00:00Our brand is very focused on the narrative and the stories that we're telling.
00:05And so we are focused on the black experience.
00:09We're focused on filling in that white space in what you would call Americana fashion.
00:15We're focused on history, remembrance, and transference of family stories down the generations.
00:23And so when you look at the black experience here and how it reaches over to the islands and the continent, we are telling that cohesive and that collective story.
00:35And so a lot of times that ends up being a story that is rooted in the past, but that has currency in the present.
00:43Hi, my name is Akiya Shabaka.
00:46And I'm Rebecca Henry.
00:48And we are House of Ama, the mother-daughter design duo.
00:51And we're hanging out today with Essence.
00:57Our creative process, specifically in the studio, is a very interesting way of thinking about Ama.
01:04And I've never thought about it that way.
01:06But really, I would say that as storytellers and as a brand that focuses a lot on the research component and the folklore that anchors the collections,
01:18when we get into the studio, that's really where the fabrication exploration comes into play.
01:25That's really where we start to think about what will be the textiles that we create, specifically being here in downtown Los Angeles,
01:33where immediately where our manufacturers are, our production is, because we produce everything here.
01:39And so here, when we get into the studio, we're actually going outside of the studio a lot because we're on ground going to these different artisans and our different manufacturers to produce these pieces.
01:53I believe our studio is very task-oriented when we come into the studio.
01:58Acuia is the project manager, and so she really sets out what our daily agenda is going to be and the tasks and the milestones that we have to hit daily, basically, daily, weekly.
02:10My mother is much more in the studio on an everyday basis, and I would say that she has an even deeper relationship with the materiality and the people that we work with on a day-to-day being just head of, like, the production.
02:26And it really stems from where we were creating the pieces in her living room, and now we've brought the living room component to the studio.
02:40When you look at Alma, you'll see nostalgic textiles, but then you'll also see, like, timeless references as well, and also contemporary designs.
02:51Just even paying homage to me and my mother's, like, age difference in our age gap as well that I think anchors and makes the brand even more beautiful.
03:01And, yeah, yeah, these are the ethos.
03:04You know, House of Alma is essentially, like, the home in which we're able to explore who we are as a people and how we want to express ourselves in the world.
03:14My maternal line is from Louisiana, Shreveport in particular.
03:19My mom is from there, and all of my mom's family is from there.
03:23And my mom is actually, like, an archivist and a genealogist and has done extensive research on that family ancestry.
03:33And so we know exactly, like, where the plantation is that my family was on.
03:37Shreveport is Shreveport.
03:39It's a port city, and so it was like a dropping spot where you had African people,
03:45and African people were enslaved during the time in which we became, you know, dominant there.
03:51All of the women in my family sew and do handicrafts, quilt work, needle work, all kinds of work with the hands.
03:58Our family is Southern Legacy.
04:00And so when we decided to focus in on storytelling in our brand,
04:05we looked in our own family histories and started to tell those stories.
04:12Similar to what we're doing with our brand,
04:14where we really decided that this would be a point of healing for us in exploration,
04:19where each collection, we're really looking at either stories that are known to us
04:24or stories that we want to unpack deeper.
04:26I remember when we did our Amatels collection,
04:29there was a lot of stories that I didn't really have, like, all of the details for
04:34in terms of my ancestral lineage in the Caribbean.
04:38And so I was able to take this time to really speak to my aunties
04:42and people who are getting much older to really try to repair these stories.
04:47And I use that as an example as to how other people can use their creativity.
04:53We have Zora Nell Hurston over there.
04:55And she's one of what you would call our sheroes.
04:58And it was because Zora Nell Hurston was an author, but she was also an archaeologist.
05:03She was a folkloricist.
05:05She was a researcher.
05:07And it was really her mission and purpose in life to really explore black identity,
05:12in particular in the South,
05:14because she knew that in the South is where really we had the root of our culture
05:20before even the Jim Crow era in which we were being dispersed.
05:27And so it was at its strongest there in terms of the Africanisms.
05:31Our brand is also very focused on character and development and building out environments.
05:36And so we're very inspired from her personal narrative and the character development.
05:41And we've taken that type of focus into our collections
05:46when we develop characters and themes and environments and how we build them out.
05:54I've learned as the parent to be flexible in my role as the parent.
06:00I've learned that I need to accept advice sometimes from my daughter in the role that she's in as the project manager
06:07and the person that really makes the machine run.
06:10So I've had to humble myself and accept that she's an adult.
06:16And a lot of times, like I tell her, she's right about most things.
06:19Working with my mother, we spend so much time together and it's very rewarding to be able to spend that much time.
06:25I think like as I'm getting older, I just like appreciate it more and more.
06:30I think that working together works really well for us because we know how to lean into the areas of our interests
06:37and where we have the most strength with the brand.
06:40And I think that really for my mother, we lean on a lot of her personal stories and familial heritage.
06:47And she's really like the anchor of who House of Alma is.
06:51And, you know, we wouldn't be House of Alma without her.
06:54My constant motto is staying open and curious about what the day has to bring, places I'm going to go, people I'm going to meet, and experiences I'm going to have.
07:03What I love most about this particular work is the research and continuously discovering new nuances of African people, African American people, African people in the diaspora.
07:17And just discovering the rich heritage and history that we have.
07:23And just mining that in terms of stories that we want to tell.
07:31Alma is the creative, the community that comes from creative and the community that comes from like running a fashion brand.
07:40And there's so many parts to it, and I don't think people realize all these parts, but it's like the community that you build through, you know, working with the textiles and, you know, wherever you want to go with that, whether it's like making fabrics or embroidery work or, you know, you want to work with a small artisan.
07:58So there's that community, but then there's also the community of the people that you work creatively, like photography, video, you know, styling, like you create all of these communities through the work.
08:10And I think that that's something that gets really like that gets me going because I have the ability to pick and choose who it's going to be and, you know, learning more.
08:21And I think that for me, like just being explorative in that way has always been like really exciting in running the business.
08:29Something I continue to tell myself is that I'm excited for like the new life of Alma.
08:37And it's because like we've had the brand since I was in high school.
08:41It's been 11 years and we've been able to accomplish a lot as entrepreneurs when you accomplish a lot.
08:48But then there's so much path to go.
08:51You realize that sometimes it's where you need to be excited is the next breath.
08:57You know, what what will be the new lessons that you learn?
09:00What will be the new things, the new pathways that you have to break through and the new struggles that you have to find?
09:06And I think through our experiences, we've had to learn so much so fast.
09:11And now I'm just excited to see how with realizing all of that and just learning even more about the business itself, like where we will take House of Alma.
09:21I feel confident that we'll be able to do it.
09:24Mm hmm.
09:25Mm hmm.
09:26Thanks again.
09:28Church, one of the school of streamline our policies, the pandemic we장을 define is it for
09:29to defend our experience with the possibility that we are not the right to establish battle and
09:31develop our career at the same level.
09:32Yeah.
09:33Every year when we can grow up they'd be able to be able to do it.
09:34Mm hmm.
09:34Absolutely.
09:35Just keep in touch with that, back when to finish.
09:36Yes.
09:37So keep pushing on Dish in
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