Today we’d like to introduce you to Kamika Marie.
Hi Kamika, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Well, I started my entrepreneur journey back about ten years ago. I had moved to Miami in 2010. I had just graduated college in NYC. I had a Masters’s Degree in PR and got hired to work fashion week in Miami, so me and my mom packed up my car and drove down to Miami from NC. I worked the fashion week gig, and then I just ended up staying. Moving here was a bit difficult. Socially, living in Miami was awesome. However, it was so difficult to get a job. My resume was great: In NY, I had worked at VIBE Magazine, Island Def Jam had projects working at the UN, and so on, but for some reason, I couldn’t land a job for anything, so I ended up working as a hostess at an Italian Restaurant/Lounge in Brickell. The money at first wasn’t the best. Our checks from them used to bounce all the time. I’d be at work literally crying because they couldn’t pay us. But I kind of just stuck it through. I moved from hostessing to waitressing, to bartending, to bar manager. Well, pretty much everyone else quit, and I stayed, so I had to do multiple jobs.
In 2011, we had like four deaths in the family altogether, my uncle in March, my grandmother and dad in April, and then my other uncle a few months after that. So I was out of work a bit from having to go home to NC to be with family. For about a year, it was a struggle. I would literally go out to clubs with promoters because before the club started, they would have dinner for the girls coming to the party, so at least I know I’d eat that night. One of my friends who was a promoter that I would go out with, she was from Brasil. She constantly told me that I need to open a boutique or do styling because many of the other girls used to ask her, “where did Mika get her clothes, etc.” Finally, after sending out what seemed like thousands of job applications a day, I felt like, well, maybe I should try and start my own boutique because I can’t seem to land anything else. Looking back at it, not being hired was a blessing because it forced me to dive into the fashion world more. (I had did some fashion PR when I was going to school in NY.) So for months, I stayed in and just worked on starting my own brand.
Finally, in September, I launched my first fashion brand called Belle Muse. At the time, I only had a website up and began an IG page for it. Someone reached out to me and said my brand looks great and that if I wanted, I could pay them $25 and they would post a photo on their page advertising my brand. They had like 1 million followers. I remember that was about all the money I had left. I sent them the $25 and called my mom pretty much, saying that I’m going to have to pack up and move home because I had like no money left at all. Within about 10 minutes of the person posting, the first order came in. It was someone in Hawaii who ordered a white fringe bikini. I got so excited! Called my mom up and was like, “Ma! I got an order!” It was only for like $70, so even though I was excited, I still thought I was going to be heading back home because I didn’t have anything for next month’s rent or anything. Soon as I hung up the phone with my mom, my next order came in and it was like $800. Then I called my mom back and said, “Mom, I think I’m going to be okay.”
After a few years of the boutique, I knew I wanted my own Fashion Lifestyle brand/magazine. I thought to start something that focused on women, encouraged women, lifted up women, and featured all things femmes. So then I started Fashion des Femmes, a safe place that women can be celebrated, featured, and supported. Big brands and even influencers kept reaching to be featured, so the brand developed itself into a Digital Magazine that has been followed by so many influential women Sofia Vergara, Jacqueline Fernandez, Juliana Paes, and more. I also like to include a lot of travel inspiration. I started traveling intensely back in 2013 and it completed gave me a new outlook on how the world not only sees women, but values women and how a woman is one of God’s most precious gifts. I want my brands to be a safe, fashionable place where women can be loved, celebrated, and supported.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Smooth road? That’s cute 🙂 I don’t like to call them struggles, but some things to overcome is the ever-increasing need to please everyone, even in business. Staying true to my brand is important to me. I turn away brands/people who seek to collaborate with me if it goes against my brand’s statue. I don’t care about the money. It’s more important that I’m representing myself and what I stand for 100% and not watering it down.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Fashion des Femmes?
Fashion des Femmes, Inc.’s mission is to celebrate, fantasize, connect, and inspire about all things Femmes. I create an aesthetics that is not only appealing to the eye, but it puts a visual to a dream that many girls have, whether it be travel, style, a lifestyle. FDF is a mood that makes your dream and life you desire, appear possible. We feature brands/people who want to be in front of that audience so that they can grow their brand themselves. Think of it like a Vogue Magazine but digital and makes advertising available to the small and the large alike.
I’ve had a multimillion-dollar brand advertise with me, but I’ve also had the up-and-coming influencer who only has 10,000 followers. We feature people/brands through posting, through story features and highlights, through featuring numerous events, or featuring collaborations, for instance, in the travel spectrum. These are just a few of the paid opportunities. I also had began an FDF app, which is still in the works to make it the ultimate app for femmes, including a digital mall that shops can be included in.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Growing up, funny enough, I always wanted a 9-5 job when I grew up. My dad had his own business, which, even though he’s passed, we still have open today. And I always equated owning your own business to not having vacation time or so much time with the family. My dad always pushed my sisters and me to go in business for ourselves as we grew up, but I was like, No! I wanted a regular 9-5 so that I know I’ll have time off. Lol pretty naive, right. But I also was a pretty laidback child. I was social but withdrew a lot which I still do to this day. I used to want to be a computer engineer actually. I was like a popular nerd. I’d say: president of the robotics team and science club, and countless others. But I always valued a sense of fashion and style and desire for something other than the norm of staying in a small town. That’s also why soon as I graduated from high school, I moved to NY at 17 years old. I always felt like it was more out there and a desire to explore it.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: fashiondesfemmes
