Business
Shami Oshun is a fashion designer based in California, who is taking the internet by storm. It all started back in September, when she created an 11-nude shade line of face masks to match the variety of shades of Black women. The masks became so popular that her customers asked her to match them to their Fenty foundations, where they made a chart as a guide.
The masks took off from there, all the way to the point of being invited to collaborate with the brand itself to, in the flex of the century, design a limited edition, early-access mask for the brand.
How it started. How it’s going https://t.co/0b2D5rIq0E— Shami Oshun (@Shami Oshun)1616000819.0
As a quick background, Oshun built her brand in 2015 "to provide unique and timeless designs to the world." Since then, her work has received recognition from a variety of media outlets, including Essence, British Vogue, Huffington Post, and Buzzfeed. According to her website, she is most known for integrating 3-D printing with fashion to push the boundaries of wearable art, and the 3-D printed Bev Bag, which is designed to carry your beverage (boba, coffee, wine glass, etc).
And since, well...
Shami Oshun/Twitter
Since, Oshun has released a line of nude masks, which were eventually partnered with various Fenty's Pro Filt'r longwear foundations, and that sold out immediately. This caused the Rihanna-backed empire to take notice and invite her along, which they announced in a tweet:
"We saw @ShamiOshun break the internet with #PROFILTR inspired masks & asked her to create one just for our EARLY ACCESS Beauties! Sign up for SMS & EMAIL alerts at fentybeauty.com/signup to get your limited edition SHAMI x FENTY BEAUTY masks while supplies last!"
Needless to say, her page went up (cause it's stuck) with all beauty lovers alike, running to her page to celebrate her for the classic shit that Black women continue to do.
Some celebrate the Blackness of the moment:
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Some explained their ‘why’:
Most took notice on the all-too-familiar:
Like, literally most of everyone:
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But ultimately, everyone was like:
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Oshun has been overwhelmed with the love shown to her since the announcement and is busy at work getting the people their new masks. She may have a newfound wave to ride, but she still took the time to thank everyone in a simple tweet:
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Now, that’s how you clear a brand! Congratulations, on your success Shami!
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Featured image by Shami Oshun/Twitter
To know Zerina Akers is to know that she puts on for the culture. Since she made the fashion world her playground years ago while interning at W Magazine and studying under Stella McCartney, Akers has always known that she wanted to learn everything the industry had to offer. It was in 2014 that she finally felt like she was in a place to show the world what she had to offer. The moment was marked by the spark of her creative partnership with Beyonce Giselle Knowles-Carter as a stylist and costume designer. That very moment allowed Akers to break ground on an abundance of life-changing looks in the "Formation" video to the countless ensembles in Black is King.
The Maryland native recently personified Cardi's lyric, "If it's up, then it's stuck," when she transformed her finsta account into an e-commerce promised land for Black folks. Black Owned Everything is the new home to 14,000 registered Black-owned businesses with the mission to elevate the visibility of Black-owned brands. Akers acknowledges that Black businesses have fought exclusion, systematic oppression, and active disenfranchisement for decades. Because of that, BOE's goal is to change the narrative and to invite you to support Black-owned businesses, celebrate Black creators, and participate in an inclusive, unified community.
On this IG account, with over 200,000 followers, you'll find a bio that reads, "For When The Trend Is Over" and we have never loved a six-word social media biography more. In an interview with HIGHSNOBIETY, she elaborates on why she felt it was important to make this point. Akers says:
"BOE is a medium for creating meaningful and long-lasting participation for Black-owned businesses. We are building a community, growing socioeconomic status, showing pride in our product and what we produce. Taking ownership of our creativity so other brands don't take or sell our stories."
You can expect BOE to always be intentional about spotlighting our brands and our stories because we deserve. We deserve the immersive storytelling content, designer collaborations, capsule collections, and curations that Akers is set to make available on Black Owned Everything. This is what we mean when we say, "Black people deserve luxury."
By opening the world's eyes to the beauty we create as a people, we deny cultural appropriators the means of shoplifting our customs and heritage. Essentially, this creative genius wants to use BOE to teach the industry "to give proper recognition to Black creatives. All of the brands on BOE are innovative and bring a unique perspective to the marketplace." Not only can you shop gifted designers like Fe Noel and CISE but you can also add beauty items from SKINBUTTR, home goods from The Fond Home and hair products from Girl+Hair, to your cart; and that's not even scratching the surface of this gold mine.
Basically, you can outfit your whole life from Akers' luxury domain. And while this space us for Black people by Black people, it's for everyone because this experience needs support from everyone.
We are so thankful to this queen for providing a unique lens for us to see ourselves as true pioneers. For more information on Black Owned Everything, click here.
Join our xoTribe, an exclusive community dedicated to YOU and your stories and all things xoNecole. Be a part of a growing community of women from all over the world who come together to uplift, inspire, and inform each other on all things related to the glow up.
Featured image by Shutterstock
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, is scheduled to buy Jay Z's streaming platform, Tidal. In a $297M deal, Dorsey, who is also the CEO of Square, has acquired a majority stake in the service in a bid to expand his mobile payment company's tools to emerging and established artists, and Tidal will now operate independently within Square.
This means, that with the 3 percent equity awarded to all 16 artist owners for bringing exclusive material to the platform, each cash in on an $8.91M bag.
An $8.91M bag. *Randy Watson stomps*
This bunch includes Beyonce, Rihanna, Alicia Keys, and Nicki Minaj--the only black women who are artist owners in the deal.
Additional components of the deal are, in very Jay Z-esque fashion, Jigga joining Square's board of directors, which will coincide with the recent fund he and Dorsey launched in February to "make bitcoin the internet's currency."
And in a rare move, Carter took to, of course, Twitter, to publicly address the deal:
I said from the beginning that TIDAL was about more than just streaming music, and six years later, it has remained… https://t.co/EBDI2cu7nM— Mr. Carter (@Mr. Carter)1614863201.0
This partnership will be a game-changer for many. I look forward to all this new chapter has to offer!— Mr. Carter (@Mr. Carter)1614863201.0
And true to society, people hopped on the world wide web to react:
Some broke it down for the public:
Others were excited Jay was tweeting:
But mostly, we all thought, “he’s a business...man!”
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Neither of our girls have publicly addressed the sale, but we're sure they have something up their sleeve to celebrate this investment. Rihanna is coming off of a March 1 Savage launch, Nicki is dealing with personal issues while balancing being a new mom, and Beyonce has us all waiting by the mailbox for our Ivy Park boxes.
But personally, of the streaming wars, I've always rocked with Tidal (because it belong(ed) to the black guy), so I'm excited to see the direction it goes from here!
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Feature image by Giphy
