We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kia Renee a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Kia thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?

To be a member of the Black community running a business right now in the US means to have creativity, resilience, innovation and excellence during times of struggle. One of the major challenges associated with being a Black female business owner is that due to the ongoing racial funding gap we are often at a disadvantage when it comes to access to financial resources.

Kia, 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?

I started Glamourina as a blog back in 2013. After I became a mom, I decided that I wanted to change Glamourina from a blog to an Ecommerce site, but I had no idea what I wanted to sell and where I would start. I knew Nekol through family and I also knew that she was a visual artist and painter and had a line of painted shoes at the time.

In 2015 I approached Nekol with an idea to sell her shoes on the website. However after many conversations we decided to do something completely different and design a collection together. It took several months for us to decide on what type of apparel we wanted to design. With my background as a personal trainer I could definitely see that Black women were not represented in the health and wellness market in the same capacity as White women.

Nekol and I wanted to change the narrative that Black women don’t workout, or do yoga, or meditate. or that Black women are not interested in their health and wellness. After weeks of brainstorming ideas we decided to create culturally inspired activewear. We wanted our activewear to stand out and be different so we added African inspired prints, such as the Ankara print, as a way to represent where Black women come from.

Through years of hard work we have created a line that is size inclusive (our sizes range from small to 3xl), affordable and functional.

Each collection is unique in its own way and with the release of each line we gain a new audience of women in search of Black owned activewear. Since our first launch in 2017 Glamourina has been featured in several news outlets, podcasts and publications such as Sheen Magazine, Essence, Madame Noir, Shape.com, Good Day DC and Baltimore Lifestyle TV. Our collection is currently sold on shop Essence which is an online marketplace that features Black female entrepreneurs.

We are super excited to announce that in September of this year we will be a headlining designer in New York Fashion Week. We are most proud to have built a business from the ground up to the success that we have today.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

The most important thing we did to build the Glamourina brand was to really learn our audience through market research and real life interactions. This has really helped us to hone in on our niche and authentically cater to and grow our audience.

The best advice we can give is to be consistent, continue to educate yourself and remain determined. If you create good consistent habits, keep yourself open to learning new ways of doing things and have the mindset that quitting is not an option, your brand will reach heights that you’ve never imagined.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

We recognized that Black women were highly underrepresented in the activewear market. We rarely saw women that looked like us in fitness ads. With that in mind we intentionally push size inclusivity and we purposefully showcase a variety of skin tones to represent the many beautiful shades of brown found in the Black community.

Glamourina was designed to represent a safe and cultural space in wellness. We provide comfortable, affordable and functional activewear to meet women wherever they are in their fitness journey. We have had an astounding amount of support recently and this support has come in many forms such as word of mouth, sharing and reposting our photos on social media, an increased number of customers shopping on our site and through donations. We are so thankful for every person out there who has continued to support Glamourina everyday.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.Glamourina.com
• Instagram: @shopglamourina
• Facebook: Facebook.com/shopglamourina
• Twitter: @shopglamourina
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn8KS-2c9QdUZnuiLLE8HeA

Image Credits
Jenner Pacquette IG: @imagerybybreezy www.imagerybybreezy.com