We recently connected with Deborah Gregory and have shared our conversation below.

Deborah, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

Words are everything! I can tell from the NAME of a book, song, movie, clothing line, shoe line, jewelry line, perfume line, liquor brand, furniture line, you name it–I can tell from the name if it will be successful. If I hear ka-ching in my head then it’s right. When I was a freelance magazine writer I had the task of creating/writing a book outline to pitch to Hyperion Books in the hopes of getting a book deal. For three weeks, I agonized over the title. I had the concept (high school girls who form a singing group since that was my childhood dream but I can’t sing!) so all I needed to do was flesh out the storyline, concept, characters but most importantly–what was the name of this fictional girl group? I meditated, stared at my pooch Cappuccino in his leopard bed hoping he had the answer, went about my daily errands. I had so many choices: The Ruby Slippers, The Cameo Girls and it finally clicked in my head–or I should say clicking my heels because the answer was right in front of me: I had been wearing leopard clothes since I was a kid, my apartment was all leopard. It had to be something that was a part of me and voila! I heard the click in my head when I thought of the name: THE CHEETAH GIRLS. And then of course with the phenomenal success of the book series which grew into 16 books, then three Disney Channel movies, 88-city concert tours, platinum-selling albums and oodles of merchandise, I created my brand of handcrafted items: CHEETAHRAMA. Rama is an Indian word that means: everything of something.

Deborah, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

THE CHEETAH GIRLS is a 16-book tween series with 10-book movie tie-in books about a group of high school girls who make their dreams come true in the jiggy jungle by forming a singing group and sharing their cheetahlicious songs with the world. It turned into three Disney Channel original movies, three 88-city concert tours, three platinum-selling albums and hundreds of merchandise items. Because I graduated from F.I.T. (Fashion Institute of Technology) fashion is at the core of my being and that was imbued in the Cheetah Girls. My inspiration was to have girls around the world wearing spotted style (leopard, cheetah is all the same to me!) and it was incredible to see it happen. So in creating Cheetahrama (which is basically handcrafted personal cases, jewelry and hair accessories) I imbued not only my spotted style sensibilities but my love for black memorabilia and vintage style. While I did events for years around the country when promoting The Cheetah Girls book series, I now mostly sell my Cheetahrama wares through my etsy shop (cheetahrama.etsy.com) and do pop-up events during the year in New York City which is the hometown of my mantra: GROWL POWER FOREVER!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I grew up in the foster care system in New York City under ACS. There is nothing more challenging than being an orphan, not knowing your roots and navigating the treacherous terrain of foster care. I aged out of the system at 18 and have been on my own ever since. After graduating from F.I.T. I had a stint as a runway model in Europe but I was so troubled I came back to New York to regroup and go back into intensive therapy. She saved my life. I had always made clothes and by this time I had gained 100 pounds and it was extremely difficult finding stylish clothes. I got a business partner from The New York Times business section who invested $100,00 for me to make my clothing line and open a stylish plus-size boutique. I opened TOTO IN NEW YORK (named after my dog) on West Broadway in Soho. Oh, what I didn’t know about partnership! He was supposed to be a silent partner but instead he tried to run my business with his equally non-fashion niece who was an attorney. I walked away from the business and he tried to keep it going but no surprise without me or a knowledgeable fashion designer/buyer/stylist person, it completely failed. This was a devastating experience. But during my days there, Ionia Dunn Lee, the fashion editor of Essence magazine used to come in to borrow my clothes for editorial shoots. Eager to regroup, I contacted her and was assigned to write a fashion story which led to my position as fashion and beauty writer for Ionia Dunn Lee and Mikki Taylor, the beauty editor. What a pivot!

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Being a woman of color I have been committed to diversity and portraying such representation through my work. I wrote for various magazines for 15 years making sure to cover the achievements of various ethnic groups. When I created THE CHEETAH GIRLS I knew they would represent diversity. Interestingly, I made the lead character Galleria Garibaldi, a half-black, half-Italian girl because I thought it was fun. Her father Francobollo Garibaldi was from BOLOGNA (which sounds like bologna and kids could relate to that. lol). Little did I know until I did a DNA test (the biggest breakthrough in modern science) six years ago. And what am I? I discovered that I am half-black and half-Italian!!! Through my two-year search of discovering my family roots, I learned that my paternal grandparents were immigrants from Italy–my paternal grandfather Ciro Rivieccio was from Torre del Greco and my paternal grandmother was from Arienzo, Caserta!I It is heartbreaking that this knowledge was kept from me but such is the life of an orphan. As a result of my diligent search efforts, I found two paternal first cousins Elizabeth and Anthony who knew my father and have filled in some of the blanks for me and provided precious photos! So diversity will always be a part of my creative journey but now I know why. The world isn’t black and white–it’s colorful–so let’s stop pretending it isn’t!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.cheetahrama.com
• Instagram: @mamacheetahs
• Facebook: Deborah Gregory
• Linkedin: Deborah Gregory
• Twitter: @mamacheetahs
• Youtube: Deborah Gregory
• Other: https://cheetahrama.etsy.com

Image Credits

The lead sent additional photos through email.