, the sketches with my design assistant, and then we would create a pattern,
02:59sample it, and most times, like this fabric, for example, design the fabric that I'd want,
03:05and send the swatches over the colours to our weavers who would make the fabrics,
03:09and then we'd start producing it like that. So everything is much slower. We make everything
03:14in-house at the moment, and that's the way we've been able to, that's the way we did it.
03:21And is this all happening in London? Are you working with weavers elsewhere? Where is the
03:25team located today? Yes, I work with weavers across West Africa in five different locations,
03:30different kinds of artisans from beading in Kenya, hand-dying in Nigeria, weaving in Burkina Faso,
03:37Senegal for gold jewelry making. So we we've been really been able to, at the beginning, there was
03:44just one of me and my seamstress, and now we've been able to grow the brand to where we have,
03:52we work with over 40 artisans across the continent in five different locations. So we create it all in
03:59this place, and then we ship it globally. How did you find the right partners in those artisans? You
04:04know that I'm sure that as you have this vision in your mind, you need to make sure that the people
04:08you're working with have the same vision or are able to help you execute on these things. How did
04:12you land on the right partners to help you do so? I think for me, it's very important to share the
04:19vision, and I've been really blessed to have women who are able to believe in that. At the beginning,
04:25even the woman I was working with, we kind of took a chance on each other. She was starting her career
04:30in she wanted to learn how to sew, but she knew how to make patterns, and I wanted to start my brand.
04:35So I think it's really important to just build a team that understands your values and shares the
04:42same like ethics as you. And I think for me, it's just been more so being curious, going to these
04:49different places, speaking with the right people, connecting with the right people,
04:53and then eventually being able to build this type of team.
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