The Brown Bohemians Are Carving Out Space For Blackness & Intersectionality On A Global Scale
The word "Bohemian" has been used throughout history to describe a person who is socially unconventional and involved with the arts. However, Black people are essentially invisible when it comes to the bohemian lifestyle, even though we are the very definition of art. Being the change they wished to see in the community was imperative to the bohemians behind The Bohemian Brands, co-founders Vanessa Coore Vernon and Morgan Ashley.
As two nomadic spirits who started their career journeys as best friends first, their vision for The Bohemian Brands was birthed from the mutual desire to add much-needed representation to the community. Through The Bohemian Brands, they dared onlookers to see the lifestyle not just in color, but to see it in Black. Besides being rooted in self-care, as a brand, intersectionality is also at top of mind for the two creatives who fused their ventures together to address the fully-realized expression of modern-day bohemian Black and brown humans.
Courtesy of The Brown Bohemians
Vanessa and Morgan Ashley are providing the keys to the kingdom, granting entry to the wonders of the world on a global scale through their thoughtful curation and cultural finds, all while making art and culture that much more accessible.
Vanessa and Morgan Ashley have no doubt created a business relationship built on mutual respect and a harmonious balance, truths that can be felt in every thoughtful detail of their brand. With Vanessa serving as Creative Director and Morgan Ashley as Director of PR and Operations, the co-creators are taking their vision a step further with the execution of their latest project,Brown Bohemians: Honoring the Light and Magic of Our Creative Community, a 200+ page full-color coffee table book. In it, the two curated a beautiful celebration of Black and brown people around the world who share their most honest truths while representing the complexity of creative communities.
Without further adieu, meet Vanessa and Morgan Ashley.
Where did the idea of Brown Bohemian come from?
Vanessa Coore Vernon: Brown Bohemian started as just an online platform originally just to highlight the creative energy and creative spirit of brown and Black people. Since Instagram has been around, it has really allowed us to take control of our own images and our own narrative more than we ever have before because there's no red tape. I think it really enables a lot of brown and Black people, in particular, to lean further into their creative endeavors, creative spirit, [as well as] create adventures. Also, to really honor who it is they are and not feel like they have to wait or be subjected to someone choosing or asking them to be a part of something.
What is the significance of describing Black and brown people as 'Bohemian'?
Vanessa: I wanted Brown Bohemians to be a place where we can gather the images, gather the people and highlight them to create a broader tribe of people that look like you, think like you, dress like you, and speak like you. When you think of Bohemian, obviously from the 19th-century context, it was artisans from lower-income that found creative ways to do things. We wanted to make sure that brown and Black people took up space when you looked up what a creative person looks like or what Bohemian looks like. I wanted to make sure that our images were there and our stories were there.
"When you think of Bohemian, it was artisans from lower-income that found creative ways to do things. We wanted to make sure that brown and Black people took up space when you looked up what a creative person looks like or what Bohemian looks like. I wanted to make sure that our images were there and our stories were there."
Courtesy of The Bohemian Brands
What was the transition from going to the social platform into the business side for Brown Bohemian?
Vanessa: The transition came when I realized that we don't own Instagram. We don't own any of these social platforms and all of this gathering that we've been doing will at some point wash away, and we had no control. I was like, how amazing would it be to have a book sell with these images, these people, and these stories? Especially when the majority of the books that I have in this same realm are white people through and through. There might be maybe one brown or racially ambiguous person, but for the most part, they don't necessarily look like us. That kind of initiated the process of wanting to turn Brown Bohemians into an actual book, a tangible book. Something you can hold, something you can pass, something you can share, something that lived outside of ourselves.
What is it like to run a business with your friend?
Vanessa: It's really difficult to run a business with anyone much less someone that you are friends with or in a partnership with. A lot of people literally will tell you from the very beginning don't partner with your friends because if something doesn't work out, you not only lose a partnership, you lose the friendship. The strength that has worked for me and Morgan is that we genuinely respect how each other works and we like each other and do our job. So, I don't concern myself with any part of her business and she doesn't concern herself with any part of mine. We don't micromanage each other and we know that each of us are doing our job. That's a big part of our work ethic.
Morgan Ashley: I think if you're going to do it, doing it in the way that Nessa described, is just super important. Because in my mind, there can't be two CEOs that do the exact same thing or two artists to do the exact same thing. I think that's why it's been able to work. I don't ever really see myself wanting to design or do those things. It doesn't excite me. I think that what I do does excite me, and the same for Nessa.
Being Black queer women, how has this influenced your brand and business?
Morgan Ashley: I'm definitely loud about being Black first and queer. Those are things that I advocate for and am extremely proud to be and identify as. Identifying as a woman, a black woman, and a queer Black woman is extremely important to me. I would like to say that I put a ton of attention behind it and always want to put it on the forefront, but it just happens organically because those are things that I'm so proud to be. It just comes across in everything that I do. Blackness and conversations around race and ethnicity are in everything. So whether it is us publishing this book that's for our community or we are going to a restaurant and are the only Black people at a table, it's a conversation that we have to talk about. So, for me, it comes across in everything that I do organically because I'm so proud to be and identify that way.
Vanessa: I wholeheartedly agree. The thing I love the most, and that I know within our brand and within ourselves, is it is something that happens consciously and unconsciously all the time. It shows that we are unapologetic about who we are and who we evolve to be. For me, it was less about labels or how you identify or what you believe and more about are you living in love authentically and living in your highest and best life. That was always the most important thing and I made sure in our brand everything represents the people that are a part of it.
"Identifying as a woman, a black woman, and a queer Black woman is extremely important to me. I would like to say that I put a ton of attention behind it and always want to put it on the forefront, but it just happens organically because those are things that I'm so proud to be. It just comes across in everything that I do. Blackness and conversations around race and ethnicity are in everything."
Why were you the ones to tell this story and did you have any self-doubt?
Vanessa: 1000%, [we had] all the self-doubt because, who are we to think that we can publish a book? Being women; brown and Black women, just in life in general you can find yourself always being pushed down, pushed in a corner; shoved down. I think you question and second-guess yourself more than other people in that same situation. These opportunities don't show up at our door. Essentially, we have to show up for the people that showed up for us. It's more about fighting through nervousness and eagerness and saying we are absolutely worth it, we are absolutely showing up as ourselves, and this project is bigger than that. There were people we reached out to in the community that sent us their images and their stories, and they trusted us. I always looked at it like, no matter what, this isn't about me, this is about them; showing up for these people that trusted us with their story. So, no matter what, I'm going to make sure I see it through.
Morgan Ashley: I joined the project for brand Bohemian only a couple of years ago. I haven't been here since its inception, so I don't have the same feeling regarding self-doubt. What kept coming up for me is fight or flight. At that moment when she asked me for help, I had to do it or she wasn't going to do it at all. I didn't have the time over the years to have the same feeling. I just remember thinking at that moment, 'Holy shit, we have to get this done.'
How did you come to the decision to write a book?
Vanessa: The decision came from knowing that we wanted it to live outside of the social platform and then trying our hand at self-publishing. We were not just telling our story, we wanted the stories of all of these different brown and black people around the world to have their story shared through their work and images. We found we were more of a vessel or a conduit. We have 53 different brown and black people that have a quote in the book or a whole feature. That itself is a rarity and very, very hard to do. But it was our job to just get as many people from different places and different backgrounds as possible telling their story. It was important to make sure that their stories directly came from them, and were highlighted.
We didn't want to send off all of these stories and all of their images to our publisher. For us, the part that made our book special and different is we did everything. It was every single image, the color tuning of it, editing the text, the layout, the concept; every single element was done by us, by the three of us. To look at this book, know that it's black and brown hands and black and brown energy that created it through and through. We have everyone from different places, different backgrounds melted into this book, but still made it feel seamless.
"Being women; brown and Black women, just in life in general you can find yourself always being pushed down, pushed in a corner; shoved down. I think you question and second-guess yourself more than other people in that same situation. These opportunities don't show up at our door. Essentially, we have to show up for the people that showed up for us. It's more about fighting through nervousness and eagerness and saying we are absolutely worth it, we are absolutely showing up as ourselves, and this project is bigger than that."
Courtesy of The Brown Bohemians
How did you create the images in the book?
Vanessa: In our community, we ride for each other, we show up for each other and that's literally how this happened. The people that are featured in the book are people we're inspired by and are our friends. Also, people whose work we aspire to collaborate with one day or that do beautiful stuff in our community. Everyone did this off the strength of the relationship we have or them being familiar with our brand or feel at ease to share their story. The book has a warm familiarity to it that can be rare and hard to find. It doesn't feel like this whole book happened outside of our community but happened within our community.
What is the Brown Bohemians book about in your words?
Morgan Ashley: I think what you'll see and feel is yourself as a person of color in a way that you have never seen yourself before. The coffee table book is really about Black and brown folks, but it's our voices in regards to curating it and then the voices of the people who are featured. I think you'll see yourself in a way that you haven't before and you'll see Bohemian described differently in a way that we haven't been before. People look very different in this book than you would see when you're Googling or looking up the word Bohemian. So that feels really authentic because we are as a brand who our community is, and it felt necessary to do.
Vanessa: These are pieces from this ongoing story, and no matter if it's this book or 50 books in the future; there would never be enough books to house the complexities of us, the creative spirits of us, or our contributions. But, this is just our art and adding something to this big puzzle that is important. We hope that you see yourself reflected back to you in some ways because the most important part of this book is that you feel a part of this community, you know you're a part of this community and you feel welcomed here.
For more of The Brown Bohemians, follow them on Instagram. Purchase the Brown Bohemians coffee table book by clicking here.
Featured image courtesy of The Brown Bohemians
ItGirl 100 Honors Black Women Who Create Culture & Put On For Their Cities
As they say, create the change you want to see in this world, besties. That’s why xoNecole linked up with Hyundai for the inaugural ItGirl 100 List, a celebration of 100 Genzennial women who aren’t afraid to pull up their own seats to the table. Across regions and industries, these women embody the essence of discovering self-value through purpose, honey! They're fierce, they’re ultra-creative, and we know they make their cities proud.
VIEW THE FULL ITGIRL 100 LIST HERE.
Don’t forget to also check out the ItGirl Directory, featuring 50 Black-woman-owned marketing and branding agencies, photographers and videographers, publicists, and more.
THE ITGIRL MEMO
I. An ItGirl puts on for her city and masters her self-worth through purpose.
II. An ItGirl celebrates all the things that make her unique.
III. An ItGirl empowers others to become the best versions of themselves.
IV. An ItGirl leads by example, inspiring others through her actions and integrity.
V. An ItGirl paves the way for authenticity and diversity in all aspects of life.
VI. An ItGirl uses the power of her voice to advocate for positive change in the world.
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These 11 Married Couples Share Their Keys To Long-Term Marital Success
The late actor Audrey Hepburn once said something that I think a lot of married couples who have at least 10 years under their belt will agree with: “If I get married, I want to be very married.” In my mind, this means very committed, very complementary, and very willing to go the distance — otherwise, what’s the point?
Really, what’s the point?
Thing is, with the divorce rate still being higher than it ever should be (for the record, a husband is not a boyfriend, and a wife is not a girlfriend; a marriage is serious business, y’all) and acting married being praised (or at least acknowledged) more than actually being married seems to be — folks who 1) are married and are looking for some hacks that will help with relational longevity or 2) want to be married someday and want insight on how to make their future marriage last are constantly seeking truly beneficial material.
Can you Google articles with random bullet points? Sure. And I’m not discouraging it. Every little bit of wisdom that you can pull, I fully support. However, the reason why I like to do articles like this one from time to time is there is something to be said from hearing real talk from multiple sources on the same topic who have some solid wisdom and knowledge on a particular topic.
Today? 11 married couples who were willing to talk about how they’ve been able to make it to several wedding anniversaries with a smile on their face and no regrets for choosing who they chose. Let’s all sit at their feet for just a moment.
*Middle names are always used in my content that’s like this so that people can speak freely*
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1. Kyle and Adrienne. Married 12 Years.
Kyle: “Some of your readers aren’t going to want to hear this but it’s worked for my marriage: people need to lower their expectations sometimes; I mean, men and women. We go into marriage with stuff that movies told us, social media told us, friends who are always single told us about what we should expect from someone, and then want to fault the person when they’re not what we made up in our head. Everyone should have standards but if you’re expecting your spouse to be some living version of a fairy tale character, you’re going to be disappointed almost every day of your life. Drop those expectations some and watch your relationship be a lot less stressful.”
Adrienne: “Talk to people who respect your man about your marriage. I’ve never believed that you shouldn’t ever go to anyone when you need some support. Even the Bible says that there is safety in wise counsel [Proverbs 11:4]. Too many women talk to women who don’t respect men, in general, let alone their husbands, and so that’s where things go left. Sometimes, you need an ‘outside in’ perspective. But if that woman is always taking shots at men, doesn’t respect marriage, or isn’t someone who holds your man in high regard, don’t ask her for advice. Really, you should ask yourself why you’re friends with her at all.”
Shellie here: I’m big on engaged and married couples having a “village” of sorts for their relationship, too. Check out “Why Every Engaged Couple Needs A 'Marriage Registry'” to get a good idea of what I mean.
2. Levi and Paulette. Married for 15 Years.
Levi: “Some of you have probably heard of the 7-7-7 rule. It’s where couples go on a date every seven days, have a weekend getaway every seven weeks, and go on a romantic trip of some sort every seven months. My wife and I do the 2-2-2 rule instead because sometimes our schedule and budget make ‘7’ difficult. It has gotten easier since Shellie told us about the sex jar. Bottom line, if you’re waiting for time to just open up to be with your spouse, that ain’t gonna happen. Schedule intimacy, including sex. Prioritizing it is better than saying you’re gonna be spontaneous and…never are.”
Paulette: “Initiate sex, dammit. When Shellie told us that men initiate sex most of the time, and then I thought about how often I used to push my husband away whenever he did it — I never really thought about how that made him feel until I put myself in his shoes. We’ve got to stop having all of this understanding for why women cheat when it comes to them not feeling desired or not getting attention when we’re the same way to our husbands. Your marriage isn’t ‘Young and the Restless’, where you’re just supposed to wait for your man to make the move. If you want to feel wanted, do the same thing for him.”
Shellie here: What’s a sex jar, you ask? You can read more about it via “5 Reasons Why Every Married Couple Needs A Sex Jar.”
3. Matthew and Gaia. Married for 17 Years.
Matthew: “Reenact some of your favorite times together. My wife and I do that semi-often. We’ll go back to where we had our first date, or we’ll go back to the hotel where we had some of the best sex before. Bringing back memories of when you felt the best together can give you the motivation to stay together to create some new memories to ‘play out’ later on.”
Gaia: “If you want to ‘mom your husband,’ you need to have kids — or at least get a dog! I didn’t realize how bossy I was until I got married. It’s because I saw my mom be that way with my dad. In my eyes, I thought that’s what love looked like until I watched how my in-laws were. They don’t try to change each other, and they definitely don’t make any demands. They’re very polite. I think a lot of married people are rude to their partner. Don’t be that.”
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4. Joseph and Carletta. Married for 10 Years.
Joseph: “Go to therapy for your childhood. I’m dead serious. No one is going to show you yourself like your wife will, and I realized that a lot of my hang-ups came from unhealed childhood stuff. It’s hard to be an adult in your marriage when you’re still emotionally a kid in a lot of ways. If you’re at the point where you think therapy is needed, go alone and deal with your childhood first. It did miracles for me and mine.”
"No one is going to show you yourself like your wife will, and I realized that a lot of my hang-ups came from unhealed childhood stuff. It’s hard to be an adult in your marriage when you’re still emotionally a kid in a lot of ways."
Carletta: “Meditate together once a day. Even if it’s just for 5-10 minutes, you need to carve out a moment to be mindful, focus on each other, and slow the world down. [Joseph and I] have been doing it for a couple of years now; it’s totally changed the way we communicate. Meditation reminds us to put each other first; that if we’re focused on each other, we can take on…whatever.”
5. Zeke and Rachelle. Married for 12 Years.
Zeke: “An argument is not a fight and a debate is not an argument. Learn that and you’re home-free. That’s all I got.”
Rachelle: “That advice that you just got? That sums up what it’s like to live with my husband. He’s very cut-and-dry, direct, and not wordy. That used to bug the hell out of me until I realized how wordy I was and then accepted that I wouldn’t want ‘two of me’ in the house [LOL]. He’s right. You can have a difference of opinion, and it be a debate. You can not find a middle ground on something and it turns into an argument. Neither of those is a red flag. It just comes with being with someone who is as much of an individual as you are.”
6. Taurus and Madison. Married for 22 Years.
Taurus: “Be prepared for your partner to change — not a couple of times, quite a bit. And when they change, that alters the relationship because now it’s not the person you stood with on your wedding day; it’s someone else. People get divorced so much because they are inflexible; they expect their spouse to never switch up and that’s just not how life is. If you’re rigid, controlling, or don’t know how to adjust, you don’t need to marry anybody. You’re gonna be miserable, and so will they.”
Madison: “Pray before sex. Before my husband and I got married, we had quite a bit of sexual history that caused us to do some comparing, and that led to resentment. In marriage, we had to adjust to how it’s more than just what we’re getting from another person. Married sex comes with so much more spirituality and responsibility. Prayer before sex reminds us to see it from a spiritual lens — and that makes the experience more intense and sacred. It might sound weird at first. Just try it. I don’t think you’ll regret it at all.”
"Married sex comes with so much more spirituality and responsibility. Prayer before sex reminds us to see it from a spiritual lens — and that makes the experience more intense and sacred."
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7. Karl and LaTasha. Married for 9 Years.
Karl: “Check in with your partner twice a day. In the morning before leaving the house and at night before going to sleep. If you work outside of the home, a lot can happen during the course of one day, so you shouldn’t assume that the person you left in the morning is who you are coming home to. I don’t mean sharing each other’s schedules or to-do lists. I mean, asking your spouse, ‘How are you doing? How are you really doing?’. It’s a smart way to take note of their mood and needs so that you are never blindsided.”
LaTasha: “Give each other some privacy. I have never been the kind of woman to go through a man’s phone, and I won’t start. If you think that you have to be a detective in your relationship, why are you in it in the first place? I know that Karl would give me codes and passwords if I wanted them because we’ve talked about it all before. Knowing that he would is enough for me. Marriage is an institution, but damn, it shouldn’t feel like jail.”
8. Thomas and Wynter. Married for 15 Years.
Thomas: “Ask your partner what their sexual needs are. Never assume that they haven’t changed because if we all agree that we are constantly growing and evolving as people, why would sex be exempt? Don’t personalize what they say about it either. All of us have sexual fantasies and interests that we keep to ourselves because we don’t know what our partner will think or ‘cause we think that they will create stories in their head about what made us think that way. I’ve learned that intimacy is feeling okay with sharing the deep stuff. The more comfortable a man, especially, is with doing that, the better the sex will be for everyone because talking about stuff like that is like taking down some walls.”
Wynter: “It’s okay to take one vacation a year with your girls and one by yourself. Just don’t go with people who don’t have the same standards as you, and as far as your solo venture, it doesn’t need to be longer than a long weekend. One thing that they don’t tell you about marriage is how there are times when you will feel like it is monotonous because of the routine of everything. A girls’ trip reminds you to get back to you outside of being someone’s wife or mom, and the trip alone is when you can sit around and do whatever you have to negotiate most of them. And yes, your man should be given the same courtesy.”
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9. Allen and Yvette. Married for 11 Years.
Allen: “STOP. BRINGING. UP. OLD. SH-T. SH-T. Nothing creates walls in a marriage more than you telling someone that you forgave them, and then the minute something else happens, here you go with the rap sheet of wrongs. Forgiving someone means that you are pardoning them, and that’s not what you’re doing if you’re constantly holding stuff over their head. One thing that marriage will show you is how bad of a forgiver you are. Most people suck at it, if we’re gonna be real about it.”
Yvette: “I already know that some women are going to assume that my man must’ve done something to say all of that (LOL). He’s a much better forgiver than I am, believe it or not. The real plot twist is, what gets on his nerves more than anything, is when I bring up stuff that he’s forgiven me for. Allen is the kind of man [who] hates to live in the past. I’ve grown a lot because of that. I think my advice would be to stay focused on solutions and tomorrow instead of problems and yesterday.”
Allen: “Sh- t, that’s bars, babe!”
Shellie here: INDEED.
10. Brennton and Danyelle. Married for 16 Years.
Brennton: “Why anyone who is trash at forgiving would get married is beyond me. It’s delusional to the nth degree to think that you are worthy of forgiveness and others aren’t — or that what you do isn’t ‘as bad,’ and that’s why you deserve forgiveness and others don’t. My wife and I have a lot of time under our belts. I’m here to tell you that there will be something, daily, that you will need to forgive your partner for on some level. If you can’t see yourself being open to that, marriage simply isn’t for you.”
Danyelle: “I don’t know who taught so many of us that being passive-aggressive will get us what we want, but it’s a damn lie. If something is wrong, stop saying ‘nothing’ when your man asks you what’s up because, if you’ve got a man like mine, he’s gonna say ‘Okay’ and go on about his day. Brennton often says that my refusing to speak isn’t his responsibility, it’s mine. That used to piss me off because, deep down, I knew that he was right. Oh, and chill on the grudge-holding too. With guys, that’s not going to get you anywhere either.”
11. Christopher and Yvonne. Married for 26 Years.
Christopher: “Have more loyalty for your spouse than you do your closest friend. Too many people don’t think like that. If you’ve got a friend since college, you’ve been through some things and you’ve learned to forgive and move past it. If you can’t see your wife or husband in this way, why did you get married? You should never have more grace for someone who you didn’t take vows with; that’s ludicrous. Before anyone else, I’m going to prioritize reconciling with my wife. It’s because I value her more than anyone. That’s what marriage is.”
"Before anyone else, I'm going to prioritize reconciling with my wife. It's because I value her more than anyone. That's what marriage is."
Yvonne: “Even if you’re not about ‘traditional gender roles,’ discuss what the expectations are for the home. People don’t divorce over cheating as much as getting sick of beard clippings in the bathroom sink or cars that look like pocketbooks. When you sign up for marriage, you are doing daily life with another person. Articulate your expectations. Listen to theirs. Be flexible until you both can make it work. Do that, and you’ll look up, and it’s been 20 years already.”
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Gems. Pure gems, y’all.
You know, popular consultant Barbara De Angelis once said, “Marriage is not a noun; it’s a verb. It isn’t something you get. It’s something you do. It’s the way you love your partner every day.” And love? Love is a choice.
And so, whether you’re married, engaged, or simply desire marriage in the future, hopefully, these tips will help you to choose how you love your spouse (or future spouse)…better.
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Featured image by Jasper Cole/Getty Images