I've always been interested in masking, layering, dressing up and beautifying yourself and what that meant to black women. I've always wanted to make things that I haven't seen before.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I'm not trying to set the world on fire; I just want to make really beautiful clothes that women want to wear, can afford, and can really see themselves in.
I'm really interested in women, particularly the kind of black woman who has overcome obstacles in her life and transformed.
Fashion for my mother was about asserting and demonstrating you had aesthetics, tastes, sensibility, manners, beauty - qualities that black people were always trying to prove they possessed, because it was often assumed that we didn't.
I definitely intend to create my own work in the future so that we don't have to keep saying, We don't have work for black women.'
If a little black girl in Montgomery, Alabama, or some far-reaching region sees something that I do and aspires to do it one day with the knowledge that she can achieve it, then hey, my work is done.
How do you keep the black female body present, and how do you own value for something that society won't give value to? It's a question I try to answer through my own life.
There are tons of black girls modeling, and each one is special.
I just want to make beautiful, glamorous clothes.
I think that black people making art, women making art, and certainly black women making art is a disruptive endeavor - and it's one that I enjoy extremely.
I'm not interested in making all-black films - I come from a very diverse culture; I want to work with every type of person. I work a lot with women executives because they seem to be a lot more open minded about that and a lot more progressive in that way.