Can I be real for a moment...?
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I WAS going to caption this post "New Work" and subtly mention what it's for by tagging the new account associated with it, but then I realized I don't want to compartmentalize my life out of fear of rubbing whoever sees this the wrong way. So here it goes: I am a fashion stylist but my identity is first found in Christ. My faith is the most important thing in my life. Fun fact about me-- I run 4 instagram accounts. Other than this one, I have my personal one, an account for my college senior capstone, and new to the family is @beinnotof. I am not ashamed to mention my faith on any of these, but for some reason I felt I had to keep it separate on my styling business page. •
Society seems to have a lot of positive things to say about inclusion, acceptance, freedom of choice, etc. but for some reason there's a real aversion to any talk about Christianity. I know that part of this is probably in my head, but in talking to some of my friends they've verified that they share a similar feeling of wanting to not offend anyone and downplaying this part of themselves.
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Regardless of how I may be perceived, I am done living like this. My relationship with God is way more valuable to me than a negative comment or an unfollow.
So, with that having been said, what you see above and what I will be sharing over the next few days are images from my newest project--- "Be In, Not Of" : a community of imperfect young adult believers striving to live Christlike lives. If you're interested in learning more about it/would like to be involved, I'd love for you to check out @beinnotof! ———————————————
Not sure who else this may be for, but if we're not true to ourselves and what we believe in we can bend and break so easily trying to please others. And Life is too short for all that. #aintnobodygottimeforthat 😉
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Models: @iamtaylorclayton, @dakotahrgriffin
Photographer: @photosamyam
Stylist: @stylingxniyah
Makeup Artist: @keliyah.makeup
Agency: @heymantalentagency
Clothes: @grindandglaze, @themanorvintage
At the start of each new year I manifest and write down what I want to accomplish in the following 12 months. This year was no different. One of my big goals has been to diversify my styling work. If you scroll you’ll see where I wrote down that I want my work to be featured in elite places/established brands like @pollymagazine. I also listed that I wanted to work with local influencers (specifically artists). Welp, both of those things happened at once a couple of weeks ago. •
I reached out to @laureneylise in April. If you don’t know Lauren yet, you need to get to know her! She’s an amazing up and coming singer/ songwriter based in Cincinnati (i saw her open for @erykahbadu’s concert— one of my favs 🤩). We sat down for a meeting in June. Nothing happened much after that. She was traveling all over the country for gigs and I was overloaded with another project: a faith community/brand that I was gearing up to launch (@beinnotof). •
Fast forward to August. I had just gotten back from London and shared on my FB a faith, fashion, and feminism magazine I stumbled across in the heathrow airport called @magnifycollective. One of the founders of Polly Magazine saw my post and asked if we could meet up to chat. Shortly after Kami and Deo (wife/husband duo behind the mag) and I talked about our shared faith & @beinnotof. Towards the end of the conversation I asked about their next issue of Polly and if I could be involved. They mentioned Lauren was going to be in this next issue and they’d love for me to style her!! This was perfect. This was divine. •
I was super excited to get to actually work with her and wanted to make sure I looked over all of my notes from our meeting back in June and encapsulate her essence for this feature. The issue comes out in December... so stay tuned. But I just wanted to share:
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1. God’s timing is always perfect. I would’ve loved to get to work with Lauren earlier, but I got to knock out two of my goals in one.
2. Manifestation is real
3. Make sure you reread what you wrote down. Hold yourself accountable to your vision. There’s no point in setting goals if you don’t circle back and check to see if you’ve accomplished them. ✨✨🙌🏾😊💕
#throwback to the 70’s menswear shoot I styled for @tethercincy. Styling around a period in history is difficult because 1. You want to make sure you’re getting it accurate and 2. Sourcing clothing becomes more of a challenge. Vintage stores become your go-to vs. modern boutiques. On top of that menswear is an entirely different animal than styling womenswear in terms of sizing and accessibility. But I’m not one to let a few obstacles stop me! Super proud of this shoot because despite all of the hurdles my team and I had to jump through, the images came out flawless and I love seeing them in this very tangible way. My next shoot for @tethercincy is coming up next weekend! I’ll be styling a womenswear editorial and a menswear lookbook. Stay tuned 🙌🏾💕
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Models: @albertorolando, @is_this_jai, @stephen.cone, @darionyarbrough
Clothing from: @reunionclothiers @themanorvintage @pinkplanetvintage @casablancavintage @pixel19vintageclothing
Photographer: @claudiahershner
Photographers Assistant: @jasminesstudio_
Stylist: @stylingxniyah
Stylists assistants: Renisha Cohen, @itsbrettnotbrent
HMU: @laura_v_ega
Photographed by Samuel Greenhill