00:06l o u d it's not something so sad you would say a woman ought to be but sometimes girls
00:14just want
00:15to have fun and look fashionable doing it joining me today is miss afia bishop the powerhouse behind
00:22allowed by afia tell us when you were considering mulling over names for your brand what made you
00:28decide you know what i want to be loud loud is classy outspoken strong confident and happy most
00:40important happy because you're supposed to be happy with yourself but it is also not vulgar or rude it
00:48like it's not anything negative there's a lot of bright colors bright prints like i don't do
00:52black and white um hardly ever uh but um i felt like loud was really speaking to the clothing as
01:04well
01:04as i wanted women to be seen and heard because sometimes you know you know women should be
01:09seen and not heard i'm like no you're gonna see me and you're gonna hear me so that is why
01:14i chose loud
01:15tell me just about your journey how long you've been doing this and how far the brand has come
01:20originally the business uh was registered in 2012 but i've been designing way before um if you want
01:28to say like since i was a child i was making barbie clothes and clothes for my dollies i would
01:32buy
01:33clothing wholesale and retail them but everybody felt like all of the boutiques have the same thing
01:39and they wanted something different and that is what pushed me to design as well if you google caribbean
01:45clothing what comes up a lot of the times is not representative of what caribbean people
01:49actually wear um you know like the hawaiian shirts and the sandals and socks is not us you know we
01:54are very fashionable every single island that i've gone to to any carnival seeing the women and fets and
02:00how they dress and even the men it is always on point and so i wanted to create clothing that
02:06would
02:06represent us as a people but because the weather is so hot i had to be very mindful of the
02:12fabrics that
02:12i use so i do use a lot of rayon vol and cotton because it is breathable and of course
02:17if it gets
02:18wet it dries really quickly so those are the fabrics that i try to use the most so this is
02:23our versatile
02:24caftan it could be worn as a top just like this buttoned halfway so you could see the shorts on
02:30the
02:30inside or you could wear it with pants you could also unbutton it and wear it as a throwover that's
02:35why
02:35we call it the versatile caftan because you could wear it three ways as a dress as a top or
02:39as a
02:39throwover it also has pockets at the side and there are loops that go straight through so you could
02:47wrap a belt around it so the brand has transitioned into resort wear brand originally i would have done
02:54a lot of african prints and i did an international expo um in europe and you know europe is close
03:01to
03:01africa so there was there were a lot of people from africa coming up and asking okay what type of
03:05print is this and asking more about the history behind the prints and i really didn't know because
03:09i was from the caribbean you know buying fabric locally in the stores i'm like this is pretty so i
03:14will use it um and then it got me thinking i know about being a caribbean woman so i felt
03:22like my clothing
03:23needs to speak that as well because if i'm asked about it then i could talk for days about it
03:29and
03:30so i started to do resort wear and in researching the style resort where i felt like a lot of
03:37the
03:38brands that were known for it were not even from the caribbean so i was like okay so they are
03:42taking
03:42our style and our flair and our fashion and they're taking the credit for it so i wanted to
03:50um to be a caribbean designer from the caribbean making clothes for caribbean women
03:54and being known for it internationally as a caribbean designer that's actually born in the
04:01caribbean doing resort wear clothing so that became a goal of mine and that's what i've been doing ever
04:08since okay enter how successful have you been in terms of marketing yourself and extending your reach
04:15to be on the shores of tnt so currently the brand is sold in barbados guyana and new york as
04:24well as
04:24trinidad and tobago of course talk to me about the business model and how it all works out yeah okay
04:30so
04:30originally i had my own store where i was responsible for everything and then i changed my business model
04:36um i went more into manufacturing so now i manufacture my own designs and i distribute to different stores
04:43so i invested in all of my machinery and started my own manufacturing um facility it's small and we
04:53also sold for other designers as well which has really pushed the business in another direction which
04:59i love that side of the business more sometimes than actually designing because designing can be
05:04stressful but um really helping other designers who may not be able to go to a big factory and order
05:11thousands of one item and we extend our services as well to other designers in the caribbean
05:17miss bishop thank you so much and once again congratulations on all the success and all the best in
05:23the future endeavors thank you so much and i really did enjoy this interview well thank you
05:29and once again that's it for this episode of street style i am runessa cutting and ladies
05:35please remember it's okay to be loud and proud see you next thursday
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