Actuality competitors exhibits are a platform for innovators—particularly ones of coloration—to get entry to curated alternatives, onscreen advertising of their manufacturers and substantial financing that may be exhausting to return by in any other case. Gown My Tour, the brand new bingeable design competitors sequence that simply dropped on Hulu, has us stoked as a result of a number of Black opponents compete to create beautiful outfits for its music artist company. Much more dope? EBONY completely speaks with the Black designer who received the sequence.
Spoiler Alert: EBONY reveals the primary Gown My Tour winner beneath.
KDaniels, whose first title is Keiandrea, created profitable outfits for Toni Braxton, JoJo Siwa and Jessie James Decker on the ten-challenge competitors sequence. She was the final designer standing and took house Gown My Tour’s $100,000 prize. She additionally received a spot at Harlem’s Vogue Row’s 2024 HFR Designer Retreat. Fairly spectacular for the 29-year-old wearable artwork creator from Dallas, Texas, who needed to stop the trade.
“I’ve stop a number of occasions. However I really feel like each time I’ve tried or needed to stop, God at all times circles me again round,” she candidly tells EBONY.
“The final time that I stop, in 2017, my uncle randomly came to visit to the home, and I used to be speaking to him about it. He mainly felt like I wanted to maintain going and gave me a few scriptures that day to meditate on. From then on, I used to be like, ‘Okay, I am not gonna stop anymore. I am simply going to maintain going. And what occurs, occurs.’”
Whereas actuality TV can typically paint Black girls in a unfavorable gentle, Daniels knew she had a better energy to reply to. “I went into it with two ideas: I am simply going to be who I’m authentically. Secondly, I knew on the finish of the day that God introduced me there, and I did not wish to embarrass him. I actually needed to regulate my feelings. As for the remaining, I do not like drama and being in mess.”
These guarantees make it simple for viewers to root for Daniels whereas watching the sequence and cheer her to final victory. “I did not even go down there with the concept to win. I simply went down there to do my finest,” she says humbly. “The truth that every little thing paid off is simply wonderful. It is a testomony to what occurs when you’ve religion and once you put your finest foot ahead and do your finest.”
Daniels at all times knew she was destined for the style trade. “I initially thought I might be a stylist,” she shares. A highschool mentor taught her tips on how to sew, permitting her to translate the designs in her head into clothes. “I went to a magnet faculty that had a vogue program…I simply began spending time with my mentor after faculty, studying the fundamentals. I took that and ran with it from there.”
Daniels studied enterprise administration and merchandising in faculty however states, “Nothing prepares you want expertise.” She faucets her model KDaniels Designs because the “Dwelling of the Wow” second. “I love to do considered one of ones. I prefer to push the envelope with my purchasers. That is my ardour.” Describing her type as daring and avant-garde, she provides, “I like quantity, print and coloration—you understand, on the market.”
Whereas she began making fashionable ready-to-wear items, she knew it wasn’t her true voice. “I used to be specializing in the unsuitable market. I used to be imagined to be dressing individuals for pink carpets, music movies and excursions. If I had simply centered on that, I might’ve reached my objective faster. The second that I made a decision in 2020 to only do what I make, that is when every little thing began excelling with out me desirous about it.” Her recommendation for fellow aspiring designers is “to search out your lane and your street.”
With a imaginative and prescient to market her model in restricted editions, Daniels exclaims, “It will be an unique drop. As soon as it is gone, it is gone, after which you need to look ahead to the following one.”
She’ll have the ability to use her Gown My Tour winnings to make {that a} actuality. She additionally is aware of no matter comes subsequent, she’ll at all times have this bragging proper: “KDaniels is the primary [Dress My Tour] winner, and she or he is Black, younger and herself. I didn’t need to battle no one or nothing. I simply needed to be me, and it labored out.”
Watch the whole first season of Gown My Tour, now streaming on Hulu.
