Coffea Flair Fashion Issue One by coffeaflairfashion

COFFEA Flair

Black Designers

To watch in 2023

Brands you need to know now

Coffea Flair Fashion

Coffea Flair Fasion™

Published by Top Wire Editing & Publishing, LLC

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Disclaimer: The advice provided in this publication is general advice only. It has been prepared without taking into account your objectives, ﬁnancial situation, or needs. Before acting on this advice, you should consider the appropriateness of the advice, having regards to your own objections, ﬁnancial situations, and needs.

If any products are detailed in this publication, you should obtain a Product Disclosure Statement relating to the products from the manufacturer or brand and consider its contents before making any decisions.

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Cyn & Tysh

Fashion Accessories

WHAT IS COFFEA

FLAIR COLLECTIVE?

WHAT IS COFFEA

FLAIR COLLECTIVE?

FASHION - Designers to Watch in 2023

BEAUTY - Brands You Need to Know Right Now!

LIFESTYLE - How Hair Is Just An Extension of Yourself with YoVanna Madhere

BEHIND THE SCENES - Interview with model and artist, Antwon Bryant

CONTENTS

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The Black Woman's Beauty

By Latrice Young Dunique Black woman

You soooo beautiful

Every skin tone shade and hue highlights your excellence

You know, your dignity and intelligence it’s truly unmatched

When I look in your sparkling eyes of presence and awareness, I see a Black girl, Black woman conﬁdent, yet constantly attacked by beings who have yet to discover their own beauty, their own duty to self-love and care

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Models: Shekele Seaton and Audrey Pierre. Photographer: Elijah Mackey

Black Woman's Beauty

Your aura feels soooo good, can’t help but stare when you pass by Your energy’s equivalent to watching rose gardens and dandelion ﬁelds collide–wondrous surprise full of awe and comfort Colored you are in rainbow rhythm and blues

Roots as strong as the strange fruits your ancestors picked and pulled involuntarily Brown-skinned ladies, have you looked at yourselves lately… Not just at the mirror or selﬁe pics you took but have you witnessed the beauty you encompass in your minds bodies and souls

Bronze-gold gems of the earth through pain and hurt, you still grace us with warm smiles and unique styles–hair, apparel, and aesthetic You, Black Goddess, are prophetic in nature a major contributor to all things good Misunderstood, still you rise like the sun and shine time and time again

Through thick and thin your alignment with kindness and happiness Is what makes you beautiful heart of gold made up and natural pose goes deeper than physicalities Your beauty is beyond skin deep It seeps out of your pores into the words that fall from your curvaceous lips

Full of spell-binding wit and silliness

It’s the laughter for days you embrace the world with daily Black woman, your beauty is the epitome Of not just surviving but LIVING–A testimony on breathing quality air

It ain’t fair how great you are Shining Star,

I hope you see what I see, BLACK BEAUTY here, unapologetically

Brand: DMBrand

Design: Don Mayberry

Fashion stylists: Don Mayberry

Collection Piece: DM Brand Goodeth Custom Tee

mydmbrand.com

Designers To Watch In 2023

Black fashion pioneers and African-American designers such as Zelda Wynn Valdes and Stephen Burrows have used their talent to build a name for themselves in a highly competitive Eurocentric and largely white business throughout history. Black innovators continue to have an impact on global fashion and raise awareness about BIPOC prospects in the industry today.

MELISSA MASON

DOURIEAN FLETCHER DELL SCOTT

Coffea Flair Selection

About...

Douriean Fletcher

Douriean Fletcher is an Adornment Fine Artist based in Atlanta, Georgia. Her understanding of adornments stems from her travels to South Africa and other countries, where she learned about the functional aspects of adornments and the stories they communicate, as well as her curiosity about how to convey functional jewelry in a modern society outside of European cultural norms, passion, and skill. As a result, she has been able to counsel, educate, and design adornments for legendary characters in big ﬁlms such as Black Panther, Coming2America, and Black Panther 2: Wakanda Forever.

Dell Scott

Dell Scott, who lives in Delaware, is a fashion designer, entrepreneur, and author who wants to inspire women to embrace their inner brilliance. She is the Founder and CEO of Dell Scott Enterprises, LLC, which owns the Dell Scott Collection and Divacoutoure, an online "tour de fashion" accessory boutique featuring upmarket jewelry and fashionable accessories.

Melissa Mason

Melissa Mason, who resides in Phoenix, AZ, is the brains behind Unorthodox. Unorthodox oﬀers its customers distinctive and bold designs to help them stand out and achieve those double takes we all adore. Because she specialize in limited quantities and one-of-a-kind products, each piece is handcrafted and unique to itself.

SUMMER // 2023 Issue Coffea Flair Selection - 16 -

Color Predictions Summer 2023

Coloro (the global expert on color prediction) estimates that 80% of fashion brand purchase choices are inﬂuenced by product color. Keeping this in mind, it is critical that you have completed the ﬁrst stage of producing a collection with excellence: researching trends.

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style

The new fashion season is here and we have some new brands to share that are making waves in 2023.

HEAD OF STATE: HEAD OF STATE (HOS), founded in 2016 by Taofeek Abijako (at the age of 17), is a contemporary representation of post-colonial youth culture.

SIKA:

SIKA was formed in 2005 by creative director Phyllis Taylor with the belief that fashion has the ability and potential to positively impact society.

DAILY PAPER:

Established in 2012 by three long-time friends, Daily Paper is an Amsterdam-based fashion and lifestyle label.

TMO:

TMO is the first resort wear brand manufactured in Nigeria and sold worldwide.

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An Inside Look of the New Fashion Line

By Ke'Ari Brooks By Diarra English

Creationisoftenusedasatoolto connect not only with those who are near us, but also those who are beyond this world. For Ke’Ari Brooks, founder of By Ke’Ari Brooks, it’s one of the founding principles behind her brand. By Ke’Ari Brooks was born during the height of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 when Brooks, like many of us, had excess time on her hands. With this time, she fell in love withcrocheting,anactivity

she used to do with her late grandmother. What started as a way to work through grief and connect with her Gran slowly but surely became a way for Brooks to not only share her art with the world, but also a piece of her beloved grandmother. Since her inaugural drop in November 2022, the budding designer has caught the eye of many, and even begun to tease possible new designs for the future.Forthe26year-old

entrepreneur and creative, crocheting became a powerful way for her to keep her grandmother in this world, and to further spread a piece of her with everyone who supports her brand. Crocheting wasn’t just a skill her grandmother taught her, it was also a way for the two of them to learn from each other. As Brooks found new stitches and patterns, she would share them with her grandmother, weaving the old with the new. Since art has always been a form of expression for her, it was natural that crocheting would become Brooks' method of choice to help work through her grief for her late grandmother. Through grief, she has been able to create intentional designs that allow her to see the beauty in sharing a piece of her Gran with the world, and knows it’s something she would be deeply proud of. The fun, vibrantly colored purses serve as an homage of sorts to her Gran who she says had a fun personality that people always connected with. Now, people from all over are connecting to that personality that’s been woven into a purse. Intention and lived experience is at the forefront of Brooks work, and especially her bags. From the time she was young, she hated carrying a purse. From the bulkiness of a bag to having to remember where you put it down, to the awkward feeling of carting something around with you all day, purses just weren't in the cards

for Brooks. Now that she’s in the driver’s seat when it comes to designing bags, she’s making the purses that she would have wanted to have: petite and out of the way. Her signature bags come in two styles: a shoulder bag and a crossbody for hands free wearing. Both purses are “small” or “mini” in size and designed to be an everyday wardrobe staple that can be dressed up or down while also being a bold fashion statement. Your ID, credit card, and lip gloss are all you need to put inside these hand-crafted beauties! When asked about the experiences that she taps into when creating, Brooks answered that she often uses her art to educate people on the Black experience, especially the Black woman experience. For the launch of her website, she donated profits from her initial sales to the National Birth Equity Collective, a cause dedicated to reducing the mortality rate for Black mothers and and babies. She believes her identity as a Black woman is not only integral to how she expresses herself through art, but also what she shares with the world. If she can bring awarenesstoanissuethat disproportionately affects Black women, then she’s doing something right with her work. In addition to donating profits to causes, Brooks has also designed art pieces and graphics people can share on their social

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media to further bring awareness to current events, extending her brand’s reach well beyond fashion. For many creatives like Brooks, art is a form of deep self care for her well-being. Upon making the shift from only using art as a form of self care to a form of income, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. Brooks admits for her that this was tough at first. Although she fell into what can become an overwhelming expectation on social media to constantly churn out content, she was able to take a step back and remind herself of her “why.” She believes “when people interact with art it does wonders for them mentally”, “everything relates back to art”, and “art matters.” These three principles helped her realize that it’s not about making content for

social media, it’s about the authenticity behind the art that truly resonates with people and what makes stand out from the rest. Her work is not just a haphazardly designed bag, it’s a purse with intention, it’s a graphic intended to educate the masses, it’s a piece of her heritage to pass on to the next person. In the future, Brooks hopes to expand into home furniture through blankets, rugs, placemats, and more while still keeping up with purses, but for now she’s just enjoying the journey and encourages other creatives to do the same. To stay on top of future releases and all things

By Ke’Ari Brooks, visit her website kearibrooks.com and Instagram @bykearibrooks.

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YOUR HAIR IS AN EXTENSION OF YOU

by Ayanna Williams

Girl meets world, boy meets world, but what about Afro-Latinas meet world? What may be a culture shock to some when they experience the unexpected by other cultures, is sometimes experienced earlier on in life by others within their very own culture.

YoVanna Madhere, who the author of

“The Many Gems in Your Crown: 7 Ways To Shine Brighter, podcast host for “Funny Thing About Trauma is…” and a mental health coach who likes to be called “Coach Yovanna Rocks” shares her perspective on being a confident Afro-latina woman who loves her hair. “It is not uncommon for Black Latinos to not be natural. We’re seeing a lot of Black Latinos be natural now, but from the way I grew up, you relax your hair the first opportunity you get and you stay relaxed,” Madhere said. She explains that as a kid, she would question why she would be forced to straighten her hair when it was not the way it grew out of her head. As she grew up and graduated high school in Miami in June of 1994, she was still concerned with her culture’s beauty standards and wanted to be in control of her own hair.

“By July of 1994, I shaved my hair and it was a controversy because that’s not what Black Latina women do. Our hair is supposed to be our glory, our hair is supposed to be laid, and we’re supposed to be in the salon every week. It never made sense to me because that’s not how my hair grows out of my head. Why do I have to force it to do something it doesn’t naturally do?” Madhere said.

Madhere received her first relaxer at the age of eightyears-old, so she didn’t really get to have a relationship with her natural hair. It didn’t take a tremendous amount of courage for her to cut her hair because she wanted to rebel against the normalized mindset of her culture at that time to see how her hair really grew out of her head. During her childhood, her culture didn’t do braids or weaves, so she’s always had her own hair. Because of that, she started experimenting with her hair which led her to shaving it

and dying it and she would be the only girl in the barbershop. As time passed, she started growing it out and tried the TWA (Tiny Weeny Afro) and blowout styles. She was also a product junkie with every potion and oil and she experimented with different hair colors such as neon orange, magenta, hot pink, lime green, royal blue, etc. YouTube tutorials started getting popular and were really helpful to her throughout the process. As any Black woman, no matter the culture, she just wanted to figure out what was the best way to care for her hair. It wasn’t until 2021, when she decided to relax her hair since the 90s and it was because she wanted to. “I think we focus too much on the aesthetic and we get away from the health of our hair and that is the most important

part because we tend to hide behind our hair and neglect our hair and our own health,” Mahere said. “Some people will say they don’t go swimming because of their hair and they don’t work out because of their hair and that doesn’t serve us culturally and overall as a people. I would really like to see us love our whole self and take care of our whole self.” Madhere also mentioned that she gets alopecia areata even when she was natural with no chemicals. It is caused by her stress triggers and the first time she realized she had hair loss was when she was so stressed out from taking an undergraduate

statistics class. The first patch was half a dollar size and the second patch was a dime size. It was tricky for her because she had a pixie cut at the time and the hair loss was visible. Although she was experiencing hair loss it didn’t bother her because she would just go home and shave her head again.

Hair loss provided her a tremendous amount of freedom because she knew in the worst case scenario she would just shave her head and she knows that every woman is not comfortable with taking that leap, for whatever the reasons are. She does keep her health in the back of her mind and takes the steps she needs to rest, eat well, and hydrate to prevent those stress triggers because it is genetic and her father experiences hair loss as well.

“Our hair is just an extension of ourselves no matter what you do with it and we should all just wear what works best for us as individual people. If your hair is wearing you, that’s never going to work,” Madhere said.

Celebrating Black Contributors in fashion.

WWW.COFFEAFLAIR.COM

Behind the Scenes with model, and choreographer Antwon Bryant

By Andrea Kelley

Andrea: So, you are not just a dancer, musician, or Fashion Model, but you are also a choreographer as well. When was the moment you discovered something was unique about yourself?

Antwon: I can say around the age of 13 or 14. At that age, I used to dance a lot with a bunch of dance groups, and we did a bunch of block parties. We would dance together and do a bunch of shows but never took it seriously until I was about 14. I then joined an African dance group at that time, and it showed me that I could take dancing to different states and countries. I discovered that I could train and teach people different styles of dance as well instead of being in the background. I had gotten so good, that people began to think that I was out dancing the other dancers and it kind of gave me this spotlight.

AK: Did you take that experience as an opportunity to shine and excel in your gift even more?

AB: Yes! Once I turned 19, I started to take on opportunities on my own and travel through the states. It exposed me to other dance styles outside of Hip Hop such as

Afrobeats and Dancehall. Once I incorporated more styles, I was able to land more jobs. I learned how to mix all these different styles into my dancing which helped me to get more attention and recognition from people. That’s how I got to start my own brand!

AK: What’s the best thing about living and being from Brooklyn?

AB: It molds you! It teaches you how to grind and be a little more tough. It teaches you how to not be soft in this industry because people will see you

excel or see your potential and try to stop your growth. Brooklyn taught me how to be a team player and the importance of sharing the spotlight with others. I couldn’t give up! I was taught to always keep striving.

AK: All of these gifts and talents are clearly forms of expression. Which one do you feel most alive?

AB: Dancing. Dancing really gives me a chance to express myself and draw a picture without speaking or doing too much. I can catch a beat, I can turn my body a certain way, I can react differently to certain things and it would make others react differently as well. Dancing really gives me a creative outlet.

AK: Was it hard picking a career straight out of high school or college? Did you experience any confusion along the way?

AB: Yes, it was hard. I’m still going through the motions. At the beginning, coming straight out of high school, I had to give it a break because I couldn’t afford studio time, outfits, or camera equipment. At first, I had to build a foundation and I took about two years off to find work, get myself together, and figure out my living situation. Once I got that taken care of, I went straight into dancing. I wouldn’t say it was easy because I truly had to rebrand myself. The pause may have gave people the assumption that I might have quit or I wasn’t consistent, but I had to show them how consistent I was. A few years down the road, I had the opportunity to quit my job and begin acting. Although I was still dancing and modeling, acting gave me the opportunity to brand myself even more.

FEEL GOOD, BE POWERFUL, STRONG AMAZING AND HEALTHY. FOCUS ON YOU. IGNITE YOUR PASSION AND BE TRUE TO YOURSELF. IGNORE THE REST, BUT NEVER FORGET THOSE WHO WERE FOR YOU ALL ALONG.

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AK: What’s the best part about traveling and meeting new people in your industry?

AB: It’s the part of not knowing what you’re going to get into or who you’re going to meet. You can get booked for an event but won’t know who is in the event or who is in the audience. One time in LA, I ran into an African artist by the name of Enow. I ran into Burna Boy at another event and then at another, I got granted access into the Meta Gala for Naomi Campbell’s after party. You will never know who you will run into or what opportunities you will get. It’s never boring!

AK: You worked with the amazing artist Tiwa Savage who is a very popular artist from Nigeria, tell us how liberating that experience must have been for you?

AB: That’s a funny story. I knew who Tiwa Savage was but for some reason when I got booked for the gig, I was not aware of her presence. When booking, they didn’t tell us who the artist was they just told us that they needed dancers and models. When I went, someone in the crowd told me that another popular artist was going to be there,

and I got excited. As we are shooting the video, the second artist comes out and Tiwa was standing right beside me. I’m not noticing who she was because I’m dancing and vibing. Once I heard her voice, it clicked! I was completely shocked and when I asked her what her name was, she said “Tiwa." We both started laughing and I introduced myself to her and we connected from there. After that, I went so much harder in that video. It was a dope vibe!

AK: You’ve also hosted festivals which includes the Firefly Festival and the Break Away Festival. How was this experience?

AB: Those experiences were very dope. I was on tour at the time which allowed me to travel all across the country and get paying gigs. When I went to those festivals, I was apart of the vendors crew so we were selling food, shirts, clothes, and we were giving out cards. It was a huge crowd and I’m not used to being around that many people but it was still exciting. I enjoyed them a lot!

AK: What is the best part about having the opportunity to explore and chase your dreams?

AB: The best part is making the connections and meeting the new people. It’s like having two worlds collide for a greater purpose. You really get to cherish what you have going on at the time. Being that I’m always open to learn so many new things about food, culture, different styles of dancing, different places, etc., that I can take with me along this journey. Each experience is different.

AK: On one of your Instagram posts your caption reads: “This is really big; this project means a lot to me. It’s confirmation that I’m getting further faster, it’s confirmation that my dream is coming true. It feels like I’m doing this for a purpose and not for a reason, it’s evident I’m destined to be great.”

First, SNAPS!! I can definitely relate and feel you on that but what was going through your mind when you made this declaration?

AB: I can now say that this is not just a coincidence anymore. I’ve experienced so many amazing things back-to-back and now it’s becoming apparent that I am right where I need to be. I keep running into these A-List celebrities, exposed to these huge mansions,

and I’m attending all these modeling events and the models are getting booked for shows in France and Italy. It just makes me realize that I am a part of this industry. This is my lifestyle. I may not have the money yet, but I am living my dream. I have the motivation, the inspiration and the wisdom. Those are my riches!

AK: What would you say prepared you for where you are right now in your career?

AB: Always being open to listen and learn. I don’t feel like I know everything in the world or even in my

craft, I still don’t feel like I know enough so I go out and reach for more knowledge. My wish is usually for wisdom. As I sit back, I literally listen and learn from my peers even if they are kids. Also, I’ve learned to put the knowledge into use which has helped me a lot as well.