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.
00:14We'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
00:30continent, 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
00:40has 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
01:14and 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
01:32downtown Los Angeles,
01:34where 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,
01:45because 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.
01:59Akua is the project manager, and so she really sets out what our daily agenda is going to be,
02:04and 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,
02:15and I would say that she has an even deeper relationship with the materiality
02:21and 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,
02:31and now we've brought the living room component to the studio.
02:42When you look at Alma, you'll see nostalgic textiles,
02:46but then you'll also see, like, timeless references as well,
02:49and also contemporary designs,
02:51just even paying homage to me and my mother's, like, age difference in our age gap as well
02:57that 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
03:10a people
03:10and 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.
03:24And my mom is actually, like, an archivist and a genealogist
03:28and 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.
03:40And 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
03:58the 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, where we really decided that this would be a point of healing
04:18for 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.
04:37And so I was able to take this time to really speak to my aunties and people who are getting
04:43much older
04:44to 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, and 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. She was a researcher.
05:07And it was really her mission and purpose in life to really explore black identity,
05:13in particular in the South, because she knew that in the South is where really we had the root of
05:19our 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.
05:37And 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,
06:00and I've learned that I need to accept advice sometimes from my daughter
06:05in the role that she's in as the project manager and the person that really makes the machine run.
06:11So I've had to humble myself and accept that she's an adult,
06:17and a lot of times, like I tell her, she's right about most things.
06:20Working with my mother, we spend so much time together,
06:23and it's very rewarding to be able to spend that much time.
06:26I think like as I'm getting older, I just like appreciate it more and more.
06:31I think that working together works really well for us
06:34because we know how to lean into the areas of our interests
06:38and where we have the most strength with the brand.
06:41And I think that really for my mother, we lean on a lot of her personal stories
06:46and familial heritage, and she's really like the anchor of who House Havama is.
06:52And, you know, we wouldn't be House Havama without her.
06:55My constant motto is staying open and curious about what the day has to bring,
07:00places I'm going to go, people I'm going to meet, and experiences I'm going to have.
07:04What I love most about this particular work is the research
07:08and continuously discovering new nuances of African people,
07:16African American people, African people in the diaspora,
07:18and just discovering the rich heritage and history that we have
07:24and just mining that in terms of stories that we want to tell.
07:31Havama is the creative, the community that comes from creativity
07:37and the community that comes from like running a fashion brand.
07:41And there's so many parts to it, and I don't think people realize all these parts,
07:45but it's like the community that you build through, you know,
07:49working with the textiles and, you know, wherever you want to go with that,
07:53whether it's like making fabrics or embroidery work,
07:56or, you know, you want to work with a small artisan.
07:59So there's that community.
08:00But then there's also the community of the people that you work creatively,
08:04like photography, video, you know, styling,
08:08like you create all of these communities through the work.
08:11And I think that that's something that gets really like that gets me going
08:15because I have the ability to pick and choose who it's going to be.
08:20And, you know, learning more.
08:22And I think that for me, like just being explorative in that way
08:25has always been like really exciting in running the business.
08:30Something I continue to tell myself is that
08:34I'm excited for like the new life of Havama.
08:38And it's because like we've had the brand since I was in high school.
08:42It's been 11 years and we've been able to accomplish a lot
08:47as entrepreneurs when you accomplish a lot.
08:50But then there's so much path to go.
08:51You realize that sometimes it's where you need to be excited
08:56is the next breath.
08:58You know, what what will be the new lessons that you learn?
09:00What will be the new things, the new pathways
09:03that you have to break through and the new struggles that you have to find?
09:07And I think through our experiences,
09:09we've had to learn so much so fast.
09:12And now I'm just excited to see how
09:15with realizing all of that and just learning even more
09:18about the business itself, like where we will take House of Havama.
09:22I feel confident that we'll be able to do it.
