Manda here- So I'm in Boston at the moment and should be back in Miami within a week or so. It's a bit harder for me to to be away for so long at this time, because there's so much to be done in Miami. We have a shipping of Kabas arriving in Miami tomorrow, which means that we have to start working on marketing and sales for those. One would say that we can get going before they get here. True, but we're actually rather limited not having the Kabas here and can only do so much. Anyways, I'm really excited to be back in Miami next week.

While I'm here in Boston, I work mainly on finding new designers that fit our profile. This means African designers who create beautiful garments that are wearable in daily life here in America and incorporate African fabrics. Even with simple, everyday garments, I'm always looking for that "wow" effect. I believe that when you see a garment, you can actually get a sense of who the designer is just by the way it is made, combination of fabrics, quality and more. In other words, a garment should never be just a garment. While there are many young designers in Africa that fit our profile, it's a bit harder to find them because many do not have web sites and have not been discovered. But that's why The K Girls are here right? So we scout those designers and once we find them, we truly bring their work to the the next level by providing them with the best sales, marketing and PR services in the country. Because we are Africans and grew up in Africa, we understand the difficulties they encounter as fashion designers. The dilemma for most African designers ( and designers everywhere I'm sure) is not creating, it is rather financing the production of a clothing line. But that will be the subject of another post!
I'm confident that in the future, we will be able to scout on location, which is exciting because trust me there are some REALLY talented designers in Africa.

I wanted to write something else here but I forgot.. oh well! No wait, so I'm really excited ( I know am I ever not even a tiny bit excited?) because I'm starting fashion school in October. Of course I have always liked fashion and had a strong interest in it, but truly I never even imagined I would go to fashion school until recently. So when did I have my Aha moment? When we started The K Connection, I was very disappointed with the quality of work of some designers we encountered. Moreover, I realized that no matter how hard I try to explain to someone my vision for a specific garment, they will never be able to execute it the way I see it. At that point I pretty much said: OK, what the heck, I'll learn how to do it myself. Besides, it will only make me better at my job, voila!

K, your girl Manda's sleepy here. Later, a plus!


P.S: For all you entrepreneurs out there, watch The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch on NBC. You will save yourself a lot of time and mistakes. I absolutely love Donny and guess what? Soon enough The K Girls will be on his show!