Black Girls Taking Over Magazine Covers All June 2019
“I want to be a part of it,” she says, sitting at the hotel. “I want to be in the infrastructure. I want to be the brand, instead of just being the face.”
"I tweet things like, 'Hey, go take care of yourself and check in on your friends,'" she says. "You can tell that to people all you want, but that doesn't mean they're actually going to be able to do it. A lot of people say you should try yoga or you should try [other specific things]. Some of those things just don't work sometimes. For me it's all about putting things in perspective. My brain always goes to the worst possible scenario, so sometimes I don't actually enjoy how big and exciting things are. I did the Tommy Hilfiger show and it was a huge success, but I couldn't enjoy it until weeks after because I was so impossibly stressed about what people thought about it. Sometimes I feel amazing for a long time and then it hits you, and it's like, This is rising. I can't describe it. I feel awful. And then you gotta figure out how to get over it, and then everything's great again. I highly recommend going to a therapist if you can. If that's something that is possible for you."
What struck me most was this: Africa is happening. Until very recently, the word “luxury” was a concept no one associated with the continent – and yet, talking with local creatives in all the countries I visited, I was impressed by a cumulative desire to establish a strong African fashion identity that is transcendent worldwide. Global, not local, is the aspiration – and so, the question is, how do we make that happen?
As [members of] the athletics community, we are pretty self-reliant; we have to be. If you want anything, you have to be able to do it yourself because sometimes where we compete, we’re in the middle of nowhere.